Asian Reads | Issue 02
Intimate Essays on Grief, Love, and Identity
Asian Writers’ Collective is a publication dedicated to fostering greater understanding and appreciation of Asian cultures and experiences among a global readership. Subscribe to the Asian Writer’s Collective to decolonize your reading and discover unique writing.
This issue of AWC features was curated by
of Notes from the Town Hermit, where she writes on a mix of personal essays about grief, literature, and fiction. She is a Taiwanese-American based in California. Popular posts she’s written include “Home in the Spaces Between,” “Lord of the Rings Reading Challenge,” and “Platonic Soulmates: What Happened to Our Friendships?”Hi, it’s me—your kind-of friendly AWC founder and editor. I’m happy to bring you this curation of recommended reads by Asian writers this month.
Before we get into it, I want to announce and celebrate our guest authors for the coming quarter.
October —
who writes In-Between LinesNovember — who writes Silent No More
December — who writes The Twenties Girl
Congratulations to Samira, Tania, and Demian!
Thank you to everyone who submitted. The quality of writing was high, and you should be proud of yourself for taking the step. We’ll open for a new submission period with a new theme soon, so stay tuned!
Anyways, without meaning to, this month’s collection of features turned out to consist of pieces that require slow and thoughtful reading. I tend to be drawn to this type of writing, so I can’t bring myself to apologise for the lack of variety here. There is so much beautiful prose in the essays I’ve curated for this post. Topics include loss and grief, identity, home, unconditional love, and reconciliation. Not all were published this past month, but that’s the lovely thing about Substack: even “older” posts stay evergreen.
PROSE
Suyin Tan’s writing is rich and deeply moving. I find myself returning to her pieces again and again, rereading lines and phrases that are particularly beautiful. They’re not meant to be read quickly. I like to sit with them over time and let her words linger before moving on. This piece I want to share is one of my favourites—written in a unique format mirroring the kaleidoscope she begins it with.
Through the Looking-Glass, and What I Found There
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writes A Tangerine MoonIt’s the beauty of the heart searching all around it for its own reflection.
It’s the beauty of finding the things we were always searching for, losing the things we never learnt how to lose, and in trying to bridge the gap between them, understanding all the love we’re capable of holding.
It’s the beauty of a life which shows us that we can find what we’ve lost, and that we can also lose what we’ve found, letting us see what life is actually all about.
GRIEF
Trivarna writes with such tenderness and compassion. Her prose is full of beauty amidst the painfulness of what she writes about. It reminds me of glimmers of light breaking through and reflecting on pools of water in a quiet forest, long after I’d forgotten the sun still shines above the trees.
Can Grief Be a Good Teacher?
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writes When will you rest, dear heart?Grief makes me forget I have a body. That I could have a body. How long, since I inhabited the pear-round fullness of my being? How long, since I wanted to shoot into the sky— a broken star back to life? Instead, I disperse into the oppressive heat of the air. I rise to the roof of my house. As if by an invisible thread: I am pulled right to the brink of the window. Dew-stained, it’s glass. Frost-cracked, my hand.
How hard it is to piece my body back again. How hard to get un-wounded.
MEMOIR
Anqi Cao is a recent discovery for me. Each piece I read from her is thoughtfully and skillfully rendered. She writes with poignancy and subtlety. In “Two Types of Drifting,” she touches on the societal failure toward the homeless, juxtaposed against her own feeling of rootlessness. Like so many of us wonder what home means for us, the themes around searching and drifting through a lonely city hit me hard.
Two Types of Drifting
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writes The AftertasteSan Francisco's open secret is that it shelters those who don't quite belong anywhere. But there are two kinds. By day, the streets bustle with people who choose to drift between places. By night, the same streets fill with those who have nothing left but to drift between places. The former reassures me with a semblance of human agency that tantalizes, and the latter threatens me with the raw truth of an unforgiving jungle stripped bare.
You notice the night drifters most easily in February, the rare time around the year when San Francisco decides to indulge in rain. Like a prisoner granted reprieve from a year-long restraint, the rain hesitates to go back, its continuous kisses cracking open the earth, where shades of green—fresh, old, deep, light—gush out, their boundaries dissolving in the misty air. However, as if dreading the punishment from violating an unspoken curfew, everyone unanimously retreats to their own enclaves before it even gets dark—Neighbors hurriedly draw their curtains, cars huddle under covers, and birds feign sleep.
The endless rain dilutes even the strongest bonds.
