Transparency

From a prize-winning young literary talent: moving stories about negotiating the divide between eastern and western cultures, the conflict between the morals of older generations and the desires of the young and the secrets we keep in plain sight.

With a deceptively simple yet graceful style, Frances Hwang captures the thousand minor battles waged in the homes of immigrants - struggles to preserve time-honoured traditions or break free of them, to maintain authority or challenge it and to take advantage of modern excesses without diluting one's ethnic identity.
In 'Garden City', a weary Chinese couple struggling to evict their deadbeat tenant, is forced to face the aftermath of their teenaged son's death from cancer. In 'Transparency', Henry Liu - sure that he is dying - is given a second lease on life. And in 'The Old Gentleman', a daughter discovers a dark secret from her father's past.