Sidebrow Books, 2018
H & G, by Anna Maria Hong, was the winner of the 2014 Clarissa Dalloway Book Prize, ENTROPY Magazine’s Best of 2018: Best Fiction Books, and Finalist 2019 Vermont Book Award.
PurchaseI will always be deeply grateful to all the amazing women who run AROHO and their integral support of idiosyncratic writing by women writers. I never would have anticipated the life of this book in its first year of publication. I know that AROHO’s unwavering commitment to its authors and prize winners has paved the way for this warm reception, and I cherish the vital work that you do. —Anna Maria Hong
Praise for H & G
In H & G, Anna Maria Hong delivers an innovative rewriting of the fable of Hansel and Gretel. She chronicles the exploits of the ‘girl-hero,’ characterizes the witch as a conscientious citizen, and asks readers to consider “What is the crumb/diamond of this story?” The answer: “You are G. writing a novel about patricidal hatred, inherited misogyny, and looking for good kin./you are G. as little Korean American Fräulein.”
—Torsa Ghosal from Bustle
“In H & G, Anna Maria Hong brilliantly re-visions the ‘Hansel and Gretel’ fairytale for the post-post-modern 21st century. Or explodes it, producing a text brimming with biting wit, feminist insight, psychological incisiveness, and a hybrid narrative daring that turns genre on its head. G., a ‘Korean American fraülein’ who is ‘sick of the high road’ is willing to tear the whole fantasy edifice of our illusions down as she journeys toward deeper truths, and thankfully, she and H. take us along for their sometimes-frightening, always enlightening rides.”
— John Keene
“H & G is more than a fractured fairy tale for the Doom Generation. It’s a mordantly funny dismantling of loss and abandonment, a game of Chutes & Ladders played by Angela Carter and the Woolf of Orlando, a spider that waits for its victim to stop struggling before moving in. It suggests that the great escape is just the prelude to an unhappily ever after in which old traumas collapse under the weight of new discoveries. It is a brilliant, bracing book.”
—Josh Emmons
“This prose, built closely beside one of the most primeval European tales, is full of delectably strong phrasal nuggets and more. Anna Maria Hong unfastens and opens the original narrative, filling in all the icy distress that we already know, then adds the allure of burning sugar.”
—Stacey Levine
“Anna Maria Hong’s H & G takes a different approach as it brilliantly tells and retells the Hansel and Gretel tale, in prose and verse. Unlike Coover’s postmodern fairy tales, however, H & G does not ultimately reenact cycles of disillusionment and forced reenchantment. Taking its inspiration from the trajectory of the story’s original heroes, it models an escape from enchantment into a more fully human realm.”
—David Micah Greenberg from The Iowa Review
More Reviews:
https://www.full-stop.net/2019/01/29/reviews/nabil-kashyap/hg-anna-maria-hong/
