Reviews and Press

• “7 Books We Can’t Stop Thinking About This Month.” Read Keziah Weir’s review of My Nemesis for Vanity Fair here.

• “Much of the power of this excit­ingly barbed book is Craig’s com­plex por­trait of a woman for whom rage is the default. A gin-drenched Valkyrie, Tessa weaponises her fem­in­ism with cruel aggres­sion. She joins a line-up of fas­cin­at­ing fic­tional females…” Read the full review by Lucy Scholes for the Financial Times here.

• “A breakthrough tour de force. Many have tried to give us an unreliable narrator; few have succeeded as well as Craig does. Along the way she slyly visits other forms — Victorian novels with the microanalysis of people’s gestures and motives, autofiction with its self-absorbed protagonists, midcentury American male novels (but inverted). And this is also a novel of ideas, where people debate motives, values, femininity, motherhood.” Read the full review by Carolyn Kellogg for The Boston Globe here.

• “‘My Nemesis’, Charmaine Craig’s taut, bristling and psychologically profound third novel, is the story of a seductive friendship that threatens to upend two homes. But it is really about the unwieldy needs and desires of middle age…the selfish demands of creativity, ‘the shocks and shames of parenthood’, the sacrifices made by women and how love can arise from an error of perception…. Slimmer, punchier and more tightly wound [than Craig’s previous novels], ‘My Nemesis’ highlights her talent for capturing the minutiae of interpersonal drama." Read the full review by Emily Bobrow for The Economist here.

• Watch Charmaine’s Otherppl with Brad Listi Podcast interview.

• Read Charmaine’s longform interview with Shondaland.

• “For fans of Siri Hustvedt and Claire Messud, Craig's third novel, ‘My Nemesis,’ is the spiky little feminist page-turner you've been waiting for…whose real feminism is found in its resistance to creating likable female characters… Craig deals her narrative tricks with a sure hand.” Read the full review by Marion Winik, Minneapolis Star Tribune here.

• “Craig’s narrative is masterful and self-assured… Artful in its prose and unsparing in the way it looks at envy and its corrosive effects, My Nemesis is a riveting novel about the stories people tell themselves to justify their shortcomings and what happens when they start to believe these lies.” Read the full review by Michael Schaub, Alta here.

• My Nemesis is one of The Globe and Mail’s “28 books to cozy up with this winter.” “There are shades of Rachel Cusk and even Elena Ferrante in Craig’s tense, cerebral but elegant novel about a successful married writer, Tessa, who reaches out by correspondence to an LA-based scholar to bond over Camus. But as the relationship deepens, pulling Tessa’s husband into its orbit, Tessa finds herself in a power struggle with the prof’s seemingly docile half-Asian wife – that “seemingly” takes us to some unexpected places.”

• “Written by the outrageously talented Charmaine Craig, My Nemesis tells the stories of two women, their marriages and their deceptions. Brilliantly speaking to themes of gender, friendship, loyalty, perception and identity, this one will have you thinking.” —Ms. Magazine

• My Nemesis is one of “Lit Hub’s Most Anticipate Books of 2023”

• “62 Books By Women of Color to Read in 2023,” R.O. Kwon in Electric Literature

• My Nemesis is one of Our Culture Magazine’s “Most Anticipated Books of 2023”

• “The complicated relationship between memoirist Tessa and professor and philosopher Charlie becomes an entry to a layered exploration of the perception of the self and the outside world… A simple plot summary cannot capture the depth of Craig's treatment of such big themes as femininity and masculinity, motherhood and fatherhood, friendship and love… Craig offers an effective inquiry into the elusive nature of intimate relationships, whether they stem from love or hate.”—Booklist (starred and review of the day)

• My Nemesis “offers a swift and cutting examination of a rivalry between two women…This confident work is sure to spark conversations.” —Publishers Weekly

• “An intense portrayal of an intellectual affair as well as a private competition between two women with perfectly balanced moments of tension and introspection . . . Craig never lets her first-person narrator off the hook . . . Cerebral and tense.”—Kirkus Reviews

• My Nemesis is Publishers Weekly “Deal of the Week,” February 14, 2022.

