An Offering of Rice

An Offering of Rice is written with a careful narrative restraint that results in a striking honesty, short stories and poems that are rich in visual clarity and deeply moving in their treatment of the subjects of bi-cultural life, family, illness, and individual identity. As a hybrid of fiction and poetry, this is one of the best blending of those two disciplines in our literature, and among the stories in this collection is the single best piece on cancer that I have ever read. - Ian MacMillan

This long awaited book of stories from Mavis Hara is everything we hoped for—and more. Gritty and tough-minded, lyrical by turns, this is no mere nostalgic feel-good journey to the plantation past. There is here a wealth of fine observation, a nuance and precision of detail—the naming of telling human gestures that go unnamed except for the poet and storytellers' art. - Sylvia Watanabe

Mavis Hara is a reading instructor at Kapi`olani Community College in Honolulu. She has published numerous stories and poems, notably her award-winning story "Carnival Queen," and has been anthologized in Asian American fiction and poetry collections such as Growing Up Asian American. She is sansei with roots in Hawai`i plantations, a breast cancer survivor, adoptive mother, and military wife, and she claims her stories are all fiction.

"My mother is sitting at a table peeling an orange. She does this almost every night and I already know what she's going to say.

"Eat this orange, good for you, lots of vitamin C."

"I don't want to eat orange now, Ma." I know it is useless, but I say it anyway. My mother is the kind of Japanese lady who will hunch down real small when she passes in front of you when you're watching TV. Makes you think she's quiet and easygoing, but not on the subject of vitamin C.

"I peeled it already. Make yourself want it." Some people actually think my mother is shy.

— From "Carnival Queen," one of the stories in "An Offering of Rice"

Reviews:

While "poignant" is the operative word in Hara's work, humor also peeks through. In a scene between a nissei mother and her sansei daughter, in the story "Carnival Queen," about the long-gone McKinley High School popularity competition, a quietly hilarious battle of generations and passive-aggressive behavior will make thousands of Hawai'i Japanese-Americans chuckle in memory of their mother or grandmother. But the stories also have a universal appeal, in addressing debilitating illness (breast cancer in this case), funerals and wifely and daughterly duties.
Bamboo Ridge author brings that 'good story' - Honolulu Advertiser

Suicidal neighbors, accidental maiming at a pineapple cannery and the beauty secrets of McKinley High Carnival Queen contestants are just some of the affairs found in Hara's collection, "An Offering of Rice" ...
Fictional Firsthand Accounts - Ka Leo

This book will fool you. Pick it up, scan the cover, peek at the first few entries and you'll be tricked into expecting another ethnic memoir, another psalm of plantation life, another tribute to Japanese culture through reverence for rice. It is all those things, for starters. But just for starters. Don't be fooled.
‘Rice’ offers more than typical cultural memoir - Honolulu Star-Bulletin

Mavis Hara’s book is a perfect example of how character should be the focus of story, not the number of papio you could catch in Kaneohe Bay thirty years ago.
'A Gift of Character' by Chris McKinney - HAWAIIREADERS.COM