IMMIGRANT IDENTITY
Nida Elley writes about what I’m sure resonates with many of us: the feeling of invisibility and alienness. However, she turns the victim narrative on itself and uses it to give herself her own identity. Her courage in seizing her own story and writing it for herself is something I admire.
The Invisible Alien
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writes The Art of the UnravelGrowing up, I was invisible.
Well, that’s not entirely true. I was a blank slate, ready and waiting to be filled. A doll for my mother to dress. A mind for my father to mold. A pet for my older brothers to play with. And an occasional punching bag for all.
But I don’t want this to be a story about victimhood, about heroes and villains. I’m not saying I wasn’t loved. Or fed. Or educated. Or given the privileges my family’s means allowed. I just never knew who this “I” was. And it felt like no one else much cared to know either. So this “I” learned to shape-shift, people-please, fill the holes in people’s hearts, be their shoulder to cry on, their safe space, their partner in crime. And yes, even their punching bag, too, from time to time.
PHOTOGRAPHY
As a fellow photographer, I was excited to see Buku pair words with photos to weave a story. Words alone are powerful. With these evocative images—even more so. Buku writes about belonging and home, about straddling two cities, tracing memories to find yourself. This is a gorgeous project that’s well worth checking out.
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writes Words and imagesA Tale of two cities
Some cities have a distinct aura. Something special and secret. I call this a deep sadness. One that hovers over her like a lingering mist. There are only three cities in the world I have experienced this sadness: Genoa, New York and Calcutta.
After seventeen years away, I’ve done something most Indians of my generation don’t do— return back home. When people ask me where I’m from, I always stumble. I say, I was born in Calcutta but I grew up in New York.
LOVE
Sam writes with an intimacy and immediacy that I don’t often find elsewhere. It’s poetic and raw yet also sophisticated. In this episode of his personal story, he shares about a past relationship in which he experienced unconditional love.
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writes A Year Without WaterEight
In 2014, I experienced my very first breakup. I had spent two years with Alberto, who as my wonderful introductory boyfriend set the standard for how a good partner ought to be. He proved to me that I could be loved in ways that I only ever saw depicted in media—that that kind of love could be real—and he changed me, irrevocably, by doing so.
All these years later, I’ve never once wavered in my assessment of him: he was a flawless boyfriend. Similarly, in our every retrospective conversation since then, he’s never once accepted that mantle in totality. It’s a heavy burden to bear, being the individual who sets the pace as someone’s first love, and he still teases me for idealizing him. On this subject, he and I will have to continue to disagree.
INTERGENERATIONAL RECONCILIATION
Some of us who have parents who immigrated to western countries are familiar with the cultural conflicts that arise. Sometimes these conflicts lead to irreconcilable differences. And sometimes those wounds are healed through the third generation. Heidi Tai writes about finding healing through watching her parents interact with her daughter—something I’ve also experienced watching my own parents with my children. Regrets often linger on both sides, and grandchildren offer a means to “redo”those early years.
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writes Letters from HeidiA Second Chance with the Child We Miss
Perhaps grandparenting is an opportunity to recreate the Tiny Years—to pause to be fully present, to leave no words unspoken, to have one last hug and kiss. Perhaps it’s a way to heal from past regret, to undo old cycles, to love a past version of a child they miss.
My parents confessed that time with my daughter reminds them so much of our Tiny Years together—only this time, free from immigrant debt and postpartum depression, and now with God’s guiding grace to live and love well.
This issue of AWC features was curated by
of Notes from the Town Hermit. If you enjoyed these picks, be sure to subscribe.
Oh wow! This is such an amazing initiative, Tiffany. I can’t wait to read all your recommendations and really savor them. Thank you for recommending my writing, too - I am beyond honored! My greatest wish these days is to have more time to read, since Substack keeps churning out these amazing, like-minded, and like-hearted writers. I applaud your efforts here at cultivating greater community and appreciation around Asian-American writing.👏🏼
Tiffany, wow, thank you so much for this gift. I’m so touched by how thoughtfully you read and receive my writing, and also by how you connect with the way I write. I’ve realised that all my essays take me at least two weeks to write, and this one took a whole month to come together and arrive. I’m taking this as the sign I needed to keep writing the way I write, especially during times when I feel that even Substack has started to move too fast for the way I want to live, write, create, and move through the world.
I’m so honoured to be included here among other writers, who write on themes that resonate deeply for me, and I’m really looking forward to reading your recommended pieces. Thank you again for the incredible work you do with building community and connecting us. It’s already had such impact, and I can imagine how the impact will be even more profound over time!