Books

A Birthday Cake for Washington has been the subject of much criticism because it portrays slaves as being happy.

Books
Arts

Teaching Kids About Slavery: Picture Books Struggle With The Task

7:06pm January 22, 2016

by Eyder Peralta

Experts say picture books that whitewash the history of slavery are just a symptom of an adult society. How can we explain it to kids, they argue, if we can't talk about it ourselves?

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'I Regret Everything': Toni Morrison Looks Back On Her Personal Life

1:26pm January 22, 2016

"It's not profound regret," Morrison tells Fresh Air. "It's just a wiping up of tiny little messes that you didn't recognize as mess when they were going on." Originally broadcast April 20, 2015.

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Danny Bowien says Sichuanese cuisine is "really about balance and restraint and not having things be over-the-top spicy." Bowien's Chongqing Chicken Wings, featured in The Mission Chinese Cookbook, are pictured above.

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Arts

The Audacious Korean-American Chef Who Mastered 'Mission Chinese Food'

9:45am January 22, 2016

Born in South Korea, raised in Oklahoma, Danny Bowien was an adult when he taught himself to make Chinese food. That DIY vibe to his cooking has made him a rising star. Now he's written a cookbook.

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Arts

A Nightmare Artist Adrift In 'Deep Sea'

7:08pm January 21, 2016

by Genevieve Valentine

Serge Brussolo's hallucinatory 1992 novel The Deep Sea Diver's Syndrome follows a group of lucid dreamers whose slumbers produce a strange ectoplasm that can soothe and even heal people who see it.

Novelist Sunil Yapa has lived all around the globe, including in Chile, China, Greece, Guatemala, Argentina and India. He says his father, who was a consultant for the World Bank, instilled in him a sense of "the world being an interconnected place."

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Arts

When 'Your Heart Is A Muscle,' Empathy Is A Revolutionary Act

3:33pm January 21, 2016

by NPR Staff

Writer Sunil Yapa says his father taught him to have a global perspective from a very young age. Yapa's new novel was inspired by explosive global trade protests that took place in Seattle in 1999.

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Francisco Alarcon, Whose Poetry Explored Chicano Life In The U.S., Dies

7:25pm January 20, 2016

by Adrian Florido

Francisco Alarcon was an important Mexican-American poet who influenced generations of Chicano writers, including the current U.S. poet laureate. Alarcon died of cancer last week.

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A child gold miner in Watsa, northeastern Congo. 2004

Today's Slaves Often Work For Enterprises That Destroy The Environment

3:22pm January 20, 2016

Kevin Bales' book, Blood and Earth, explains why slavery in the world's lawless zones is essential to operate mines that pose a grave threat to the environment.

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In researching their book, Caren Zucker and John Donvan tracked down Donald Gray Triplett (center), the first person officially diagnosed with autism. Now in his 80s, Triplett has had a long, happy life, Donvan says, maybe partly because his hometown embr

'In A Different Key' Traces History And Politics Of Autism

2:13pm January 20, 2016

by NPR Staff

Authors John Donvan and Caren Zucker say parents have been "unsung heroes" in spurring more research on autism, and in getting many more kids out of institutions and into schools.

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'Hidden History' Of Koch Brothers Traces Their Childhood And Political Rise

8:28am January 20, 2016

Jane Mayer, author of Dark Money, says the Kochs didn't grow up in "the usual cozy, all-American family." Their parents were away much of the time, and competition between the brothers was fierce.

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Arts

'Medusa's Web' Tangles The Occult And Old Hollywood

7:00am January 20, 2016

by Jason Heller

Tim Powers — best known for his time-travel classic The Anubis Gates — mixes up the decades again in Medusa's Web, a tale of an eerie estate in Hollywood and a family unmoored in time.