In Ornament of Asia Alice Kavounas engages us with daring personal stories as well as quotidian moments expressed in vivid precise language. Following on from The Invited (Sinclair-Stevenson) with its brilliant lyrical style (Alan Brownjohn) Alice Kavounas has deepened and widened her range. She writes from an unusual perspective: a New Yorker whose father escaped from his idyllic birthplace in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire to build a new life in America.