Girl in Translation - Softcover

Kwok, Jean

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1905490623 ISBN 13: 9781905490622

Publisher: Fig Tree, 2010

Synopsis

Kimberly Chang has her world turned upside-down when she moves with her mother from their home in Hong Kong to New York. But their new life doesn't quite live up to their expectations - living in a vermin-ridden apartment in Brooklyn, the pair only have a sometimes working oven to keep warm. They have nothing but debt and neither of them speaks a word of English.

While her mother spends her days earning two cents a garment at a sweatshop, intellectually gifted eleven-year-old Kim faces a new and trying challenge: school. Exiled by language, estranged in a new culture and weighed down by staggering poverty, Kim must learn to translate not just her language but who she is as she straddles these two very different worlds.

In this powerful story, Jean Kwok spins a moving tale of hardship and triumph, of heartbreak and love, of all that's said without words and all that gets lost in translation.

About this title

Review:

Warm, affecting, a compelling pleasure. Manages that rare fictional feat of shifting forever the angle from which you look at the world (Daily Mail)

A sensitively handled rites-of-passage account . . . has the unmistakable ring of authenticity (Metro)

Amazing, an incredibly honest and powerful story, written with unflinching directness (Easy Living)

Astonishing (Vogue)

Dazzling (Marie Claire)

A classic and moving immigration story (Red)

Captivating (She)

Superbly written and observed (Woman and Home)

From the Back Cover:

When Kimberly Chang and her mother emigrate from Hong Kong to Brooklyn, Kimberly begins a secret double life: exceptional schoolgirl during the day, Chinatown sweatshop worker at night. Disguising the difficult truths of her life -- like the extent of her poverty, the degree to which her family's future rests on her, or her secret love for a factory boy who shares none of her talent or ambition -- Kimberly learns to constantly translate not just her language but herself between the worlds she straddles.

Through Kimberly's story, author Jean Kwok, who also emigrated from Hong Kong as a young girl, brings to the page the lives of countless immigrants who are caught between the pressure to succeed in America, their duty to family, and their personal desires, exposing a world that we rarely hear about.

In an indelible voice, Jean Kwok has written a classic novel of the immigrant experience -- a moving tale of hardship and triumph, heartbreak and love, and all that gets lost in translation.

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About this edition

• Publisher: Fig Tree
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1905490623
• ISBN 13: 9781905490622
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304