How can we retell the story of America? In the United States of Amnesia, why does the Western celebrate cowboys but not all people who built this country? What does a Chinese-American hero look like in the 21st Century?

Tom Lin is an American writer whose 2021 debut novel The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu chronicles the story of a Chinese American outlaw seeking revenge during America's railroad boom. The book won the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, making Lin the youngest Carnegie winner in the prize’s history. Tom Lin is currently pursuing an English doctorate at the University of California Davis.

"I think I would like young people to preserve everything. I think so much of historical work is going back and trying to piece together the things that have not been preserved. And so even with biodiversity and the planet, I think we should try to have less impact on our surroundings and more impact on each other. There's less and less investment in the humanities, and that really saddens me. I think art is important because it's something that we do as humans that has no purpose beyond how it makes us feel.

And something like that is valuable because it is hard and because it is directed at other people. The making of art, the consumption of art, I think is what makes us human as opposed to animals. If we are going to draw that line, I think that's where it is. And I think the purpose of artists is to preserve the feeling of being alive and to communicate that to others."

https://twotreeforest.com

www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/tom-lin/the-thousand-crimes-of-ming-tsu/9780316542173/?lens=little-brown

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Image courtesy of Little, Brown and Company & Tom Lin