Pangs of Love and Other Writings (Classics of Asian American Literature)

An apprentice sushi chef and a mysterious blue-eyed woman share a bottle of wine inside a climate-controlled otter tank. The Great Wall of China grumbles as workers forego construction to watch an imperial game of baseball. A young woman tries to imagine a future unsullied by her family's history of untimely death. First issued in 1991, Pangs of Love introduced David Wong Louie's bold storytelling. The son of Chinese immigrants, he centered his stories around characters who are in conflict with their place in the world, disconnected from both American society and their own families. The depth of his portrayals renders their experiences of love, envy, loneliness, loss, and duty universal—informed by their heritage yet not confined by it. These twelve short stories and one essay swerve from the absurd to longing for love, understanding, or simply a morsel of food. Pangs of Love and Other Writings makes Louie's debut book available again, along with an additional short story and an extraordinary autobiographical essay, "Eat, Memory," in which he reflects on life without food after throat cancer took away his ability to swallow. Pulitzer Prize–winner Viet Thanh Nguyen contributes a foreword elucidating Louie's role in shaping contemporary Asian American literature, while an afterword by literary scholar King-Kok Cheung retraces the three phases of Louie's career.

An apprentice sushi chef and a mysterious blue-eyed woman share a bottle of wine inside a climate-controlled otter tank. The Great Wall of China grumbles as workers forego construction to watch an imperial game of baseball. A young woman tries to imagine a future unsullied by her family’s history of untimely death.

First issued in 1991, Pangs of Love introduced David Wong Louie’s bold storytelling. The son of Chinese immigrants, he centered his stories around characters who are in conflict with their place in the world, disconnected from both American society and their own families. The depth of his portrayals renders their experiences of love, envy, loneliness, loss, and duty universal—informed by their heritage yet not confined by it. These twelve short stories and one essay swerve from the absurd to longing for love, understanding, or simply a morsel of food.

Pangs of Love and Other Writings makes Louie’s debut book available again, along with an additional short story and an extraordinary autobiographical essay, “Eat, Memory,” in which he reflects on life without food after throat cancer took away his ability to swallow. Pulitzer Prize–winner Viet Thanh Nguyen contributes a foreword elucidating Louie’s role in shaping contemporary Asian American literature, while an afterword by literary scholar King-Kok Cheung retraces the three phases of Louie’s career.

"Pangs of Love, originally published in 1991, was the debut work of David Wong Louie, one of the most influential voices in contemporary Asian American literature. This collection of short stories centers around characters who are in conflict with their place in the world, often feeling disconnected from both American society and their own families. Yet the stories transcend the simplistic narrative of Asian American struggles with alienation in a foreign land, and the depth of the characters highlights how their experiences of love and envy and loneliness and loss and duty are universal, informed by their heritage but not confined by it. This expanded edition includes an additional short story, a haunting autobiographical essay, an afterword by King-Kok Cheung, and a foreword by Pulitzer Prize winner Viet Thanh Nguyen"-- Provided by publisher