Polite Lies: On Being a Woman Caught Between Cultures - Paperback

FormatBook

Language English

ISBN-13 / SKU 9780449004289

About this item

by Kyoko Mori (Author)

Twelve penetrating, painful essays explore the author's codes of silence, deference, and expression that govern Japanese and American women's lives and the images of the body that make sex seem foreign to Japanese women and ever-present to Americans.

Front Jacket

In this powerful, exquisitely crafted book, Kyoko Mori delves into her dual heritage with a rare honesty that is both graceful and stirring. From her unhappy childhood in Japan, weighted by a troubled family and a constricting culture, to the American Midwest, where she found herself free to speak as a strong-minded independent woman, though still an outsider, Mori explores the different codes of silence, deference, and expression that govern Japanese and American women's lives: the ties that bind us to family and the lies that keep us apart; the rituals of mourning that give us the courage to accept death; the images of the body that make sex seem foreign to Japanese women and second nature to Americans. In the sensitive hands of this compelling writer, one woman's life becomes the mirror of two profoundly different societies.

Author Biography

Kyoko Mori is the author of three nonfiction books: Yarn: Remembering the Way Home; Polite Lies: On Being a Woman Caught Between Cultures; and The Dream of Water. Mori's essay "Yarn" was selected for The Best American Essays 2004 and Polite Lies was shortlisted for PEN's Martha Albrand Nonfiction Award.

Number of Pages: 272

Dimensions: 0.4 x 8.2 x 5.5 IN

Publication Date: April 06, 1999

Award: Literary Award (1999)

$20.52

Temporarily out of stock.