Jennifer Cody Epstein is the author of the novels The Painter from Shanghai , The Gods of Heavenly Punishment , Wunderland and The Madwomen of Paris.
Jennifer Cody Epstein is the author of the novels The Painter from Shanghai , The Gods of Heavenly Punishment , Wunderland and The Madwomen of Paris.
Epstein resides in New York City with her husband and daughters. She has a Master of Fine Arts degree in Fiction from Columbia University, a Masters in International relations from Johns Hopkins and a bachelor's degree in Asian Studies and English from Amherst College. [1] [ citation needed ]
She has written for Lit Hub , McSweeney's , Bookriot , The Wall Street Journal , The Asian Wall Street Journal , The Nation (Thailand), Self , and Mademoiselle magazines. Epstein has also worked in Tokyo and Kyoto in Japan, where she lived for five years as a student, teacher, and journalist, as well as in Hong Kong and Bangkok. She is a finalist for the 2024 Edgar Award for Best Novel, was long listed for the 2020 Simpson/Joyce carol Oates Literary Prize, and was awarded the 2014 Asia Pacific American Librarians Association Honor Award for fiction. She has taught at Columbia University in the United States, and internationally at Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan.[ citation needed ]
Epstein’s debut novel, The Painter from Shanghai, is the fictionalized biography of Pan Yuliang who lived from 1895 to 1977. She was a female Chinese painter who was revolutionary in bringing Western painting styles to China. It took Epstein ten years to complete the novel, which she has noted “is not a factual account of Pan Yuliang’s life, [it is] a re-imagining.” [2] Epstein did much research, helping her to accurately portray the characters and the period. [3] The novel was an international bestseller, published in 14 countries.
Her second novel, The Gods of Heavenly Punishment, is a fictional work exploring America's 1945 firebombing of Tokyo from both Japanese and American perspectives, but especially from that of young Yoshi Kobayashi. In the book, Yoshi has to struggle with the destruction of her city, life, love and secrets. [4] This novel was a work of fiction that allowed Epstein to return to her fascination with Japan, where she had been first an exchange student, then a journalist. [5]
Her third novel, Wunderland, was inspired by actual events. It is set in Nazi Germany, postwar Germany and 1980's New York City, told through the lens of two close childhood friends torn apart by World War II. It was roughly inspired by Melita Maschmann's 1963 memoir "Account Rendered," in which Maschmann details her girlhood infatuation with National Socialism, and her devastating betrayal of a close friend who was Jewish.
Epstein's fourth novel, The Madwomen of Paris, is set in the Salpêtrière asylum during Paris's turn-of-the-century hysteria "epidemic." Praised as "beautifully crafted" and "a haunting narrative that showcases Epstein at her best" by Publishers Weekly, and "a fascinating look back at a condition with modern-day resonance" by Science Magazine, the book explores the treatment and public presentation of Salpêtrière hysterics, as well as the hypnosis and research performed upon them by the pioneering neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot and the medical luminaries--including Sigmund Freud, Josef Babinski and Georges Gilles de la Tourette--who studied under him.
Liza Crihfield Dalby is an American anthropologist and novelist specializing in Japanese culture. For her graduate studies, Dalby studied and performed fieldwork in Japan of the geisha community of Ponto-chō, which she wrote about in her Ph.D. dissertation, entitled The institution of the geisha in modern Japanese society. Since that time, she has written five books. Her first book, Geisha, was based on her early research. The next book, Kimono: Fashioning Culture is about traditional Japanese clothing and the history of the kimono. This was followed with a fictional account of the Heian era noblewoman Murasaki Shikibu, titled The Tale of Murasaki. In 2007 she wrote a memoir, East Wind Melts the Ice, which was followed two years later by a second work of fiction, Hidden Buddhas.
Gai-Jin is a 1993 novel by James Clavell, chronologically the third book in his Asian Saga, although it was the last to be published. Taking place about 20 years after the events of Tai-Pan, it chronicles the adventures of Malcolm Struan, the son of Culum and Tess Struan, in Japan. The story delves deeply into the political situation in Japan and the hostility Westerners faced there, and is loosely based on the Namamugi Incident and the subsequent Anglo-Satsuma War.
Pitié-Salpêtrière University Hospital is a charitable hospital in the 13th arrondissement of Paris. It is part of the Assistance Publique – Hôpitaux de Paris and a teaching hospital of Sorbonne University.
