Asian Biography

A powerful memoir by Nury Turkel lays bare China’s repression of the Uyghur people. Turkel is cofounder and board chair of the Uyghur Human Rights Project and a commissioner for the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom.

Helena Rho was six years old when her family left Seoul, Korea, for America and its opportunities. Years later, her Korean-ness behind her, Helena had everything a model minority was supposed to want: she was married to a white American doctor and had a beautiful home, two children, and a career as an assistant professor of pediatrics. For decades she fulfilled the expectations of others. All the while Helena kept silent about the traumas - both professional and personal - that left her anxious yet determined to escape.

"Why had Germany lost WWII? I think Germans focused on something not bringing them direct victory – they didn't fight in constructive ways. Killing Jewish didn't bring them any gain; it only created miseries on others, which was a waste of time, energy and resources on the German side. Deutschs could have used those to fight against enemies. Unless we strictly pursue our profits, we can lose one way or another. Do you know what is the most common trait among all the losers? They waste time – probably, they throw away energy and money, too. While it doesn't mean we should work to ...

Masuo Yasui arrived in America in 1903 with big dreams and empty pockets. He worked on the railroads, in a cannery, and as a houseboy before settling in Oregon to open a store, raise a large family, and become one of the area's most successful orchardists. But his family's life changed forever on December 7, 1941, when they were forced from their homes into vast inland camps. Although shamed and broken, the Yasui family would yet endure to claim their place as Americans.

Like one in six people in India, Sujatha Gidla was born an untouchable. While most untouchables are illiterate, her family was educated by Canadian missionaries in the 1930s, making it possible for Gidla to attend elite schools and move to America at the age of 26. It was only then that she saw how extraordinary - and yet how typical - her family history truly was.

Part memoir, part cultural criticism, part history, Anne Anlin Cheng’s original essays focus on art, politics, and popular culture. Through personal stories woven with a keen eye and an open heart, Cheng summons up the grief, love, anger, and humor in negotiating the realities of being a scholar, an immigrant Asian American woman, a cancer patient, a wife of a white man, and a mother of biracial children . . . all in the midst of the (extra)ordinary stresses of recent years.

Confucius is perhaps the most important philosopher in history. Today his teachings shape the daily lives of more than 1.6 billion people. Throughout East Asia, Confucius' influence can be seen in everything from business practices and family relationships to educational standards and government policies. Even as Western ideas from Christianity to Communism have bombarded the region, Confucius' doctrine has endured as the foundation of East Asian culture.

Zina Abraham was born in an Uzbeki prison in 1933. It was a tumultuous time in Jewish history. Soviet Union annexed the territories of what is now Uzbekistan and the Stalinist regime had led to widespread discrimination against the Jews. Ultimately released from prison and strapped to her mother’s chest, Zina and her mother, traveled by horseback undetected to Afghanistan. But as a woman in Afghanistan, she was still essentially in prison, concealed from the outside world with no access to education or medical care.

From the author of the enduring classic The Solace of Open Spaces, here is a wondrous meditation on how water, light, wind, mountain, bird, and horse have shaped her life and her understanding of a world besieged by a climate crisis. Amid species extinctions and disintegrating ice sheets, this stunning collection of memories, observations, and narratives is acute and lyrical, Whitmanesque in breadth, and as elegant as a Japanese teahouse.

An Wei - a stubborn, hardworking peasant who has lived by his values and stood up for his convictions­ - has succeeded against all odds in the authoritarian environment of China. Despite grinding poverty, hunger, reeducation campaigns, and attacks from jealous peers, An Wei continues to inspire with his daring achievements, such as launching a democratic congress in his own village. His compelling life provides a vivid backdrop for understanding the development of modern China from the unique perspective of an outspoken citizen.

Set in Calcutta, London, the glacier-locked wilds of the Karakoram, and on Everest itself, The Last Englishmen is also the story of a generation. The cast of this exhilarating drama includes Indian and English writers and artists, explorers and Communist spies, Die Hards and Indian nationalists, political rogues and police informers. Key among them is a highborn Bengali poet named Sudhin Datta, a melancholy soul torn, like many of his generation, between hatred of the British Empire and a deep love of European literature, whose life would be upended by the arrival of war on his Calcutta doorstep.

Subtitled "Memoirs of a Navy Seal", Captain Robert A. Gormly tells his amazing story as the leader of the US Navy SEALs, taking us into the night, into the water and into battle on some of the most hair-raising missions ever assigned. Rising through the chain of command within the SEALs from platoon leader to commanding officer, Gormly's journey began with a chance meeting on a Virginia beach.....

This young listeners edition of the worldwide best seller Three Cups of Tea has been specially adapted for younger listeners and updated by Greg Mortenson to bring his remarkable story of humanitarianism up to date for the present.

Alexandra Chan thinks she has life figured out until, in the Year of the Ram, the death of her father—her last parent—brings her to her knees, an event seemingly foretold in Chinese mythology. A left-brained archaeologist and successful tiger daughter, Chan finds her logical approach to life utterly fails her in the face of this profound grief. Unable to find a way forward, she must either burn to ash or forge herself anew.

A swamp warrior who served five tours in Vietnam tells it like it was in Death in the Jungle.

How did Michelle Kwan become an award-winning figure skater? Listeners will learn all about this great Asian American athlete and the significant events in her life in this low-leveled biography.

In 1932, Hazel Ying Lee, a nineteen-year-old American daughter of Chinese immigrants, sat in on a friend's flight lesson. It changed her life. In less than a year, a girl with a wicked sense of humor, a newfound love of flying, and a tough can-do attitude earned her pilot's license and headed for China to help against invading Japanese forces. In time, Hazel would become the first Asian American to fly with the Women Airforce Service Pilots. As thrilling as it may have been, it wasn't easy.

In 1871, five young girls were sent by the Japanese government to the United States. Their mission: learn Western ways and return to help nurture a new generation of enlightened men to lead Japan. Raised in traditional samurai households during the turmoil of civil war, three of these unusual ambassadors - Sutematsu Yamakawa, Shige Nagai, and Ume Tsuda - grew up as typical American schoolgirls. Upon their arrival in San Francisco, they became celebrities.

Uniquely adopting a third-person omniscient point of view, Nightingale eschews the "I" of memoir in favor of multiple perspectives and a larger historical vision that afford equal time and weight to ally and enemy alike. Examples of the many perspectives based on real-life characters include: Hu, a VC "informant" whose false information led the Rangers straight into the jaws of a ferocious ambush; General Tanh, the COSVN commander; Major Nguyen Hiep, the 52d Ranger Commander; and Ranger POWs later returned by the North.

Mazie Hirono is one of the most fiercely outspoken Democrats in Congress, but her journey to the U.S. Senate was far from likely. Raised on a rice farm in rural Japan, she was seven years old when her mother, Laura, left her abusive husband and sailed with her two elder children to Hawaii, crossing the Pacific in steerage in search of a better life. Though the girl then known as "Keiko" did not speak or read English when she entered first grade, she would go on to serve as a state representative and as Hawaii's lieutenant governor before winning election to Congress in 2006.