Kim Edwards: The Secrets of a Fire King

This is a fantastic collection of short stories. I actually liked all of the stories, but I was taken most by "Spring, Mountain, Sea". The mixed-culture family life, the struggle of two languages and cultures within one family, is particularly interesting for me as my son, too, grows up in two cultures and with two languages and as I, too, live and continue my traditions in a different country.


A collection of 14 stories that are all vastly different in their time and setting. However, there is one thread through the book: being different. All stories in some way or another deal with being different or the same in one's society – the preacher's daughter who doesn't want to get involved in preaching and protesting, the Japanese wife in America, the gold-digger, the lady who's been living as a foreigner for more than 30 years without assimilating and learning about the local culture, etc…