Bananaheart and Other Stories

In this her first collection of short stories, Marie Hara shares both new and previously published works that explore her characters' complex connections to the past. Spanning nearly 100 years of the experiences of Japanese women in Hawaii, these stories introduce a picture bride, a plantation worker, a domestic servant, a hapa-haole girl growing up in post-war Makiki as well as these women's successful but often troubled middle-class descendants. Hara explores how race, class, sexual politics, and the continuing influence of the colonial past shape the lives and choices of her female protagonists. These stories from the soul of immigrant Hawaii, reach out and find the commonality of all people. "Bananaheart is a heart courageously exposed—the heart of a warm, brave, truthful hapa woman. She invites you into her loneliness, her longing and tenderness and shows you a life that is deeply lived and exquisitely observed." —Joy Kogawa, Obasan and Itsuka