In this episode, Nasia Anam interviews writer Bonnie Chau about navigating cultural backgrounds in a capitalist society.

Nasia Anam is an assistant professor of English literature and global Anglophone literature at the University of Nevada, Reno. Her research examines representations of migration between Europe, South Asia, North Africa and the United States in the colonial, postcolonial and contemporary eras. She received her Ph.D. in comparative literature at UCLA and has since taught at Princeton University, Williams College and California Institute of the Arts.

Bonnie Chau is from Southern California, where she ran writing programs at the nonprofit 826LA. She received her MFA in fiction and translation from Columbia University. A Kundiman fellow, she works at an independent bookstore in Brooklyn and is an editor at Poets & Writers and at Public Books. She is the author of the short story collection All Roads Lead to Blood, published by SFWP/2040 Books.

Discussed: capitalistic tendencies, immigrant stories, genre, modern conveniences, idealistic rejection of capitalism, bond of common language, mobility, survival, agency, object importance