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Girl in Translation Synopsis
New York Times bestseller Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok is a powerful story about a Chinese immigrant family in Brooklyn.
Kimberley Chang and her mother move from Hong Kong to New York. A new life awaits them - making a new home in a new country. But all they can afford is a verminous, broken-windowed Brooklyn apartment. The only heating is an unreliable oven. They are deep in debt.
And neither one speaks one word of English.
Yet there is hope. Eleven-year-old Kim goes to school. And though cut off by an alien language and culture and forced by poverty to work nights in a sweatshop - she finds the classroom challenges liberating. In books and learning she'll be saved. But can Kim successfully turn to lost girl from Hong Kong into a happy American woman? And should she?
Jean Kwok's powerful and moving tale of hardship and triumph, of heartbreak and love, speaks of all that gets lost in translation.
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Press Reviews
Jean Kwok Press Reviews
Warm, affecting, a compelling pleasure. Manages that rare fictional feat of shifting forever the angle from which you look at the world - Daily Mail
A sensitively handled rites-of-passage account . . . has the unmistakable ring of authenticity - Metro
Deceptively delicate . . . the stumbling endurance of Kimberley, the bond between mother and daughter, and the clever use of Chinese culture and tradition make for more than a salutary read - Guardian
Incredibly honest and powerful, written with unflinching directness . . . a truly amazing story that'll leave you full of admiration and affection for the characters - Easy Living
Engagingly narrated, irresistible - Independent
Astonishing - Vogue
Author
About Jean Kwok
Jean Kwok is the internationally bestselling author of Girl in Translation, Mambo in Chinatown and Searching for Sylvie Lee, and contributor to Marple: Twelve New Stories. Both The Leftover Woman and Mambo in Chinatown are currently in development for television by Fifth Season. Her work has been published in twenty countries and she has been selected for numerous honours, including the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award shortlist. She is fluent in Chinese, Dutch and English, and currently lives in the Netherlands. Find her on X @JeanKwok.
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