AAWW Radio: New Asian American Writers & Literature

In this episode of AAWW Radio, we host a reading on India and caste with writers Neel Mukherjee and Sujatha Gidla. Neel Mukherjee's latest novel, A State of Freedom, short-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2014, follows the lives of five characters born to different circumstances in India navigating deeply entrenched class and caste divisions. Dalit-author Sujatha Gidla wrote the critically-acclaimed debut memoir Ants Among Elephants: An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India. The two authors read from their work, and afterwards have a conversation with Gaiutra Bahadur, the author of Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture. Together they discuss Dalit exclusion in the publishing industry, the connection between caste and women’s oppression, Dalit solidarity with Black Americans, their love of Samuel Beckett, and much more.

Link to the video of this event on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIgKFl8Dpf8

This event was cosponsored by Equality Labs.

AAWW’s online magazine Open City documents the pulse of metropolitan Asian America as it's being lived on the streets of New York City right now. For this episode of AAWW Radio, we listen to AAWW Muslim Community Fellows Roja Heydarpour, Raad Rahman, Sumaya Awad and Humera Afridi read their stories published in Open City about their own experiences as Muslim American women, and the unique experiences Muslim Americans face in the current xenophobic political climate.

Sarah Khan's documentary: http://opencitymag.aaww.org/collateral-damage/

Apply for Open City Fellowships: https://aaww.submittable.com/submit

On this episode of AAWW Radio, we’re featuring three Arab American writers exploring the boundaries between personal and political: novelist/poet Hala Alyan and poets Hayan Charara and Marwa Helal. From the Six-Day War and the invasion of Iraq to explosive poetic experimentations, these writers explore what it means to have a private self, a family space, and a home in the conditions of war, displacement, and migration. They read from their work and have a conversation with with novelist and former AAWW Open City Fellow Tanaïs.

This event was co-sponsored with Radius of Arab American Writers, Turning Point for Women and Families, and Alwan for the Arts.

Elaine Castillo's debut novel America is Not the Heart is a vibrant and starkly hilarious novel about the De Vera family who flees Marcos-era Philippines in stages for the immigrant suburbs of the Bay Area. Elaine Castillo joins poets Luis H. Francia and Joseph O. Legaspi for a special reading about Filipinx-American history, migration, queerness, and the elusive goal of cracking the American Dream for working-class immigrants. After reading they join author Gina Apostol, author of the Gun Dealer's Daughter, for a conversation about Carlos Bulosan, Filipinx as a synthetic identity, and writing for Asian Americans vs the white establishment.

Do you ever feel like your life is in a constant state of crisis? Do you feel like, nevertheless, you persist? On this episode of AAWW Radio, we're featuring three thrilling experimental novelists whose books are about pushing forward against life-killing forces, whether it’s capitalism, the political status quo, or more existential threats like grief and suicide. Novelists Patty Yumi Cottrell, Eugene Lim, and Anelise Chen all navigate the universe of crisis--all with a touch of bleak literary experimentation that would make Samuel Beckett proud! After reading from their work, poet Lisa Chen moderates a conversation about survival strategies, self-awareness, and the balance of tension in the books.

This year marks the fifteenth anniversary of the Iraq War, so for this episode of AAWW Radio we’re bringing you an interview that AAWW Executive Director Ken Chen hosted with experimental poet Philip Metres back in 2016. Phil Metres is the author of the poetry collection Sand Opera. Solmaz Sharif writes, “Philip Metres’s poetry collection Sand Opera is complex, an untamable polyvocal array of clipped narratives in post-9/11 (if we are to believe such historical markers) America.” It’s a great conversation diving deep into Metres’ research of the confined and tortured people at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay and the influence of these documents in response to violence as a poet.

As an Asian American, what is your Wakanda? Did you ever consider it being the obscure 2005 Xbox game Jade Empire? On this episode, we're continuing to highlight the recent launch Go Home!, our anthology of Asian diasporic writers published in collaboration with the Feminist Press. Contributing writers Alexander Chee, Karissa Chen, Chaya Babu, Wendy Xu, Gina Apostol, & the anthology’s editor, Rowan Hisayo Buchanan had a hilarious and heartwarming conversation and Q&A in the final act of our two-hour event. They talk about the first books that made them feel seen, the importance of community, and of course, appreciating Black Panther.

We’re highlighting the recent launch of Go Home!, our anthology published in collaboration with the Feminist Press, featuring Asian diasporic writers who imagine “home” in the twenty-first century through an array of fiction, memoir, and poetry. On March 12th, we hosted a release party at our event space in Manhattan with contributing writers Alexander Chee, Karissa Chen, Chaya Babu, Wendy Xu, Gina Apostol, & the anthology’s editor, Rowan Hisayo Buchanan who read to a packed house. It was an incredible evening and we’re excited to share the audio with you. Because it was a two-hour event, we’re splitting it into two podcast episodes: this episode will feature the introduction and readings, including Alexander Chee on his first roommate and Gina Apostol on Kundimans.

We’re starting a new series called Poetry Potluck featuring audio from our favorite AAWW poetry events and showcasing exciting poets of the moment. In Poetry Potluck 1, we have poets Ocean Vuong, Janine Joseph, and Wendy Xu reading from their work and having a conversation about writing process, family, and the body. Jennifer Hayashida introduces and moderates the conversation.

We're featuring two Korean American novelists, Jimin Han and Yoojin Grace Wuertz, who read from their debut novels that interrogate 1970s and 1980s Korean politics. Both books follow university students in the US and in Seoul as they fall in love, build friendships, and understand how they relate to the turbulent changes in South Korean society. Wuertz’s novel, Everything Belongs to Us, centers around two Seoul National University students under President Park Chung-hee’s 1970s authoritarian industrialization, while Han’s novel, A Small Revolution, flashes back to the student protests that helped inculcate Korean democracy. Introduced and moderated by E. Tammy Kim, former AAWW Open City Fellow and Editor at The New Yorker.