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A Novel
by Kangkang Li Kovacs
Inspired by the author's own family history, and spanning the past hundred years of Chinese history, this multi-generational family saga explores how women survive the tsunamis of history.
Nothing to My Name chronicles the intertwined fates of three generations of Chinese women: Ah Xue, Mimosa, and Fei. The Grandmother, Ah Xue, witnesses the rise of the Communist Revolution while earning a meager living combing the hair of the few wealthy ladies in her small fishing village. Mimosa, the Mother, grows up in the shadow of her parents' struggles as the growing tension of the Cultural Revolution threatens to pull their family apart. And Fei Fei, the Daughter, brought up as a "boy" by her activist father, grapples with gender identity in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
Awash in the tides of societal upheaval, Ah Xue, Mimosa, and Fei Fei are all driven by the instinct to survive, weathering hardship that splinters the boundary between the personal and the political. For readers of sweeping upmarket book club fiction like Pachinko and Homegoing, Nothing to My Name is a braided history of suffering and dignity, of loss and reckoning, and of the unexpected joy that sustains family bonds.
"A plainspoken but perceptive family saga." —Kirkus Reviews
"An unflinching portrait of resilience, softened by the special bond between mothers and daughters." —Booklist
"Lyrical, haunting, and profoundly moving, Nothing to My Name is a story of survival, identity, and the fragile hope that passes from mother to daughter." —Jean Kwok, New York Times bestselling author of Searching for Sylvie Lee
"Kangkang Li Kovacs deftly shows us how a culture grows and shape shifts, remains in stasis, and eats its tail. Still, the ink of activism seems only to gather legibly in the wake of change, reminding readers that resistance can appear unremarkable before it kindles revolution. Nothing to My Name lives honestly in its history—foolhardy and loving and yet uncharted. A formidable and astonishing new voice." —T Kira Madden, national bestselling author of Whidbey
This information about Nothing to My Name was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Kangkang Li Kovacs grew up in Nanchang, China and came to the United States for her graduate studies. After earning a PhD in nuclear physics at the University of Virginia and teaching math and physics at UC Santa Barbara, Kangkang decided to pursue her passion for writing. Kangkang received her MFA at the College of Charleston. Her writing has been published in Jellyfish Review and swamp pink literary magazine, among other outlets. Nothing to My Name is her first novel.
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