Read these books by South Asian writers that wrestle with established forms, narratives, and structures.
In the shelter of our happiness, his shell shone brighter and brighter until one day, it split open and crumbled into dust to reveal a baby, golden skinned and blinking up at me.
I am no longer striving to understand something foreign, or to earn some measure of acceptance or belonging that I don’t deserve. I am here, simply, to see the land that my family came from, to know that we have been here before.
When I look back, I think about all the times Gatorade has let me down in my life.
Paragraph by paragraph I am piecing together the story of my Indonesian family—their trauma and struggle against colonial rule—alongside my dad.
Far from our barrios, mountains, and islands, we cook, so that we may practice swallowing our undesirable truths, acidic and blood-heavy.
It’s funny how ppl were saying that the peaches in Parasite / were some serious motif & symbolism of prosperity’s toxicity
Land holds so much of our history and memory—both personal and collective. In this special folio, seven writers investigate and explore Asian relationships with land.
I stow away the sentences in which there is no you in my drawer right after writing them I remember the time when I emptied the bottom of my drawer for you There I found stuff like a key that became useless forever
Left home at sixteen, said you wanted to go see the West. Grandpa didn’t stop / you. Figured you might die in some jungle across the Pacific.
That spring my wife covered the walls of our living room in newsprint.
Regardless of who is in the White House in 2021, Asian and Black trans women will not be ignored or silenced. Even with a Biden win, the fight is not over.
Since the new government promised land reform, the have-nots in your father’s village buckled over with joy, while the landed were bewildered
She was a prisoner in this home, where death and decay had collected like a fog.
we inherited sickly / roots our ancestors couldn’t plant / deep enough to / grow
Watch readings by ten poets from this year’s Best American Poetry anthology, edited by Paisley Rekdal
There was a time, Abu says, before your great-grandmother, when water was blue because it was a bruise, when it could feel our hands like the skin of a fruit.
Sometimes she grew so nervous that she had to sit in her room for hours until her hands stopped trembling. She wondered if her daughters ever thought about her.
“Sex worker activism is always based in anti-police, anti-prison activism.”
From tender coming-of-age and coming-out stories to eye-opening historical fiction & unforgettable fantasy
“For Korean women writers, for whatever kind of poetry they want to write, I think this country has excellent soil for growing in any direction you want.”
In the shelter of our happiness, his shell shone brighter and brighter until one day, it split open and crumbled into dust to reveal a baby, golden skinned and blinking up at me.
Regardless of who is in the White House in 2021, Asian and Black trans women will not be ignored or silenced. Even with a Biden win, the fight is not over.
I am no longer striving to understand something foreign, or to earn some measure of acceptance or belonging that I don’t deserve. I am here, simply, to see the land that my family came from, to know that we have been here before.
Since the new government promised land reform, the have-nots in your father’s village buckled over with joy, while the landed were bewildered
When I look back, I think about all the times Gatorade has let me down in my life.
She was a prisoner in this home, where death and decay had collected like a fog.
Paragraph by paragraph I am piecing together the story of my Indonesian family—their trauma and struggle against colonial rule—alongside my dad.
we inherited sickly / roots our ancestors couldn’t plant / deep enough to / grow
Far from our barrios, mountains, and islands, we cook, so that we may practice swallowing our undesirable truths, acidic and blood-heavy.
Watch readings by ten poets from this year’s Best American Poetry anthology, edited by Paisley Rekdal
It’s funny how ppl were saying that the peaches in Parasite / were some serious motif & symbolism of prosperity’s toxicity
There was a time, Abu says, before your great-grandmother, when water was blue because it was a bruise, when it could feel our hands like the skin of a fruit.
Land holds so much of our history and memory—both personal and collective. In this special folio, seven writers investigate and explore Asian relationships with land.
Sometimes she grew so nervous that she had to sit in her room for hours until her hands stopped trembling. She wondered if her daughters ever thought about her.
I stow away the sentences in which there is no you in my drawer right after writing them I remember the time when I emptied the bottom of my drawer for you There I found stuff like a key that became useless forever
“Sex worker activism is always based in anti-police, anti-prison activism.”
Left home at sixteen, said you wanted to go see the West. Grandpa didn’t stop / you. Figured you might die in some jungle across the Pacific.
From tender coming-of-age and coming-out stories to eye-opening historical fiction & unforgettable fantasy
That spring my wife covered the walls of our living room in newsprint.
“For Korean women writers, for whatever kind of poetry they want to write, I think this country has excellent soil for growing in any direction you want.”