The Many Daughters of Afong Moy

“Annabel Lee” by Edgar Allan Poe (1849)

This is one of American Romantic writer Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous poems, as well as the last he completed before his death. In his treatment of untimely death and star-crossed love, Poe is widely assumed to have drawn inspiration from the death of his wife, Virginia Clemm; the two married when Clemm was 13, and she died of tuberculosis at age 24.

• “Annabel Lee” on SuperSummary

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford (2009)

Ford’s debut novel received several awards, including the 2010 Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature. Like The Many Daughters of Afong Moy, it employs time skips and parallel narratives to explore themes of trauma and racism, centering on a Chinese American man at two points in his life: during World War II, when his Japanese American friend was forced to relocate to a concentration camp, and as a widower with a young adult son many decades later.

• Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet on SuperSummary

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (2016)

Ghanaian American writer Yaa Gyasi’s debut novel is similar in scope to The Many Daughters of Afong Moy.