A Hollywood icon and Asian superstar shares the inspiring story of her groundbreaking career.When Nancy Kwan burst onto the scene in the early 1960s, Asian characters in film were portrayed by white actors in makeup playing “yellowface,” and those minor roles were the stuff of cliché: shopkeepers, maids, prostitutes, servants. When—against all odds—Nancy landed the lead role in the much-anticipated 1960 film The World of Suzie Wong, she became an internati...

A Hollywood icon and Asian superstar shares the inspiring story of her groundbreaking career.When Nancy Kwan burst onto the scene in the early 1960s, Asian characters in film were portrayed by white actors in makeup playing “yellowface,” and those minor roles were the stuff of cliché: shopkeepers, maids, prostitutes, servants. When—against all odds—Nancy landed the lead role in the much-anticipated 1960 film The World of Suzie Wong, she became an internati...

In 1930's China, the all-male Peking opera was luxurious entertainment for the privileged class—but only children from the poorest families were sent to opera schools to train as actors. Abandoned by his mother—a prostitute who can no longer care for him—Xiao Douzi is brought to an opera school. With seeds of bitterness in his soul, the nine-year-old boy endures hardships and misery to learn and perfect his craft. Farewell to My Concubine focuses on the all-consuming love Xiao Dou...

A collection of classic love poetryComposed by many of the world’s best known and most celebrated poets—including William Blake, Emily Dickinson, John Donne, Robert Frost, James Joyce, Christina Rossetti, William Butler Yeats, and others—Valentines spans not only the ages, but the full range of passionate expression of love in all its forms and stages.

They are icons of the literary world whose soaring works have been discussed and analyzed in countless classrooms, homes, and pubs. Yet for most readers, the living, breathing human beings behind the classics have remained unknown—until now. In this utterly captivating book, Dr. Elliot Engel, a leading authority on the lives of great authors, illuminates the fascinating and flawed members of literature’s elite. In lieu of stuffy biographical sketches, Engel provides fascinating anecdotes.

This haunting memoir tells the brutal story of the Vietnam War from the perspective of an innocent victim whose childhood was dominated by violence, devastation, and conflicts between the teachings of her culture and the realities of war. Le Ly Hayslip— the youngest in a close-knit Buddhist family— was 12 years old when U.S. helicopters landed in her village. She was raped and "ruined" for marriage by Viet Cong soldiers, imprisoned and tortured by the South Vietnamese, and sentenced to dea...