An ambitious, wide-ranging pastiche of fiction and documentation, this hybrid novel also serves as an idiosyncratic history of the Japanese experience in America before, during and after the war. In what has been described as a "provocative symphony," Karen Tei Yamashita masterfully mixes fact with fiction, layering genres from James Bond movies to haiku to oral history and transfiguring an enormity of archival research into a chorus of stories. With her signature wit and aplomb, she gives voice to laborers, artists, scholars, informants, and activists who, over three generations, defined an immigrant community.

Parallel Stories:
This Fall Parallel Story resonates from the Museum’s extensive and exceptional Asian Art Collection spanning 5,000 years with over 3,600 objects and curated by the incomparable Susan Tai. It is meant as a tribute to Tai, who retires at the end of this year, and invites us to reimagine and reframe some of the histories, traditions and stories contained in the collection.

To do this, we turn to three contemporary authors—M. Lin, Divya Victor, and Karen Tei Yamashita—who write stories that are both deeply felt and impeccably researched, through a hybrid lens of experience, history, and imagination. This series is a collaboration with The Asian American Studies Department of UCSB. Sameer Pandya, Chairman of the Department and author of the award winning The Blind Writer, Members Only, and Our Beautiful Boys, will facilitate the conversations.