• Miss Burma longlisted for the 2017 National Book Award for Fiction.

• Miss Burma longlisted for the 2018 Women's Prize for Fiction.

• Watch Charmaine's "In My Humble Opinion" essay for PBS NewsHour.

• “Craig ably controls the novel’s historic sweep, and is unsparing in providing details of meticulous torture and wartime horror. She also conveys a strong sense of family. A mother, parting with her children, kisses them 'by placing the side of her nose against each of their cheeks and inhaling deeply.'”— The New Yorker

• Miss Burma is a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice.

• Miss Burma is reviewed in The New York Times Book Review. “Miss Burma serves as a much needed recalibration of history, one that redresses the narrative imbalance by placing other ethnic, non-Burmese points of view at the center of its story . . . In reimagining the extraordinary lives of her mother and grandparents, Craig produces some passages of exquisitely precise description . . . By resurrecting voices that are seldom heard on a wider stage, Craig’s novel . . . brings one of Burma’s many lost histories to vivid life.”–Emma Larkin

• Miss Burma, which "makes for a harrowing, heartbreaking, and timely read," is a Library Journal Notable Book of 2017. 

• Listen to Charmaine's interview with KCRW "Bookworm" host, Michael Silverblatt.

• Miss Burma is included on the KCRW/Bookworm list "The Best Books of 2017."

• "Can there be ethnic identity without tribalism? Does loyalty to our group honor the sacrifices of our ancestors, or does it prevent us from seeing ourselves as part of the human family?" Read the full, very thoughtful Los Angeles Review of Books (LARB) review of Miss Burma.

• Read an excerpt from Miss Burma, a Story of the Week in Narrative magazine.

• Miss Burma is named an Amazon Best of the Month Editors' Pick in Literature & Fiction.

• Miss Burma is one of the BBC Culture's "Ten books to read in May"

• Miss Burma is one of LitHub's 15 Books to Read This May.

• "There are the wars, the almost unimaginable hundreds of thousands of lives lost or the displacement right now of over a million people in and from Burma, but then there’s the equally unimaginable loss of a single person." Read Charmaine's full interview with the Los Angeles Times.

• Read Charmaine's personal piece in Literary Hub about her mother.

• Miss Burma is reviewed in ELLE magazine, May 2017. “Emotionally complex . . . masterfully renders the human condition in matters micro and vast . . . Like many of the best books, Miss Burma feels rooted in its time and place, while also laying bare timeless questions of loyalty, infidelity, patriotism, and identity—not to mention the globally perpetuated unfair treatment of women. It also raises one particularly resonant concern: What does it take to shake us out of complacency?”—Keziah Weir

• Miss Burma is an Indie Next Selection for May 2017. “Charmaine Craig’s Miss Burma is nothing short of stunning. Based on the lives of her mother and grandparents in Burma, Craig deftly tells the epic story of one family as they try to survive the horrors of World War II, independence, and then civil war. What distinguishes this book from others is its frank look at who and what survives under such perilous conditions. Especially for readers unfamiliar with Burma, like me, Miss Burma is a chronicle of loss and love in a country too long neglected by the world.” —Michael Triebwasser, Politics and Prose Bookstore, Washington, DC

• "The idealistic Jewish-Burmese couple in Charmaine Craig's autobiographically inspired Miss Burma (Grove Press) take an astonishing leap into the unknown by falling in love without speaking the same language, only to watch their daughter unwittingly become a national symbol."—Vogue

• "A story of how modern-day Burma came to be, as well as the tale of one of the most violent and turbulent eras in world history played out. At once beautiful and heartbreaking . . . An incredible family saga."— Refinery29 (Favorite Books of 2017--So Far)

• "...one of the author's main achievements lies in forcing us to consider the intersection of the personal and political, and the extent to which individuals are prepared to sacrifice themselves for the greater good."—from the review of Miss Burma in New York Journal of Books

• “[T]hrobs with brutality, insight and authenticity, taking us deep into the human dynamics of Burma and its tumultuous history... Craig’s quasi-fictional portrait of her mother is intimate and authentic, the heart of an epic novel that is as luminous, intelligent and surprising as Miss Burma herself.” Read the full review of Miss Burma in Post Magazine.

