May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and I’ll embrace any excuse to read more. Here are nine works of exciting fiction, insightful memoir, and captivating poetry, all by contemporary AAPI writers.
House of Sticks by Ly Tran
(2021, Simon & Schuster)
I have never read a memoir like this before. Tran deftly moves through time and memories as the only daughter in a family of Vietnamese refugees in America, weaving in themes of vision—both the literal and figurative, and the distance between isolation and intimacy.
She shares the family sweat shop labor in their small apartment, her focus on school, her work with her mother in New York City nail salons, and the years after secondary school when life becomes that much harder to keep steady. Tran’s story is a gorgeous book that I hope to see as a staple on course syllabi soon.
Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu
(2020, Pantheon Books)
You may have seen the gorgeous cover of this book over the past few years; it was released in early 2020, just before the pandemic hit the United States. Interior Chinatown won the National Book Award that year, but the craziness that followed meant you may have missed it. Dilly dally no longer.
Interior Chinatown is a delightful experiment with narrative form, utilizing screenwriting norms to create a fast-paced yet deeply intimate portrayal of Asians in America. Chinese American writer Charles Yu was a writer on the first season of Westworld, and his finesse of the style is an art form in of itself.
Poetry Performances by William Nuʻutupu Giles
“When you are made to choose between putting your children in culture or clothing, which blood would you want? This is how redwoods fall; they forget the only way they are able to stand.”
Someone needs to give a book deal to William Nuʻutupu Giles, an afakasi Samoan writer and arts educator from Honolulu, Hawai’i–if that’s what Giles wants! Giles is an incredible oral performer; in 2015, they became the first Pacific Islander to win the National Underground Poetry Individual Competition. Watch the absolutely stunning “Prescribed Fire” above.
Border Less by Namrata Poddar
(2022, 7.13 Books)
In writing workshops around the United States, students are pushing back on what it means to have a piece be “good” or “right.” This evolution arises as more and more BIPOC, womxn and nonbinary, and non-western writers are published and given opportunities to share a different narrative style, structure, and aesthetic. Poddar’s novel is a powerful, exciting example of what happens when a book is not held back by restrictive norms. Criss-crossing characters, fragmented narratives, lyrical writing… Aster(ix) Editor-in-Chief calls Poddar “a fierce storyteller,” and once you read Border Less, you’ll see why.
Cleave by Tiana Nobile
(2021, Hub City Press)
This debut poetry collection is a reckoning. Nobile shares an intimate, electrifying, and elucidating account of what it means to be a transnational adoptee: ”the child cleaved to her mother / the child cleaved from her mother.” This collection utilizes language and found documents to create an unforgettable experience.
The Verifiers by Jane Pek
(2022, Vintage Books)
Summer break is almost here, and you’ll want to grab a copy of this brand new mystery. Follow Claudia Lim, an investigator for a “dating detective agency” who is about to stumble upon the secret of a lifetime. This debut novel showcases Singapore-born, longtime New Yorker Jane Pek’s deft hand with pacing, intrigue, cultural drama, and humor. I binged it in just a few days, and I’m sure you will, too.
TIME REGIME by Jhani Randhawa
(2022, Gaudy Boy)
“i begin to feel sad for reasons that my dead grandmother might not have felt sad about: no women can facilitate gurdwara service, perform simran for a group gathered in a scared place like this temple on the west london high street.”
Jhani Randhawa, Kenyan-Punjabi/Anglo-American multidisciplinary artist and independent scholar, won the 2021 Gaudy Boy Poetry Book Prize. Gaudy Boy, a new publication arm of Singapore Unbound, is on a mission to promote and publish more authors of Asian descent around the world. Randhawa’s debut collection, TIME REGIME, is an exploration of love, identity, and earth. Read our recent interview with them here.
World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
(2020, Milkweed Editions)
A beautiful cover for a beautiful book. This short, lovely collection of personal essays is illustrated throughout by Fumi Nakamura. It’s the first nonfiction piece by poet Aimee Nezhukumatathil, and through this lens, we get to explore the natural world. In each chapter, Nezhukumatathil introduces a plant or an animal, and then connects that through a concept to a story or place, such a visit the Kansas medical institution where her Filipina mother worked as a doctor. If you are counting down the days to travel this summer, this might be your next read.
PS: Aster(ix) loved working with Aimee on our anonymous experimental issue, THE FERRANTE PROJECT.
If You See Me, Don’t Say Hi by Neel Patel
(2018, Flatiron Books)
I love seeing more short story collections get published. Neel Patel embraces the short story form with a deft handle on time, pacing, and dialogue. The eleven stories provide intimate portrayals of his characters (mostly first-generation Indian Americans, like himself) as they deal with secrets, arranged marriage, and Facebook stalking. And, if you like Patel’s work, you’re in luck: he has a new novel, Tell Me How To Be.
Bonus: Everything, Everywhere All At Once (2022)
Not a book, but a truly wonderful indie movie for anyone interested in seeing Asians and Asian Americans creatives thrive, enjoy themes of time travel and/or martial arts, and want to go from laughing to crying to laughing all in the span of 3 minutes. Don’t miss it in theaters; it’s an incredible communal experience.
I saw the film at its Pittsburgh premiere in late March with my friend Gabriela Lee and others. She later shared this review, “Everything Everywhere All at Once Is the Non-Diaspora Diaspora Story We’ve Been Waiting For” by R. F. Kuang at TOR.com, saying, “This essay encapsulates what I couldn’t put into words.”
Want more writing by AAPI authors?
Check out:
- Our upcoming interview with Jane Wong (get a sneak preview here!), featuring her 2021 poetry collection, How Not to be Afraid of Everything
- Cathy Park Hong’s AAPI Book Recommendations in 2021 (and if you don’t already, you should follow CPH on Twitter)
- Read a short story from our recent print issue, “Today I Will Bake a Cake” by Layhannara Tep
- Two poems from an artist-in-residence project last year, “Atlanta” by Danni Quintos and “Boba Pearl with a Heartbeat” by Rachelle Cruz
- Our 2018 interview with Crystal Hana Kim, author of the chart-topping novel, If You Leave Me
