A million years ago, or maybe it was closer to eleven, I started working on a Ph.D. in English with a focus in Creative Writing. For one of my exam areas, I chose to study Postcolonial Fiction. I told myself I wanted to read more than just the usual dead white dudes that had been assigned to me throughout most of my schooling up until that point. Sure, some of those dead white dudes had written some damn fine pieces of literature, but as my world and my friend set slowly started to expand, I was beginning to feel the urge to understand the stories of a wider range of people. The struggles of Holden Caulfield and Jay Gatsby could only illuminate so much.
This urge of mine became even more focused after the first time I visited the Philippines with my wife, in 2010. There, I was an outsider who was welcomed into a Filipino family that seemed to grow larger and more vibrant with every outdoor breakfast of fried tilapia and longanisa, every merienda of Sky Flakes over Mahjong. With my mother-in-law’s Tagalog-infused laughter still ringing in my ears, I returned to my studies with a renewed determination to understand the history of the Philippines—or at least a small shred of it—through the literature of Filipino writers, such as the national hero Jose Rizal, and the Pinay American playwright and activist Jessica Hagedorn.
Six years later, our little family of three (soon to become four!) would find ourselves living in Hong Kong, and traveling all throughout Asia for Jenny’s job. We moved to Hong Kong sight unseen, with only a Lonely Planet tour guide serving as a tutorial to the complicated history between our new home and mainland China. There, I began to learn that even though I had a basic understanding of a few Asian cultures because of the Filipino side of my family and my doctoral studies, I still knew so little about the ethnic differences that abounded on the continent, not to mention the wider Asian diaspora. As we met new friends and traveled more, I started to realize how much I had lumped all Asian people together as I was growing up, and that I still had so much learning to do in order to recognize each culture in a fuller, less monolithic, and more authentic way.
Skip forward a few more years and a few more moves, and here I am, still intrigued by Asian and Asian American literature. This intrigue has taken on a different sort of weight in the past few months, as incidents of anti-Asian violence have continued to swell here in the US. As I said in the last free post, this violence is personal to me. It’s intolerable, and I want to thank all the subscribers last month who helped us contribute to Stop AAPI Hate. This month, we’ll be contributing to 826 Chi, a non-profit creative writing, tutoring, and publishing center dedicated to amplifying the voices of Chicago youth.
Now, I want to offer a list of recommendations for anyone interested in reading more fiction by Asian and Asian American authors. I was gripped by all of these books for different reasons, and yet this list is by no means exhaustive or comprehensive. It’s a bit heavy on Chinese American literature, as I grew fascinated with China while living in Hong Kong. As I spoke to above, I have a lot of gaps in my learning. If you’d like to share additional books, please do so in the comments! And if you’re on Instagram, I also recommend checking out @vanreads and @bookedwithemma, who go into far more detail than I do in reviewing books by primarily BIPOC authors. Here we go:
1. The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston – This book is legendary for good reason. The history and mythology of China come to life, in prose that is nothing short of magic. Read this if you think you’re a feminist.
2. Any Other Place by Michael Croley – Short stories set in rural Kentucky, Korea, and Memphis, some of which feature a young Korean American man coming of age. Mike is a good friend of mine, and yet even if he wasn’t, I’d tell you to read this book; he writes brilliantly about family, brotherhood, and the increasingly complicated notion of place.
3. Monstress by Lysley Tenorio – Masterful short stories by a Filipino American author who also recently released a great novel called The Son of Good Fortune. Tenorio’s characters are so vibrant, I feel like I can still hear them in the next room, cracking jokes and baring their souls.
4. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee – Intergenerational novel about a Korean family that begins with the Japanese annexation of Korea and stretches across WWII and into the early 90s. Sweeping, jarring, essential. One of the best novels I’ve ever read; I wrote about it in detail in an earlier edition of Ideas Over Drinks.
5. Goodbye, Vitamin by Rachel Khong – Funny, smart novel about a Chinese American woman in her 30s moving home to take care of her father who is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. Read it if you love food, wit, and ways to smile through hardship.
6. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong – It’s redundant to call this novel gorgeous; it’s also true. Equal parts poetry and cultural analysis, this is the story of a young gay man in Hartford, written in the form of letter to his Vietnamese mother.
7. Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng – Fascinating mystery story about a young girl’s suicide. The plot is gripping, as are the details about a mixed-race Chinese family in small-town Ohio in the 70s.
8. Little Gods by Meng Jin – Eye-opening novel that explores the effects of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre on a number of individual lives in China and beyond.
9. The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan – Unflinching short stories about Chinese American life, womanhood, immigration, and family.
10. Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri – Short stories about Indian and Indian American life, many of which are set in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The opening story, “A Temporary Matter,” is absolutely heartbreaking. I get chills just thinking about it.
11. Sour Heart by Jenny Zhang – Linked short stories about a Chinese American girl growing up in New York City; the voice here is powerful, raw, fast, and revelatory. If you like the work of Junot Diaz, you’ll love this.
12. Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto – Boundary-breaking Japanese novel that works on so many levels: primarily as a love letter to food and a method of grieving, and yet also as an exploration of transgender identity in Japan.
13. Dogeaters by Jessica Hagedorn – A one-of-a-kind mix of forms. How a novel can be this dark and yet this funny is beyond me. Read it if you want to understand the Philippines, knowing that you will never, ever understand the Philippines.
14. Sightseeing by Rattawut Lapcharoensap – Often hilarious, always incisive short stories set in contemporary Thailand. Read this before your next vacation to a foreign country, especially if you’re an American.
I’ve put all of these books into a list on my Bookshop.org page. Purchases made here help keep independent bookstores in business, which is something that is very important to me. I earn a small commission from purchases made here, 20% of which also gets donated to our featured organization each month. Again, this month— which also happens to be National Poetry Month!—subscription contributions go to 826 Chi. They’re a crucial resource for young writers in my home city. They’re training young poets!
Poetry is powerful, y’all, especially when it’s put into the hands of kids who, for whatever reason, might have thought of it as somehow not for them. Along these lines, if you didn’t get a chance to read my Washington Post piece from last month, about how to help kids experience the world through poetry, check it out here. In working on it, I had the privilege of interviewing some absolutely amazing poets and thinkers.
Okay, friends, that’s all for this week. As I move forward with Ideas Over Drinks, I’m toying with some new ideas for the monthly cadence of the newsletter. I plan on keeping this first free post of the month focused on books, but may be shifting the second post of the month, for subscribers, towards the drink-focused end. If you’re reading, and you have feedback on what’s working for you, what you’d like to see more of, etc., please drop me an email back and let me know. Also, please share this post with any readers in your life, and maybe even encourage them to sign up for Ideas Over Drinks!
Finally, sorry for the delay in getting this email sent out this morning. I spent the night in a laboratory last night, with approximately 20 wires stuck to my head and chest, having my sleep monitored and recorded by machines. But that’s a story for another time. As usual, I’m pretty sure it needs a good cocktail to go along with it.
Until then, cheers!
J.