• "As extraordinary as Louisa — who becomes the face of her country’s future — this novel expertly chronicles a people’s resolve and the metamorphosis of a complicated land." Read the full review of Miss Burma in Washington Independent Review of Books.

• Omnivoracious, The Amazon Book Review, starts off with Miss Burma for Best Books of the Month: Literature and Fiction, May 2017.

• See photos of the real Miss Burma in this Myanmar Times piece about the novel.

• "Miss Burma is powerful in showing the relentless effect of the political on the personal while covering an important swath of history – and all the while telling an awfully good story."—The Christian Science Monitor

• Read an excerpt from Miss Burma in Dissent Magazine.

• "Miss Burma is the novel Charmaine Craig was destined to write . . . [An] epic."— Orange Coast

• Watch Charmaine with Maaza Mengiste at the Asian American Writers' Workshop.

• "This is a fascinating story and a sobering look at the horrors of civil war and its cause--maniacal nationalism. You will never again look at Myanmar in the same way."— Eyes on World Cultures

• "Whether readers are familiar or not with Burma's history, Craig's novel is a compelling excavation of the origins of conflict and the capacity to overcome." Read the full review in Shelf Awareness.

• Listen to a podcast of Charmaine on Otherppl with Brad Listi.

• Listen to Euan Kerr's story on Miss Burma for Minnesota Public Radio's All Things Considered.

• "This epic yet deeply personal novel about war, love, loyalty, and heroism deserves to be widely read, especially by anyone unfamiliar with this history." Read the review by the Historical Novel Society.

• Read an excerpt from Miss Burma in Europe Now (Council for European Studies at Columbia University).

• "Issues of identity, colonialism, family ties, and power and weakness of beauty are explored here in a novel that is mesmerizing and memorable."—Toronto Star

• “[A] tale of love and disenchantment, loyalty and resentment, recognition and isolation . . . Whether Craig is describing the family’s escape through the jungle during WWII or student protests in 1962, she transports us to the thick of the conflicts . . . Based on real lives, Craig’s historical novel challenges our assumptions about everything from beauty queens to rebels and reminds us that the course of a nation’s history is often determined by the fallibility of individuals.”—from the starred Booklist review of Miss Burma 

• “Craig has written a captivating second novel that skillfully moves from moments of quiet intimacy and introspection to passages portraying the swift evolution of political events as multiple groups and nations vie for control of Burma’s future. Mesmerizing and haunting.”       —from the starred Kirkus review of Miss Burma

• “[An] epic new novel . . . Craig vividly illustrates the intertwining of the political and the personal . . . Readers with an eye to world history and current events will find this novel riveting.”―from Library Journal review of Miss Burma

• 34 Books by Women of Color to Read This Year

• Viet Thanh Nguyen recommends Miss Burma in the NY Times, "By the Book"

• Aminatta Forna offers advanced praise: “Miss Burma is a book which resonates with meaning, of how we are all actors in our histories and the histories of our nations.  It disrupts our settled sense that the past is the past, and shows how that past reaches forward to touch the future.  A powerful, moving and important novel.”

• Maaza Mengiste offers advanced praise: “In beautiful and evocative prose, Miss Burma reminds us of the many ways that war and political repression can scar generations. Yet the real wonder of this powerful book rests in its strong belief that love and determination―and even loss―can help illuminate a path out of the darkest moments. A gem of a novel.”

• Read Charmaine's personal piece in The New York Times Magazine about her friendship with a Karen man, "A Long Engagement."

• Read Charmaine's political piece in Dissent Magazine about Burma's history and ethnic nationalities, "Burma's Fault Lines: Ethnic Federalism and the Road to Peace."