Yuliana M. Kim-Grant received her MFA in Creative Writing, Fiction from Emerson College. Her novel, A Shred of Hope was published in the spring of 2011 by Aberdeen Bay Publishing. Her non-fiction essay, “Middle Passage,” appears in an anthology entitled Three Ring Circus: How Real Couples Balance Marriage, Work, and Family. Another non-fiction essay, “Nigger—A World Divided” was runner-up for the Creative Non-Fiction contest, judged by Faith Adiele and published by Slab, The Sound and Literary Art Book of Slippery Rock University. Yuliana is currently at work on a second novel. She lives in New York City with her husband and son.
Summer is a special time for me, as far as reading is concerned. There is a slowing down, which affects my decisions about the books I want to read and do read. Summer is also the time I reserve to reread a classic book, usually one I’ve read a hundred times. There’s something reassuring in rereading a book and being swept away, as if all the other previous readings were a distant murmur. Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway is my classic pick for the summer, a decision formed by the narrative questions I am pondering as I work on a new book. Whatever my instinctive pull toward this classic novel, I know with certainty that the first sentence of the book will propel me forward, as if I had never read it before.
Along with the classic book, some of my summer reading is reserved for historical fiction, a genre I’m afraid I only discovered eight years ago. Both of Hilary Mantel’s, Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies are on the nightstand to savor late into the night, another luxury of summer when I don’t have the usual time pressures of everyday life. Stephen Kalman’s Pigeon English is on the pile since it seems in the same vein as Emma Donoghue’s Room and Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, two books I enjoyed for very different reasons.
Unlike the rest of the year when certain nonfiction books are on the nightstand, I reserve fiction for summer. Angelika Schrobsdorff’s You Are Not Like Other Mothers is on the pile since the title captured my curiosity, not to mention my love for books published by Europa Editions. As a professional member of PEN, I am always trying to read works by writers from other nations. Herta Müller had given a number of readings during this year’s festival. Her The Appointment is also on the pile, as it is her most well known novel.
I am saving Richard Ford’s Canada for the last week of summer, as I know this will be a book to delight me, as well as to humble me as a writer.
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Based on what you now know about Yuliana’s lit preferences, do you have any recommendations for her?
Anything Yuliana recommends will also be on my pile.
After reading A SHRED OF HOPE, and glimpsing through her bedside pile, there is a book I might humbly recommend as she ventures onto her next work (which I know nothing of, by the way): Alexandria Quartet, by Lawrence Durrell.
Keep it up, Yuliana, love your work.
Sincerely,
Sang H. Kim,
Esquire
Thank you, Sang for the recommendations and for your gracious praise. I am adding these to my pile.