literature

A collage of 15 book covers, including The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston (on a burgundy background with a large face), A Gesture Life (black-and-white cover), Tripmaster Monkey by Maxine Hong Kingston (image of a bridge), Comfort Woman (a woman's face), Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan (dragons in a style associate with Asian scroll art), Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee (on a blue background), east goes west (a globe on top of a cubist body, accompanies by Chinese characters), Native Speaker by Chang-Rae Lee (a back-and-white image of an Asian man's face with a childhood photo superimposed), Fifth Chinese Daughter (a fairytale draying on top of a red background), China Men by Maxine Hong Kingston (red text and a dragon), America is in the Heart, No-No Boy (a body, fists covering his face, behind two strands of crossed red barbed wire, Dictee (a black-and-white landscape image), Obasan by Joy Kogawa (an Asian girl with a bowl cut looking through the window), and Dogeaters by Jessica Hagedorn (a romaneqseque sculpture of a woman)

Arts & culture

What counts as ‘Asian American literature,’ anyway?

Long Le-Khac, an assistant professor of ethnic studies at UC Berkeley, just published a 1,900-entry dataset that he hopes will be used to investigate which works are discussed as “Asian American” in scholarly circles — and who that leaves out.

Two images side by side: on the left, two knights fight each other on horseback; on the right, the knight ask a woman for forgiveness after he killed her husband

Arts & culture

Why did medieval readers kiss, smudge and deface their books?

Fiona McFarlane holds an award for The Story Prize and smiles

Arts & culture

English Professor Fiona McFarlane’s ‘Highway Thirteen’ wins The Story Prize

Fiona McFarlane juxtaposed next to the cover of her book Highway 13

Arts & culture

In 12 short stories, ‘Highway Thirteen’ traces the ripple effects of one man’s violence

Two young girls sit closely together in this scene from the HBO series

No. 1 book of the century, ‘My Brilliant Friend’, is subject of UC Berkeley research, courses

Percival Everett speaks at a podium at a UC Berkeley event

‘James’ author Percival Everett discusses his ‘Huckleberry Finn’ retelling at a campus event

The white cover of an artist book with a sepia-toned drawing of an eye next to a row of several vials labeled things like,

Artists’ books shine in new exhibit at the UC Berkeley Library

Sonali Deraniyagala and Ramona Naddaff talk on stage for a UC Berkeley event

Berkeley Talks: ‘Wave’ memoirist on writing about unimaginable loss

a student sits surrounded by tall grass reading a book

UC Berkeley summer reading list for new students

images of three book covers: one that reads

Check out this year’s Library picks of books by LGBTQ+ authors

a person stands next to an image of a book

Berkeley Voices: How the Holocaust ends

UC Berkeley alum Hua Hsu wins 2023 Pulitzer Prize

Library reading list: Great books by Black authors

Berkeley Talks: Adriana Green and Nadia Ellis discuss ‘The Yellow House’

black and white portrait of a person holding up two fingers to frame his eye

Berkeley Talks: Novelist Ilija Trojanow on the utopian prerogative

photo of a person next to a cover of a book called Interior Chinatown

Author Charles Yu: ‘Interior Chinatown’ is about roles and how we play them

All literature