Annal:2000 Kiriyama Prize for Nonfiction
From AwardAnnals
Results of the Kiriyama Prize in the year 2000. For a ranked list of books, try an honor roll:
Things That Must Not Be Forgotten: A Childhood in Wartime China
- 2000 Kiriyama-Nonfiction winner
- Score: 10.5
To grow up in Beijing in the 1930s was to become engulfed in the colossal struggle between ideologies, and between nations, that shaped modern China.
Born into privilege, separated from the filthy chaos of the city by servants and limousines and the stone walls of the Legation Quarter, Michael David Kwan felt his pampered life disintegrate as the Japanese overran China in 1938 and the world moved closer to war. Gradually, inexorably, the family was drawn into the maelstrom.
Kwan’s father, a wealthy railway administrator, became active in the resistance…
Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan
- 2001 Pulitzer–Nonfiction winner
- 2000 NBCC–Biography winner
- 2000 Kiriyama-Nonfiction finalist
- Score: 26.51
In this groundbreaking biography of the Japanese emperor Hirohito, Herbert P. Bix offers the first complete, unvarnished look at the enigmatic leader whose sixty-three-year reign ushered Japan into the modern world. Never before has the full life of this controversial figure been revealed with such clarity and vividness. Bix shows what it was like to be trained from birth for a lone position at the apex of the nation’s political hierarchy and as a revered symbol of divine status. Influenced by an unusual combination of the Japanese imperial tradition and a modern…
When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge
- 2000 Kiriyama-Nonfiction finalist
- Score: 6.5
Chanrithy Him vividly recounts her trek through the hell of the “killing fields.” She gives us a child’s-eye view of a Cambodia where rudimentary labor camps for both adults and children are the norm and modern technology no longer exists. Death becomes a companion in the camps, along with illness. Yet through the terror, the members of Chanrithy’s family remain loyal to one another, and she and her siblings who survive will find redeemed lives in America.
Ladder to the Clouds: Intrigue and Tradition in Chinese Rank
- 2000 Kiriyama-Nonfiction finalist
- Score: 6.5
For thirteen centuries grueling examinations were administrated to male recruits of all ages for service to the emperor of China. For the fortunate few who passed, there were nine possible civil and military ranks to be earned. Each rank was identified by a finely embroidered silk square that was worn on the front and back of a surcoat. Ladder To the Clouds is the first comprehensive book on this subject and is divided into two distinct parts:
Part 1 is a fascinating exploration of Chinese customs and symbols, many of which are still practiced to this…
Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People
- 2000 Kiriyama-Nonfiction finalist
- Score: 6.5
This groundbreaking book is about the transformation of Asian Americans from a few small, disconnected, and largely invisible ethnic groups into a self-identified racial group that is influencing every aspect of American society. It explores the junctures that shocked Asian Americans into motion and shaped a new consciousness, including the murder of Vincent Chin, a Chinese American, by two white autoworkers who believed he was Japanese; the apartheid-like working conditions of Filipinos in the Alaska salmon canneries; the boycott of Korean American greengrocers…
