Overview

"In ""Women of the Silk"", Gail Tsukiyama takes her readers back to rural China in 1926, where a group of women form a sisterhood amidst the reeling machines that reverberate and clamour in a vast silk factory from dawn until dusk. Leading the first strike the village has ever seen, the young women use the strength of their ambition, dreams and friendship to achieve the freedom they could never have hoped for on their own. Tsukiyama's graceful prose weaves the details of ""the silk work"" and Chinese village life into a story of miraculous courage and strength."

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9780312099435

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Reviews

Enlivened with an engrossing richness of detail, Women of the Silk provides a revealing look at the life and customs of China . . . succinct and delicate. <br>-- The New York Times Book Review <br> Evocative . . . warm-hearted. -- Washington Post Book World <br> A soft ring of feminism . . . languorous, almost dreamlike quality. -- Booklist <br> One of the lovliest first novels published this year. -- San Francisco Chronicle <br> A first novel exceptional for its exquisite writing and for its rich portrait of a woman's life in a China now lost. Her story is rendered with exceptional grace, with the clear, shining dignity of legend or song; Tsukiyama lends her voice to figures of women emboldened by their dream of growth and personal power. -- Ingram <br>

Enlivened with an engrossing richness of detail, Women of the Silk provides a revealing look at the life and customs of China . . . succinct and delicate. <br>&#8212; The New York Times Book Review <br> Evocative . . . warm-hearted. &#8212; Washington Post Book World <br> A soft ring of feminism . . . languorous, almost dreamlike quality. &#8212; Booklist <br> One of the lovliest first novels published this year. &#8212; San Francisco Chronicle <br> A first novel exceptional for its exquisite writing and for its rich portrait of a woman's life in a China now lost. Her story is rendered with exceptional grace, with the clear, shining dignity of legend or song; Tsukiyama lends her voice to figures of women emboldened by their dream of growth and personal power. &#8212; Ingram <br>

Enlivened with an engrossing richness of detail, Women of the Silk provides a revealing look at the life and customs of China . . . succinct and delicate. <br>-- The New York Times Book Review <br><br> Evocative . . . warm-hearted. -- Washington Post Book World <br><br> A soft ring of feminism . . . languorous, almost dreamlike quality. -- Booklist <br><br> One of the lovliest first novels published this year. -- San Francisco Chronicle <br><br> A first novel exceptional for its exquisite writing and for its rich portrait of a woman's life in a China now lost. Her story is rendered with exceptional grace, with the clear, shining dignity of legend or song; Tsukiyama lends her voice to figures of women emboldened by their dream of growth and personal power. -- Ingram <br>

Strangely stiff and predictable coming-of-age debut novel about a young Chinese girl's hardships in early-20th-century China. Protagonist Pei is Tsukiyama's rather lifeless exemplar of the difficult lives of Chinese women throughout history. Born into a typically patriarchal peasant family dominated by a cold father who undervalues women's lives, the adolescent Pei is sent off to a silk farm after a fortuneteller predicts she will be a nonmarrying (hence nonproductive) adult. In Yung Kee Village, Pei works alongside other Chinese girls and women similarly victimized. Many have been ousted from families for refusing arranged marriages; others have chosen family exile as a means of self-determination. Under the supervision of the warm, matriarchal Auntie Yee, these women form friendships emblematic of their new independence. Their nurturing community is initially untouched by the war with Japan raging miles away, and Pei is fascinated when some of her friends choose to enter a hairdressing ceremony and swear off marriage forever. But hardships intervene: monsoons, isolation, a strike, the war, and eventually fire and death disrupt the female commune. Pei returns home briefly to become reconciled with her parents, then symbolically sets off at novel's end on a voyage for freedom and independence. Unfortunately, Tsukiyama's narrative limps methodically from incident to incident; the book is more descriptive than dramatic - it feels like an outline, not a novel - and Pei is too passive and unchanging a character to make the life-affirming ending resonate. Readers looking for a stirring story about Asian women's lives would be better off trying Sky Lee's Disappearing Moon Cafe (see above). (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

Gail Tsukiyama, born to a Chinese mother and a Japanese father, now lives and writes in El Cerrito, California. She has won the Academy of American Poets Award and has had her short stories translated into Italian. She teaches at the Crowden School in Berkeley, California.

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