"Immensely entertaining." —Newsday "Poignant and remarkable." —Philadelphia Inquirer "Warm, compassionate, engaging, and thought-provoking." —Washington Post "With a subtle ominousness, Yamashita sets up her hopeful, prideful characters—and, in the process, the entire genre of pioneer lit—for a fall." —Village Voice "A splendid multi-generational novel . . . rich in history and character." —San Francisco Chronicle Particularly insightful." —Library Journal "Informative and timely." —Kirkus "Yamashita's heightened sense of passion and absurdity, and respect for inevitability and personality, infuse this engrossing multigenerational immigrant saga with energy, affection, and humor." —Booklist "This enriching novel introduces Western readers to an unusual cultural experiment, and makes vivid a crucial chapter in Japanese assimilation into the West." —Publishers Weekly The story of an idealistic band of Japanese immigrants, who arrive in Brazil in 1925 to carve a utopia out of the jungle. The dream of creating a new world, the cost of idealism, the symbiotic tie between a people and the land they settle, and the changes demanded by a new generation, all collide in this multigenerational saga. Karen Tei Yamashita is the author of Through the Arc of the Rain Forest, Brazil-Maru, Tropic of Orange, Circle K Cycles, I Hotel, and Anime Wong, all published by Coffee House Press. I Hotel was selected as a finalist for the National Book Award and awarded the California Book Award, the American Book Award, the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association Award, and the Association for Asian American Studies Book Award.

When the United States closed its doors to Japanese immigrants, hundreds of thousands of them made their way to the coffee plantations and the then-open spaces of Brazil. In this engrossing multigenerational novel, award-winning author Karen Tei Yamashita tells the story of one idealistic band of these immigrants, who arrive in 1925 on a ship named the Brazil-Maru and set out to carve a utopia out of the jungle. Led by the charismatic Kantaro Uno, the pioneers create a civilization built around his passions for baseball, painting, chickens, and their own socialist sentiments. They endure struggles in clearing the land, maintaining their identity, adapting to a new world, and fighting the backlash caused by World War II. Inevitably, however, the turbulent course Kantaro has set leads the community called Esperanca in a direction no one could have predicted. Told through the eyes of five characters covering three generations of Esperanca's history, Brazil-Maru explores themes that resonate with the reality of all immigrant history: the dream of creating a new world, the cost of idealism, the symbiotic tie between a people and the land they settle, and the changes demanded by the appearance of a new generation.

"Fluid and poetic as well as terrifying." —New York Times Book Review "Dazzling . . . a seamless mixture of magic realism, satire and futuristic fiction." —San Francisco Chronicle "Impressive . . . a flight of fancy through a dreamlike Brazil." —Village Voice "Surreal and misty, sweeping from one high-voltage scene to another." —LA Weekly "Amuses and frightens at the same time." —Newsday "Incisive and funny, this book yanks our chains and makes us see the absurdity that rules our world." —Booklist (starred review) "Expansive and ambitious . . . incredible and complicated." —Library Journal "This satiric morality play about the destruction of the Amazon rain forest unfolds with a diversity and fecundity equal to its setting. . . . Yamashita seems to have thrown into the pot everything she knows and most that she can imagine—all to good effect." —Publishers Weekly A Japanese man with a ball floating six inches in front of his head, an American CEO with three arms, and a Brazilian peasant who discovers the art of healing by tickling one's earlobe, rise to the heights of wealth and fame, before arriving at disasters—both personal and ecological—that destroy the rain forest and all the birds of Brazil. Karen Tei Yamashita is the author of Through the Arc of the Rain Forest, Brazil-Maru, Tropic of Orange, Circle K Cycles, I Hotel, and Anime Wong, all published by Coffee House Press. I Hotel was selected as a finalist for the National Book Award and awarded the California Book Award, the American Book Award, the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association Award, and the Association for Asian American Studies Book Award.

This landmark collection brings together a range of exciting new comparative work in the burgeoning field of hemispheric studies. Scholars working in the fields of Latin American studies, Asian American studies, American studies, American literature, African Diaspora studies, and comparative literature address the urgent question of how scholars might reframe disciplinary boundaries within the broad area of what is generally called American studies. The essays take as their starting points such questions as: What happens to American literary, political, historical, and cultural studies if we recognize the interdependency of nation-state developments throughout all the Americas? What happens if we recognize the nation as historically evolving and contingent rather than already formed? Finally, what happens if the "fixed" borders of a nation are recognized not only as historically produced political constructs but also as component parts of a deeper, more multilayered series of national and indigenous histories? With essays that examine stamps, cartoons, novels, film, art, music, travel documents, and governmental publications, Hemispheric American Studies seeks to excavate the complex cultural history of texts and discourses across the ever-changing and stratified geopolitical and cultural fields that collectively comprise the American hemisphere. This collection promises to chart new directions in American literary and cultural studies.

Retired Colonel, William D. Chalek recounts his POW experiences at the hands of the Japanese in World War II.

This is a new and frightening insight into Japanese atrocities in the Second World War. The horrific conditions aboard hellships at sea are revealed including the torture, disease and massacre which characterised them.