Bøger af Patricia Chao

When Catalina Ortiz Midori walks into a shabby New York dance studio for her first mambo class, she has no idea her life is about to change. A Japanese-Cuban immigrant who has lost touch with her Cuban roots, Catalina is mesmerized by the one-eyed teacher, El Tuerto, a titan of the New York mambo scene, and drawn to the dazzling technique of Wendy Cardoza, a Bronx mambera who is one of its reigning queens. Catalina's apprenticeship with them, and her growing obsession with the world of mambo -- the music, the dancers, the seductive dance itself -- will bring her back to her origins with a passion she didn't know she possessed, and inadvertently draw her into a sinister Miami exile scheme through her disreputable cousin Guillermo.

Monkey King  tells the story of 28-year-old Sally Wang, a Chinese-American woman whose mental breakdown and sojourn in a hospital set her firmly on the path of memory. Her recovery takes place against a rich tapestry of culture and personality that unfolds before our eyes under the Monkey King's ghostly shadow. For Sally has been living with a terrible family secret, one that has shattered her life. How she pulls together her Chinese and American identities into a cohesive self and rejoins the land of the living is recounted with a wry and refreshing honesty.