Showing results by publisher "-emdashery books-" in Cultural & Regional

When Ye Pei dreamed of Venice as a girl, she imagined a magical floating city of canals and gondola rides. And she imagined her mother, successful in her new life and eager to embrace the daughter she had never forgotten. But when Ye Pei arrives in Italy, she learns her mother works on a farm far from the city. Her only connection, a mean-spirited Chinese auntie, puts Ye Pei to work in a small-town café. Rather than giving up and returning to China, a determined Ye Pei takes on a grueling schedule.

This stirring memoir traverses Africa and Australia following the Speer-Jordan family, who fled persecution and poverty in Varniai, Lithuania, to South Africa. The political machinations they witnessed in that time in South Africa changed the women forever in this unusual family.

In letters addressed to their friends, to members of their family - both biological and chosen - and to fellow storytellers, Akwaeke describes the shape of a life lived in overlapping realities. Through heartbreak, chronic pain, intimacy with death, becoming a beast, this is embodiment as a nonhuman: outside the boundaries imposed by expectations and legibility. This book is an account of the gruelling work of realignment and remaking necessary to carve out a future for oneself. The result is a black spirit memoir: a powerful, raw unfolding of identity.

Sarah Lutterodt’s inspirational memoir, Worlds Apart, traces her life from a sheltered post-war childhood in southern England through transformative years teaching university in Ghana to the hustle and bustle of the American business world and her return to Ghana in retirement.

'One of the best Dublin memoirs I've ever read' Donal Fallon Peig McManus was born into the last of Dublin's tenements before moving to one of Ireland's first social housing estates in Cabra. Her father believed that children should earn their keep and learn to face reality as soon as possible. While that reality was poverty, class prejudice and strict Catholicism, at the heart of Peig's earliest memories are music, hoolies and the bonds of family and community. I Will Be Good is the story of a girl who rebelled against societal expectations and dreamed of further education.

From Sicily to the South is a heartfelt and historically grounded family memoir that traces the journey of Giuseppe Murana, a young Sicilian boy who left everything he knew behind in 1904 to begin a new life in America. At just five years old, Giuseppe arrived at the port of New Orleans with his parents aboard the S.S. Liguria—unaware that his journey would one day shape generations to come.

Weeping Becomes a River, narrated by award-winning author and performer Siphokazi Jonas, weaves seemingly discordant worlds, rooted in her experiences of growing up in an Afrikaans dorpie, attending an English boarding school, and going on annual holidays to a village emaXhoseni during the transition years of South Africa’s democracy.

In 1960, Frank Worrell was appointed the first Black captain of the West Indies cricket team. Within three years he was knighted; within five, the West Indies were the champions of the world and would come to dominate cricket with their wicked bowling and electrifying play. Yet two years later, in 1967, Worrell died of leukaemia and cricket lost its 'ideal cricketer'. But Worrell wasn't merely an extraordinarily talented and record-breaking sportsman. By the time he died he was a founder of the University of the West Indies and a Jamaican senator.

Zwei Rentner aus Sachsen-Anhalt verreisen mit ihrem Sohn. Was soll schon schiefgehen...?! «Urlaub mit den Eltern. Wir sitzen 5 (!) Stunden vor Abflug am Flughafen, und Mutter verzweifelt, weil sie die Bordkarten auf DIN A3 ausgedruckt hat und denkt, dass wir deshalb nicht mitfliegen dürfen.» So begann André Herrmann, 36, Comedian aus Berlin, die Dokumentation seiner Reise mit seinen Eltern, die binnen kürzester Zeit viral ging. Unter dem Hashtag #UmdE berichtet er acht Tage lang von den Unwegsamkeiten der gemeinsamen Reise und begeisterte damit schnell eine riesige Followerschaft.

The daughter of a prominent Palestinian father and a sophisticated Lebanese mother, Najla Said grew up in New York City, confused and conflicted about her cultural background and identity. Said knew that her parents identified deeply with their homelands, but growing up in a Manhattan world that was defined largely by class and conformity, she felt unsure about who she was supposed to be, and was often in denial of the differences she sensed between her family and those around her.

