Among the White Moon Faces - (Cross-Cultural Memoir) by Shirley Geok-Lin Lim (Paperback)

Review Quotes

"[Lim's] fascinating autobiography reads like a novel, with interesting stories stitched into the quilt of her life." --Washington Post Book World

"Lim's descriptions are both lyrical and precise whether they are of the heat, bougainvillea and crowds of her home in Malacca or the wintry climate, the packaged food, the self-conscious bohemianism of New England." --Publishers Weekly

"The Malaysian section is stunning: evocative writing bolstered by insights into colonialism, race relations, and the concept of the 'other'. . . . This is an entrancing memoir." --Kirkus Reviews

"[Lim] recounts her journey with a poet's eye for detail and a storyteller's gift for narrative." --Ms. magazine

"Among the White Moon Faces is an extraordinary memoir distinguished by a luminous intellect, painful honesty, lyricism, and humor--the work of a triumphant survivor." --Hisaye Yamamoto, author of Seventeen Syllables and Other Stories

"Shirley Geok-lin Lim has written a work of rare clarity and dynamism about identity, location, and the various educations a brave and serious person can achieve in a many-stranded world. Feisty, intense, and canny, this memoir is richly nuanced in both aesthetic and analytic values, fascinating in its dialogues between an individual and her political and social experiences." --Rachel Blau DuPlessis, professor of English, Temple University, and author of The Pink Guitar: Writing as Feminist Practice

"Lim looks back on her early years of growing up always aware of her 'otherness' in this gripping, courageous memoir. In these days of increasing racial polarity, this is a voice that must be heard." --Mitsuye Yamada, founder and coordinator of MultiCultural Women Writers (MCWW) and author of Camp Notes and Other Poems

"A stunningly evocative narrative of the transculturation of an 'immigrant mother'. . . . Lim bathes the memorial legacies of her personal history in Malaysia and the subtle analysis of her Americanization in poetic language so luminescent that it is often just plain dazzling, and wrenching." --Sidonie Smith, professor of English, comparative literature, and women's studies, SUNY Binghamton University, and author of Subjectivity, Identity, and the Body

"Immigrants came to America bearing many fabulous gifts; among the most precious of these are their stories, which span decades, oceans, and continents, opening our minds and hearts to human possibilities we most otherwise never imagine. Shirley Geok-lin Lim's story is just such a gift, bringing us a rich weave of pain and triumphs she recounts her struggles to come to terms with herself as a homeland-bearing American." --Elaine H. Kim, professor of Asian American studies and chair of ethnic studies, University of California, Berkeley, and coeditor of Making Waves: Writings By and About Asian American Women

"What sets Among the White Moon Faces apart is that Lim writes with such aching precision, revealing and insightfully analyzing her changing roles as woman, immigrant, scholar, and Other." --San Francisco Chronicle Book Review

"[Lim's] fascinating autobiography reads like a novel, with interesting stories stitched into the quilt of her life." --Washington Post Book World

"Lim's descriptions are both lyrical and precise whether they are of the heat, bougainvillea and crowds of her home in Malacca or the wintry climate, the packaged food, the self-conscious bohemianism of New England." --Publishers Weekly

"The Malaysian section is stunning: evocative writing bolstered by insights into colonialism, race relations, and the concept of the 'other'. . . . This is an entrancing memoir." --Kirkus Reviews

"[Lim] recounts her journey with a poet's eye for detail and a storyteller's gift for narrative." --Ms. magazine

"Among the White Moon Faces is an extraordinary memoir distinguished by a luminous intellect, painful honesty, lyricism, and humor--the work of a triumphant survivor." --Hisaye Yamamoto, author of Seventeen Syllables and Other Stories

"Shirley Geok-lin Lim has written a work of rare clarity and dynamism about identity, location, and the various educations a brave and serious person can achieve in a many-stranded world. Feisty, intense, and canny, this memoir is richly nuanced in both aesthetic and analytic values, fascinating in its dialogues between an individual and her political and social experiences." --Rachel Blau DuPlessis, professor of English, Temple University, and author of The Pink Guitar: Writing as Feminist Practice

"Lim looks back on her early years of growing up always aware of her 'otherness' in this gripping, courageous memoir. In these days of increasing racial polarity, this is a voice that must be heard." --Mitsuye Yamada, founder and coordinator of MultiCultural Women Writers (MCWW) and author of Camp Notes and Other Poems

"A stunningly evocative narrative of the transculturation of an 'immigrant mother'. . . . Lim bathes the memorial legacies of her personal history in Malaysia and the subtle analysis of her Americanization in poetic language so luminescent that it is often just plain dazzling, and wrenching." --Sidonie Smith, professor of English, comparative literature, and women's studies, SUNY Binghamton University, and author of Subjectivity, Identity, and the Body

"Immigrants came to America bearing many fabulous gifts; among the most precious of these are their stories, which span decades, oceans, and continents, opening our minds and hearts to human possibilities we most otherwise never imagine. Shirley Geok-lin Lim's story is just such a gift, bringing us a rich weave of pain and triumphs she recounts her struggles to come to terms with herself as a homeland-bearing American." --Elaine H. Kim, professor of Asian American studies and chair of ethnic studies, University of California, Berkeley, and coeditor of Making Waves: Writings By and About Asian American Women

About the Author