The Translator's Daughter by Grace Loh Prasad

 

The Translator's Daughter by Grace Loh Prasad is a memoir about the Taiwanese roots of the author. The memoir starts when Grace lands on the airport of Taipei for a visit to her elderly parents, to find out that her passport isn't valid anymore, and that she can't leave the airport, has to arrange someone in the San Francisco to get her valid passport out of her apartment and to send it over to the next flight to Taipei. After almost 24 hours of waiting in the airport and in a dorm for passengers without a passport, she is finally able to leave when her passport arrives in Taipei to visit her parent's, who moved back to Taiwan when Grace was in college; when Grace was two years old, the family fled to the United States, after the treat of political persecution under Chiang Kai-shek dictatorship, never knew when they could go back to Taiwan again, and Grace grew up American and forgot her Taiwanese language and culture,  because her father was a translator.

During the memoir, Grace learns more about her Taiwanese roots, while she tells the story and history about her elderly parents, and her mother's suffering from Alzheimer's and the care for her father and the bond with her brother, and other Taiwanese family members. It's a memoir about growing up in between cultures, belonging and home.

It is a beautifully written memoir, it was not the most exciting and page turning one I have read so far, but overall I really liked it. It was very interesting to read about the life of the author and the story of her family's Taiwanese roots and history. The story starts with Grace who is stuck at the Taipei airport, which was very entertaining to read and the author changed the subject in the next chapter in between as a little cliffhanger, so you had to wait a little longer till the next chapter to figure out if she was able to leave the airport. The writing is just excellent, and I loved the storyline and topic the author wrote about in this memoir!