ದೇಶ ಕಾಯುವುದು ಅತ್ಯಂತ ಹೆಮ್ಮೆಯ ಮತ್ತು ಜೀವಪಣಕ್ಕಿಟ್ಟು ಹೋರಾಡುವ ಕಾಯಕ.‌ ಇಂದು ಲೇಹ್-ಲಡಾಕ್ ಭಾರತದಲ್ಲೇ ಉಳಿದುಕೊಂಡಿದ್ದರೆ ಅದಕ್ಕೆ ಕಾರಣನಾದ ಲಡಾಕಿ ಯುವಕ ಚೆವಾಂಗ್ ರಿಂಚೆನ್ ನ್ನು ಮರೆಯುವ ಹಾಗಿಲ್ಲ.

At the end of a steep gravel road in one of the remotest corners of Lusikisiki in the old Transkei lies the village of Ithanga. Home to a few hundred villagers, the majority of them unemployed, it is inconceivably poor. In the broader world, most would consider it entirely inconsequential. It is to here that award-winning author Jonny Steinberg travels to explore the lives of a community caught up in a battle to survive the ravages of HIV/AIDS.

Every so often, a story comes along that is so compelling, so inspiring, and so hard to believe that it must be written down and shared with the world. Steeve Simbert’s journey from abject poverty to living the American Dream is one such story. It will educate you, inspire you, and at times entertain you; but make no mistake, it is also a story of abuse, poverty, deception, and pain. This gripping and personal account of Steeve’s arduous journey from the pits of hell to the glorious heights of success begins in Miami, where he and his twin are expelled from their father’s house.

Cinelle Barnes was barely three years old when her family moved into Mansion Royale, a stately ten-bedroom home in the Philippines. Filled with her mother’s opulent social aspirations and the gloriously excessive evidence of her father’s self-made success, it was a girl’s storybook playland. But when a monsoon hits, her father leaves, and her mother’s terrible lover takes the reins, Cinelle’s fantastical childhood turns toward tyranny she could never have imagined.

First published in 1997,

Little X chronicles the multigenerational experience of Tate's family, who broke from the traditional Black church in the 1950s to join the radical Nation of Islam, then struggled to remain intact through disillusionment, shifting loyalties, and forays into Orthodox Islam.

Little X offers a rare glimpse into the everyday experience of the Nation of Islam and into a little-understood part of America's history and heritage.

Martin Luther King Jr. is one of the most inspirational figures in American history. From his march on Washington to his time in a Birmingham jail, King's life and work continue to have a profound effect on our nation. The Everything Martin Luther King Jr. Book explores King's life, times, and influence.

Part memoir and part how-not-to guide, The Wrong End of the Table is everything you wanted to know about Arabs but were afraid to ask, with chapters such as “Tattoos and Other National Security Risks,” “You Can’t Blame Everything on Your Period; Sometimes You’re Going to Be a Crazy Bitch: and Other Advice from Mom,” and even an open letter to Trump. This is the story of every American outsider on a path to find themselves in a country of beautiful diversity.

In April of 2018, Giorgi Rtskhiladze answered the door of his Connecticut home to find two FBI agents bearing a subpoena waiting for him. Their questions: What was his interaction with Donald Trump, the Trump family, and the Trump Organization? What did he know about Michael Cohen's business dealings? Why was he the person who Cohen had a text conversation with about the possibility of damaging tapes of Donald Trump from Russia?

When Huda meets Hadi, the boy she will ultimately marry, she is six years old. Both are the American-born children of Iraqi immigrants, who grew up on opposite ends of California. Hadi considers Huda his childhood sweetheart, the first and only girl he's ever loved, but Huda needs proof that she is more than just the girl Hadi's mother has chosen for her son. She wants what the American girls have - the entertainment culture's almost singular tale of chance meetings, defying the odds, and falling in love.

Saigon, November 1978. Under the cover of darkness, a desperate family leaves home and friends, hoping to escape the harsh regime of Communist Vietnam. Their goal is to reunite with the four oldest children sent ahead to the United States, but first they must evade ruthless communist patrols.