www.milibrary.org
Birds of Paradise Lost - Author Andrew Lam in conversation with Aimee Phan
Cosponsored by Asia Society.
The thirteen stories in Birds of Paradise Lost shimmer with humor and pathos as they chronicle the anguish, joy and bravery of America's newest Americans, those who fled Vietnam and remade themselves in the San Francisco Bay Area. The past memories of war and its aftermath-- murder, arrest, re-education camps, escape, shipwreck, and atrocity-- is ever present in these wise and compassionate stories. Andrew Lam intricately renders the false starts and revelations in the struggle for integration, and in so doing, the human heart.
"Read Andrew Lam, and bask in his love of language, and his compassion for people, both those here and those from far away. He reminds us that we have history in common; we can laugh and cry together." —Maxine Hong Kingston
Reservations required. Reserve your spot by ordering below or calling (415) 393-0100.
Andrew Lam is the author of Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora, which won the 2006 PEN Open Book Award, and East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres. Lam is an editor and cofounder of New American Media, an association of over two thousand ethnic media outlets in America.
He was a regular commentator on NPR'’s All Things Considered for many years, and was the subject of a 2004 PBS documentary called My Journey Home. His essays have appeared in newspapers and magazines such as the New York Times, The LA Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Baltimore Sun, The Atlanta Journal, the Chicago Tribune, Mother Jones, and The Nation, among many others. His short stories have been widely taught and anthologized. Birds of Paradise Lost is his first story collection and due out by Red Hen Press in the spring of 2013. He lives in San Francisco.
Aimee Phan is the author of the novel The Reeducation of Cherry Truong and the story collection We Should Never Meet. This collection was named a Notable Book by the Kiriyama Prize in fiction and a finalist for the Asian American Literary Awards. A graduate of the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, her writing has appeared in The New York Times, USA Today, Guernica, and The Rumpus, among others. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts, the MacDowell Arts Colony and Hedgebrook. Born and raised in Orange County, California, she now teaches writing and literature at the California College of the Arts.
Location: 4th Floor Meeting Room