Shalin Hai-Jew

Contributor at The International Examiner

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Articles

From wartime Japan to the present, a Korean American family makes its way in Susan Choi's 'Flashlight'

1 week ago | iexaminer.org | Shalin Hai-Jew

Susan Choi’s Flashlight opens with a mystery. A 10-year-old Louisa is walking with her father at night on a breakwater in Japan. The next thing that anyone knows is that the girl is found barely alive on the beach. The father has apparently washed out to sea. Was there a sudden weather event? An active disappearing? Was a third party involved? Seok / Serk Kang is a beloved child, even as his parents strive to provide as second-class citizens in Japan during wartime (WWII).
Set in a starving future world, 'Land of Milk and Honey' evokes the complex politics of food and class - International Examiner

3 weeks ago | iexaminer.org | Shalin Hai-Jew

“You believe in a country that does not exist as you imagine it, in a code of morality as fanciful as any creation myth.” — from Land of Milk and HoneyThe world is in crisis. From a cornfield in Iowa rises a (chemical?) smog, which blurs out the sun and destroys crops around the world. The dispossessed eat gray and tasteless food just to survive, amidst mass starvation. The wealthy retreat to expensive refuges, from which they plot a comeback and perhaps a way forward in the world.
A promising story of cosmic friendship

3 weeks ago | iexaminer.org | Shalin Hai-Jew

A little star is floating out in deep space lonely for company when a comet happens by. That is the opening premise of Lee Juck’s Comet & Star: A Story of Cosmic Friendship. The star calls out to the comet with an invitation of friendship. In the telling and in Lee Jinhee’s illustrations, the star and the comet are sentient and full of personality. The little star’s world is full of fruit and eyeglasses and books and hats and pencils and envelopes.
For an orphaned girl, a secret walled garden becomes a sanctuary

2 months ago | iexaminer.org | Shalin Hai-Jew

Karuna Riazi’s A Bit of Earth (2023) opens with Maria Latif, newly arrived at an international airport (from Islamabad through Dubai, through Brussels, and to NY in the U.S.). Maria has made herself scarce, hidden under a pile of luggage in the luggage claims area. She is in her “tower of solitude” in the public space, and she does not want to be found. It is 4 a.m. local time, and yet, the airport is bustling.
A Hmong-American boy makes his way in the world in 'The Diamond Explorer'

Feb 8, 2025 | iexaminer.org | Shalin Hai-Jew

“If the road of life were easy…” (Yog txoj kev ua neeg yooj yim) — from The Diamond ExplorerReaders first meet Malcolm Yang, a young Hmong-American boy, on the back of a John Deere mower with his father. The Hmong family are living in a white house on the Minnesota prairie. Malcolm is the youngest of four children, to Lue Txiv (father) and Lia Niam (mother). There are True, Fong, Linda, and Malcolm, the surprise child to a mother in her mid-40s. So begins Kao Kalia Yang’s The Diamond Explorer.