"Heartbreaking...American Son is a gripping book." -- Aleksandar Hemon, New York Times "Roley writes with assurance, grace and insight, and he plays expertly with our perceptions and expectations...And Roley is one young writer with something important to say: he has fused a coming-of-age story with a variant on the American immigrant saga, and the result is both explosive and illuminating." --Jonathan Kirsch, Los Angeles Times Book Review "American Son is brilliantly written. Roley is one of the most adept writers I have read at using spare descriptions for crisp characterization... Roley's The Last Mistress of Jose Rizal is an appearance equally auspicious to American Son: a demonstration of the prowess of this writer in the middle of a strong literary career." -- Vince Gotera Professor of English and Editor Emeritus of The North American Review "Touching, disturbing." -- Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, Book Dragon Notable Book "Hard-hitting and brash, this debut novel takes a cold, clear-eyed look at the American immigrant experience...This is a powerhouse story of vulnerable strangers living in a brutal, alien land told with stylish restraint, bare-knuckled realism and tender yet tough clarity." -- Publisher's Weekly
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About Brian
Brian Ascalon Roley is the award-winning author of American Son: a novel (W.W. Norton; Christian Bourgeois Editeur), which was a Los Angeles Times Best Book, New York Times Notable Book, Kiriyama Pacific Rim Prize Finalist, Salon.com best of the month selection, and winner of the Association for Asian American Studies Prose Book Award of 2003, among other honors. Brian's work has also been featured in the California Council for the Humanities Statewide Reading Campaign of 2004, and has been widely taught nationally and abroad. His fiction, literary essays and poetry have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Mixed: An Anthology of Short Fiction on the Multiracial Experience (W.W. Norton), Charlie Chan is Dead 2: An Anthology of Contemporary Asian American Fiction (Penguin), and several best selling anthologies in the Philippines. His story collection, The Last Mistress of Jose Rizal, appeared in April 2016. Brian has been a fellow at Djerassi, Ragdale, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the University of Cambridge. He is currently an English professor at Miami University of Ohio and spends most of his time with his family in Cincinnati and California. He received the Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award in April 2018 for his current book project. (for long bio click here) |