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Circle
K Cycles
Reviews
Praise for
Karen Tei Yamashita:
"Yamashita is so tuned into now, she can see tomorrow."
- Booklist on Tropic of Orange, starred review
Author Karen Tei Yamashita named Distinguished Teacher
at UC-Santa Cruz
Karen Tei Yamashita, assistant professor
of literature and creative writing, was named Distinguished
Teacher at the University of Calirfornia-Santa Cruz.
She earned a National Book Award for her first novel,
Through the Arc of the Rainforest. Her next two books,
Brazil Maru and Tropic of Orange (all by Coffee House
Press), are widely adopted for use in college literary
and social studies classrooms. Her latest book, Circle
K Cycles, is an innovative melding of fiction and essay
that explores issues such as labor, nationalism, and
cultural diaspora.
In
the 1970s Yamashita lived for a year and a half in Japan,
studying her family¹s heritage. Later in the decade
she traveled to Brazil and discovered that more than
a million and a half Japanese immigrants and their descendants
live in that country.
After
moving to Los Angeles with her husband, Yamashita returned
to Japan in 1997 and wrote for the online magazine CafeCreole.
Circle K Cycles grew out of these articles.
- The Asian Reporter, 10/2/01
“There's so much information in Circle K Cycles
that it makes it extremely difficult to read it in chronological
order. Filled with enticing images both strange and
eccentric, almost every page is different from the next.
One is tempted to flip through it almost like a comic
book and let the visuals and text all blend in a dizzy
kaleidoscope. Take a closer look (and read) however,
and the reader will unearth the highly volatile personal
story of what it means to be a displaced foreigner in
a foreign society. the characters consist of conflicted
families, blue collar factory workers, convenient (sic)
store clerks, and sex trade employees who share a common
bond—Japanese who have left Brazil and returned
to Japan looking for employment. Much like the book’s
daring experimental style of mixing traditional narrative
with a mishmash of graphics, Karen Tei Yamashita’s
hilarious, offbeat, and ultimately poignant observations
stay with you as viscerally as the enticing images found
with this landmark novel."
- Alex Luu, Yolk Magazine, Nov 2001
Also Available:
Through the Arc
of the Rain Forest
Tropic of Orange
Brazil Maru
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