Hao: Stories

Longlisted for the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction

An extraordinary debut collection of short stories by a three-time Pushcart Prize winner following Chinese women in both China and the United States who turn to signs and languages as they cross the alien landscapes of migration and motherhood.

The most common word in Chinese, perhaps, a ubiquitous syllable people utter and hear all the time, which is supposed to mean good. But what is hao in this world, where good books are burned, good people condemned, meanness considered a good trait, violence good conduct? People say hao when their eyes are marred with suspicion and dread. They say hao when they are tattered inside.

By turns reflective and visceral, the stories in Hao examine the ways in which women can be silenced as they grapple with sexism and racism, and how they find their own language to define their experience.

In "Gold Mountain," a young mother hides above a ransacked store during the San Francisco anti-Chinese riot of 1877. In "A Drawer," an illiterate mother invents a language through drawing. And in "Stars," a graduate student loses her ability to speak after a stroke. Together, these twelve stories create an unsettling, hypnotic collection spanning centuries, in which language and children act simultaneously as tethers and casting lines, the reasons and the tools for moving forward after trauma. You'll come away from this beautiful book changed" (Julia Fine, author of The Upstairs House).

Author: Ye Chun
Publisher: Catapult
Published: 09/07/2021
Pages: 208
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.80lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.90w x 1.00d
ISBN13: 9781646220601
ISBN10: 1646220609
BISAC Categories:
- Fiction | Short Stories (single author)
- Fiction | Asian American
- Fiction | Family Life | General

About the Author
Ye Chun (surname: Ye) is a bilingual Chinese American writer and literary translator. She has published two books of poetry, Travel Over Water and Lantern Puzzle, a novel in Chinese,《海上的桃树》(Peach Tree in the Sea), and three volumes of translations. A recipient of an NEA Literature Fellowship, a Sustainable Arts Foundation Award, and three Pushcart Prizes, she teaches at Providence College and lives in Providence, Rhode Island.