Chinese American Fiction

Do you know the stories behind delectable dishes—like the fun connection between scallion pancakes and pizza? Or how dumplings cured a village’s frostbitten ears? Or how wonton soup tells about the creation of the world? Separated into courses like a Chinese menu, these tales—based in real history and folklore—are filled with squabbling dragons, magical fruits, and hungry monks. This book will bring you to far-off times and marvelous places, all while making your mouth water.

Olivia Huang Christenson is excited-slash-terrified to be taking over her grandmother’s matchmaking business. But when she learns that a new dating app has made her Pó Po’s traditional Chinese zodiac approach all about “animal attraction,” her emotions skew more toward furious-slash-outraged. Especially when L.A.’s most-eligible bachelor Bennett O’Brien is behind the app that could destroy her family’s legacy....

Enjoy this Cantonese audiobook and further your mastery of this tonal language. Dim Sum, Please! is a fun and exciting way to have your child (or you) learn the Cantonese language and culture! This book is perfect for parents and grandparents to listen along with their children about one of the pillars of Cantonese culture: dim sum!

It's 1980s New York, and though the coke flows freely, money and glamour are the more powerful intoxicants. While fortunes are being made in SoHo galleries and on Wall Street, an underclass of transient drag queens and dandies, club kids and strippers, artists and actors, models and waitstaff wander the streets, providing the city's background color, cheap labor, and even cheaper entertainment.

Twenty-two-year-old Charlie Wong grew up in New York's Chinatown, the older daughter of a Beijing ballerina and a noodle maker. Though an ABC (America-born Chinese), Charlie's entire world has been limited to this small area. Now grown, she lives in the same tiny apartment with her widower father and her 11-year-old sister, and works - miserably - as a dishwasher. But when she lands a job as a receptionist at a ballroom dance studio, Charlie gains access to a world she hardly knew exis.

When the coronavirus hits Hong Kong, 10-year-old Knox’s mom makes the last-minute decision to move him and his siblings to California, where they think they will be safe from the virus. But life in America isn’t easy. at Knox’s new school, the other kids think that because he is from Asia, he must have brought over the virus. At home, Mom’s freaking out because she just got fired, and Dad doesn’t know when he’ll see them all again, because all flights out of Hong Kong have been cancelled.

Hongmei is the perfect Chinese wife: beautiful, diligent, passive. Glen is the perfect American husband: intelligent, caring, well-off. From the outside, Hongmei and Glen's life in the San Francisco Bay Area seems perfect. But at home, their marriage is falling apart. Post-its left on the fridge are their primary form of communication.

Serene dreams of making couture dresses even more stunning than her mom’s, but for now she’s an intern at her mom’s fashion label. When her mom receives a sudden diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, all that changes. Serene has to take over her mother’s business overnight while trying to figure out what happened with her dad in Beijing. He left before she was born, and Serene wants to find him, even if it means going against her mom’s one request—never look back.

May, one of the new generations of Chinese super-rich kids, has outgrown Beijing and has come to California for an exciting life. She meets two American men: a Jewish American Harvard-educated professor named Leaf, and Mentor, a Silicon Valley self-made billionaire. As her relationships with Leaf and Mentor progress, May's past traumas in patriarchal China are revealed, while her cultural naivete leads to divergent interpretations of trust, personal boundaries, respect, fetishism, and sexual deviancy. May's life descends into a mad triangle of deception.

This narration of Chi Him Chiu's book, Recollections of an Overseas Chinese, by Ian Brinkley, recounts the story of our hero, Huai Ren, and his friends, as they find themselves swept through southeast Asia in the turbulent times surrounding the Chinese Cultural Revolution and World War II. The story quickly moves through adventures spanning Singapore, Johor, Malaya, Kuching, Sarawak, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and finally, the United States.

Chinese Yankee by Ruthanne Lum McCunn tells the true story of Hong Kong born Thomas Sylvanus (Ah Yee Way), an orphan brought to America for schooling in the mid-1850s, but enslaved in Baltimore. Only sixteen at the outbreak of war, Thomas ran north, joined the Freedom Army, and was blinded in the first major campaign. He failed to fully recover his sight and, deemed incapable of performing the duties of a soldier, was discharged.

Laila knows how clever, kind, and funny her Mama and Baba are—but sometimes they need her help translating things from English. With English classes being too expensive, Laila decides to become her parents’ teacher, even though she’s just learning the language too. There’s lots that Laila knows (like you don’t pronounce the t in ballet) but there’s so much she doesn’t know too. Together, they embrace the joy and struggles of learning a new language.

Winnie Louie and Helen Kwong have always shared secrets, but now Helen wants to reveal them. Helen is convinced she is dying and decides to celebrate what might be her last Chinese New Year by telling all the secrets of her life, as well as Winnie Louie's and those of Winnie's daughter Pearl. There are some things, however, that Pearl would rather her mother didn't know. The result of Helen's tell-all mood is a series of comic misunderstandings and heartbreaking realizations about luck, loss, and trust.

Jia’s family is busy preparing for the Chinese New Year feast at their restaurant in Chinatown, and Jia wants to take part. But each time she tries to help she’s told that she’s too young: too young to be in the kitchen, too young to light the lanterns, too young to carry the plates. And then the feast begins, and something wonderful happens. When Jia is scolded for getting too close to the exciting lion dance, one of the dancers swoops her up and into the costume, and suddenly she’s a part of the performance—a crucial part that saves the show.

Obsession is a story about emotional growth and the pains that accompany it. Written in an experimental voice that employs an omniscient second-person perspective, it chronicles the life of a young Chinese woman who comes to the US in order to fall in love in a foreign land. Throughout her bizarre relationship with a Jewish-American scholar, who is both brilliant and selfish, we see how cultural difference leads to different interpretations of trust, personal boundary, respect, or even rape.

Mei is a young Chinese American girl filled with curiosity about her family’s history in Washington, D.C. Delving into their tales of courage, hope, and resilience, Mei explores the strength and spirit that unites her Chinese heritage with her American identity. Then Mei finds herself at a rally against Asian hate and she realizes that it is her time to make a difference. Armed with the inspiring stories of her ancestors and backed by the unconditional support of her family, Mei takes center stage to start an empowering chant, “We are American, too!”