May 11
May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month! Here are some queer reads to get you going.
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May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month! Here are some queer reads to get you going.
Celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month with 22 Great Queer Reads!
May is wrapping up, and with the end of May comes the end of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. There are so so so many great books coming out by AAPI authors starring AAPI characters, and so – here’s a list of some of our favorites! All of these are either BY AAPI authors, have AAPI main characters, or – in most cases – both! The contributors to this list are: Shadaras, Tris Lawrence, Nina Waters, D.V. Morse, Terra P. Waters, theirprofoundbond, Annabeth Lynch and an anonymous contributor.
Not Your Sidekick (Sidekick Squad series) by C.B. Lee
The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea by Maggie Tokuda-Hall
Phoenix Extravagant by Yoon Ha Lee
“Eldest Daughter Seeks Her Wife” by N. C. Farrell from She Wears the Midnight Crown
Babel by R.F. Kuang
The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez
The Water Outlaws by S.L. Huang
Black Water Sister by Zen Cho
If You’ll Have Me by Eunnie
Roadqueen: Eternal Roadtrip to Love by Mira Ong Chua
They Called Us Enemy by George Takei, Justin Eisinger & Steven Scott
The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang
Away With the Fairies by Annabeth Lynch
Meal by Blue Delliquanti & Soleil Ho
Firebird by Sunmi
After the Dragons by Cynthia Zhang
Iron Widow (Iron Widow series) by Xiran Jay Zhao
The Problem with Wishes by Annabeth Lynch
Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki
Hold Me (Cyclone series) by Courtney Milan
Sea Change by Gina Chung
Clash of Steel: A Treasure Island Remix by C.B. Lee
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You can view this list, and all our other lists, as shelves on Goodreads.
Woman, Eating by Claire Kohda takes the vampire motif and applies it to a mixed race Asian woman in the UK, born to a Japanese human father and a Malaysian vampire mother, both women struggling to fit in with society and with feeling at ease in their "unnatural" bodies; to the extent that they start practicing self-denial and austerity because the more they consume what their bodies need them to, the further away they are moved from the status quo, being alienated by society. Relegated to something monstrous.
Mixed with the idea of vampirism is the idea of food. Food in the sense of something that nurtures humans, that makes them what they are, food as love, food as proof that things can be fed to the body to change its composition, to make it a malleable subject. To be denied this sustenance (for vampires can only leech off the blood of others, their bodies forever preserved and eternal) is to cling defiantly to hunger, to say I don't belong here with normal folks, this space is not mine; I don't suppose there is anything I can do about it–do I deserve to remain unsatiated?
Food is also cultural and local identity. In one scene, the protagonist watches a Korean vegan social media influencer speak about how she is shunned by her community because of rejecting meat: a staple aspect of Korean cuisine (interestingly, this exact idea forms the basis of the The Vegetarian the 2007 novel by Han Kang). She speaks, too, of how much prominence food plays in Asian culture–New Year noodles, rice-cake soup, beans and ceremonial dishes. Food is the most primitive currency of human life, a cultural language that gives places and people their identity. For a vampire, cut off from human meals, there is no tradition, no history. The only way a vampire can experience life is by stealing the lives of others, by glimpsing the memories that pass down through blood and DNA, as an outsider, a parasite.
The allegory of cultural disconnection/conflicted racial identity is mixed with the internalized shame of a body that cannot access the most fundamental of human experiences: to belong to a system, to consume, to be consumed.
I guess you could say it is a good book, and that I have been thinking about it. It is flawed, but still has something new and fresh to say about vampires, about different identities connected to different diets, and about loneliness and marginalization. It made me feel the same way Earthlings (Sayaka Murata) and Walking Practice (Dolki Min) did. Even if I hate the cover and think it is the most uninspiring litfic Caravaggio painting aesthetic, and the cover designer's note is absurdly reductive. Good read for a modern work, that turns vampirism as a concept on its head.
AAAPI Books: Bobbi Kaur l Tastes Like Shakkar by Nisha Sharma
He does like you. This does way beyond passionate paranthas, Bobbi. He’s talking to his friends about you.
Happy Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month!! Here are some AAPI book 📚 recs!! :3
It’s Feral Friday!
This week we’re taking a look at This Land is My Land, a newly acquired addition to our collection from book artist, concrete poet, & graphic designer Thad Higa. This 100-page work is “a fictional narrative from the imagined headspace of current day, online white supremacists, nationalists, and their sympathizers”. It was digitally printed, features Coptic binding with uncovered boards as well as two multi-page foldouts, and was self-published in a limited edition of 50 numbered copies in Oakland, CA in 2023.
Higa is an Okinawan-Korean American cultural worker born in California in 1989 and raised in Hawaiʻi. His practice “investigates the intersections of language, technology, capitalism and eurocentrism, and their roles in controlling perceptions of reality and legibility.” In This Land is My Land, Higa “weaves together all manner of rhetorical devices and strategies, creating an experience familiar to anyone who has read the comments on an online article or listened to attendees at a Trump rally.” The structure of the book inherently encourages interaction, emphasizing the participatory and performative nature not only of reading & text-based communication but also of the formation and enaction of political identity.
His work has been highlighted on the Lantern Review, Artists’ Book Reviews, Art Review, Art Papers & Hawai’i Public Radio, and featured in the exhibitions whistling the avant garde (Small Press Traffic, San Francisco CA, 2023) and O, (FiveMyles, Brooklyn NY, 2021).
--Ana, Special Collections Graduate Intern
View more Feral Friday posts.
View more Artists’ Books posts.
View more Concrete Poetry posts.
View more Graphic Design posts.
AAPI Heritage Month Hopefuls
(books I want to read if I can get them)
Rise of the Manō by Leialoha Humpherys
Poūkahangatus by Tayi Tibble
Into the Riverlands by Nghi Vo
Hula by Jasmin ‘Iolani Hakes
Vā: Stories of the Women of the Moana edited by Sisilia Eteuati and Lani Wendt Young
The Wild Ones by Nafiza Azad
Song of Silver, Flame Like Night by Amélie Wen Zhao
The Last Bloodcarver by Vanessa Le
The Do’s and Donuts of Love by Adiba Jaigirdar
Zachary Ying and the Dragon Emperor by Xiran Jay Zhao
Weird Fishes by Rae Mariz
The Marvelous Mirza Girls by Sheba Karim
One Boy, No Water by Lehua Parker
The Bone People by Keri Hulme
The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea by Axie Oh
The Wonders We Seek by Saadia Faruqi & Aneesa Mumtaz
Dragonfruit by Makiia Lucier
The Dragon Prince: Stories and Legends From Vietnam edited by Thich Nhat Hanh
The Emperor and the Endless Palace by Justinian Huang
Muslim Girls Rise by Saira Amir
Fish Swimming In Dappled Sunlight by Alison Watts & Riku Onda
Red, White, and Whole by Rajani LaRocco
Banyan Moon by Thao Thai
Force Of Fire by Sayantani DasGupta
Rangikura by Tayi Tibble
Writing In Color by multiple authors (including but not limited to Nafiza Azad, Axie Oh, Joan He, Chloe Gong, and Darcie Little Badger)
I will be reblogging with reviews as I finish these!
May 27th- Aapi Heritage Month
Ok, so for today I have a Manhua\novel rec
Heaven Officials Blessing\Tian Guan Ci Fu by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu
(TGCF by MXTX)
There is a Manhua (comic), Novel, Donghua (animation), Audio Drama, and other forms of it. The story is really interesting and the art is beautiful. I really reccomended it.