Pan Yuliang, born as Chen Xiuqing, also known as Zhang Yuliang (張玉良), is remembered as the first woman in China to paint in the Western style. She studied in Shanghai and Paris, and taught at the École des Beaux Arts. In 1985, much of her work was transported to China, and collected by the National Art Museum in Beijing and the Anhui Museum in Hefei. Despite being remembered for introducing Western paintings to China, she also provided a new lens to how women were seen through her paintings, not just as objects but as subjects. She won several awards for her work and exhibited internationally in Europe, the United States, and Japan. Significant paintings, sculptures, and prints by her are still conserved in France in the collection of the Cernuschi museum. Her life as an artist has been portrayed in novels, films, and operas in China and the United States. Her art evolved within the flux of conflicting dichotomies of East and West, tradition and modernity, male chauvinism and emerging feminism. Pan is also remembered as an artist who engaged with labels, such as "contemporary/modern," "Chinese," and "woman" artist, while also questioning them.
Lily Adams Beck, née Elizabeth Louisa Moresby was a British writer of short stories, novels, biographies and esoteric books, under the names of L. Adams Beck, E. Barrington and Louis Moresby, and sometimes other variations: Lily Adams Beck, Elizabeth Louisa Beck, Eliza Louisa Moresby Beck and Lily Moresby Adams.
Ruth Ozeki is an American-Canadian author, filmmaker and Zen Buddhist priest. Her books and films, including the novels My Year of Meats (1998), All Over Creation (2003), A Tale for the Time Being (2013), and The Book of Form and Emptiness (2021) seek to integrate personal narrative and social issues, and deal with themes relating to science, technology, environmental politics, race, religion, war and global popular culture. Her novels have been translated into more than thirty languages. She teaches creative writing at Smith College where she is the Grace Jarcho Ross 1933 Professor of Humanities in the Department of English Language and Literature.
Wena Poon is a lawyer and novelist based in the United States. She writes English-language fiction. Her work has been seen by academics in the UK, US and Singapore as representative of the transnationalism of her generation.
Sushma Joshi is a Nepali writer, filmmaker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. Her fiction and non-fiction deal with Nepal's civil conflict, as well as stories of globalization, migration and diaspora.
Japanese Village was the nickname for a range of houses constructed in 1943 by the U.S. Army in the Dugway Proving Ground in Utah, roughly 100 kilometers (62 mi) southwest of Salt Lake City.
Women Side by Side, also translated as Three Women and Female Fighters, is a 1949 Chinese film directed by Chen Liting, made near the end of the Republican era. It is Chen's most famous directorial work. Denounced as a "poisonous weed" during the Cultural Revolution, the film is now considered a Chinese classic.
Kate Walbert is an American novelist and short story writer who lives in New York City. Her novel, Our Kind, was a finalist for the National Book Award in fiction. Her novel A Short History of Women, a New York Times bestseller, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and named one of the ten best books of 2009 by The New York Times.
The Gods Are Athirst is a 1912 novel by Anatole France. It is set in Paris in 1793–1794, closely tied to specific events of the French Revolution.
Mariko Tamaki is a Canadian artist and writer. She is known for her graphic novels Skim, Emiko Superstar, and This One Summer, and for several prose works of fiction and non-fiction. In 2016 she began writing for both Marvel and DC Comics. She has twice been named a runner-up for the Michael L. Printz Award.
Female artist's novel is a literary subtype of Kunstlerroman which can be defined as a literary procedure which deals with the main female protagonist’s growing to maturity and gaining experience and independence as an artist, namely a writer. Based on the major assumptions of Kunstlerroman, female artist’s novel works as a portrayal of a woman’s artistic struggle as she acquires artistic freedom and masters the artistic craft of being a writer and gaining literary dexterity. The scope of the genre is deeply rooted in the main assumptions of Kunstlerroman, where the growth of the character is displayed from one's youth to adulthood and deals with one's emotional and personal development on the way to artistic fulfillment.
Violet Evergarden is a Japanese light novel series written by Kana Akatsuki and illustrated by Akiko Takase. It was published by Kyoto Animation under their KA Esuma Bunko imprint, from December 2015 to March 2020. The story follows Violet Evergarden, a young ex-soldier whose recent employment at a postal company tasks her with writing letters that can connect people.
Louise Augustine Gleizes, known as Augustine or A, was a French woman who was publicly exhibited as a "hysteria" patient by neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot while she was held at the Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris.
Caitríona Lally is an Irish writer. She has published two novels: Eggshells (2017) and Wunderland (2021). In 2018 she was awarded the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature.
Yu Feng was a Chinese painter, cartoonist, and fashion designer. She and Liang Baibo were China's first female cartoonists. Her husband was the artist Huang Miaozi.
I Feel Love: MDMA and the Quest for Connection in a Fractured World is a 2023 nonfiction book by American author Rachel Nuwer. The book "examines groundbreaking new research that demonstrates that MDMA ... may allow those suffering from PTSD, addiction and anxiety to reconnect to a social world from which their ailments have separated them". Kirkus Reviews called it "an illuminating, myth-free exploration of mental health from a unique perspective". Publishers Weekly said it was "a nuanced, well-researched" book that "will enrich the cultural, legal, and medical conversation around drugs."
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