Set in a nameless colonial country, in an unspecified era, Katie Kitamura's second novel tracks the fortunes of a landowning family during the first waves of civil unrest.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I wanted to write a story about colonization and about Hawaii. I went to college right at the height of identity politics, and that's how I always read 'The Tempest,' for example.
A novel is about people.
'Kiss Land' is the story after 'Trilogy'; it's pretty much the second chapter of my life. The narrative takes place after my first flight; it's very foreign, very Asian-inspired. When people ask me, 'Why Japan?' I simply tell them it's the furthest I've ever been from home. It really is a different planet.
She told fortunes for a living. It's a wacky book and was great fun to write. It is very much a look at what life was like for women in Australia in the 1960's.
She is the first head of government in history to give a whole country its second childhood.
Perhaps that is why the novel flourished in England. You had these communities that would stay put and people would see one another all the time and cause one another to change and have the opportunity to observe the changes over time.
I always seem to get inspiration and renewed vitality by contact with this great novel land of yours which sticks up out of the Atlantic.
Caribbean literature only has to be true to itself. It doesn't need colonialism or imperialism. It's always been vibrant.
The concentration in my book on Marie Antoinette's childhood and on her family influences. It is surprising how some books actually start with her arrival in France!
Fiction is a very powerful tool for teaching history. The Philippines was the first Iraq, the first Vietnam, the first Afghanistan, in the sense that it was the United States' initial or baptismal experience in nation-building.