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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20251117T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20251117T200000
DTSTAMP:20251114T205313Z
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SUMMARY:Amitav Ghosh: Wild Fictions:  Essays on Literature\, Empire\, and the Environment
DESCRIPTION:A collection of essays on themes central to Ghosh’s work: imperialism and decolonization\, climate change\, and the stories of ordinary people\n\n\nJoin us for a conversation with the 2025 recipient of the Pak Kyongni Prize Amitav Ghosh to celebrate his newest collection of essays\, writings on subjects such as literature\, climate change\, travel\, and discoveries thread together with reflections on the spaces that we inhabit and how we occupy them. He will be in conversation with Gayatri Chakravorty\, followed by a signing. \nPLEASE NOTE: RSVPs are encouraged but not required. Seating is limited and will be first come\, first served. Doors open at 5:30 pm. \nCan’t attend? Order your signed copy (please specify that you would like it signed in the comments box at checkout). \n\n\n\nFrom the 2025 recipient of the Pak Kyongni Prize\, often referred to as Korea’s Nobel Prize in Literature. \nA collection of essays on themes central to Ghosh’s work: imperialism and decolonization\, climate change\, and the stories of ordinary people making lives amid these historical forces. \nWild Fictions brings together Amitav Ghosh’s extraordinary writings on subjects that have obsessed him over the last twenty-five years: literature and language; climate change and the environment; and human lives\, travel\, and discoveries. Threaded throughout the collection are his reflections on the spaces that we inhabit and how we occupy them. From the significance of the commodification of the clove to the diversity of the mangrove forests in Bengal and the radical fluidity of multilingualism\, Wild Fictions is a powerful refutation of imperial violence\, a fascinating exploration of the fictions we weave to absorb history\, and a reminder of the importance of sensitivity and empathy. \nWith the combination of moral passion\, intellectual curiosity\, and literary elegance that defines his writing\, Ghosh makes readers understand the world in new and urgent ways. Together\, the pieces in Wild Fictions chart a course that allows us to heal our relationships and restore the delicate balance with the volatile landscapes to which we all belong. \n  \n\n\n\nAmitav Ghosh is a novelist and essayist whose many books include the acclaimed Ibis Trilogy (Sea of Poppies\, River of Smoke\, and Flood of Fire)\, Gun Island\, Jungle Nama: A Story of the Sundarban\, The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable\, and The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis. His newest collection of nonfiction is Wild Fictions: Essays on Literature\, Empire\, and the Environment. \n\n\n\nGayatri Chakravorty Spivak is University Professor at Columbia University. She has won the Kyoto Prize\, the Padma Bhushan\, the Holberg Prize\, and Lifetime Distinguished Service awards from the Modern Language Association of America and the Columbia University Asian Faculty Association. She has written many books and holds honorary degrees from the Universities of Toronto\, London\, Rovira I Virgili\, Rabindra Bharati\, San Martín\, St. Andrews\, Chile\, Vincennes Saint-Denis\, Yale\, Ghana-Legon; Presidency University\, University of Paris-Nanterre\, Babes-Bolyai University\, International Center for Latin American Studies in Inclusive Education\, and Oberlin College. Humanities for social justice is her obsession.
URL:https://potluckasianamerica.org/event/wild-fictions-essays-on-literature-empire-and-the-environment/
LOCATION:Rizzoli Bookstore\, 1133 Broadway\, New York\, NY\, 10010\, United States
CATEGORIES:Book,In Person
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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250923T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250923T200000
DTSTAMP:20250904T025200Z
CREATED:20250828T030736Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250904T025200Z
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SUMMARY:Cook Like a King by Melissa King with Esther Choi
DESCRIPTION:Award winning chef Melissa King blends her California sensibility with the Chinese cuisine of her childhood in her debut cookbook\n\n\nJoin us for a conversation with Top Chef: All-stars champion Melissa King to celebrate her debut cookbook\, a collection of unforgettable recipes crafted from a lifetime spent cooking for her family\, in restaurants\, and on tv. She will be in conversation with Esther Choi\, followed by a signing. \nPLEASE NOTE: \n\nThis event is ticketed.\nBook purchase is required to enter the signing line.\nThis event is mixed seated/standing. Seats are first come\, first served.\nDoors open at 5:30 pm.\nCan’t attend? Order your signed copy here (please specify that you would like it signed in the comments box at checkout).\n\n\n\n\nIn her debut cookbook\, Top Chef All-Stars champion and award-winning chef Melissa King shares 120 of her favorite dishes\, blending her California sensibility with the Chinese cuisine of her childhood. \nFrom the moment she could see over the kitchen counter\, King would spend hours in the kitchen with her mom. For King\, the kitchen was a place to play with fire and knives. Now\, it’s a space where King can express herself\, melding the Cantonese flavors with which she grew up and the French\, Italian\, and Californian ones of the Michelin-starred restaurants in which she trained. \nCook Like a King features 120 unforgettable dishes that showcase King’s effortless blending of these cuisines\, like in her Lemongrass Cioppino and Miso Caesar with Gai Lan and Chrysanthemum Greens. She includes nostalgic\, homestyle dishes like her grandmother’s Shanghainese Lion’s Head Meatballs and her mother’s Black Vinegar Ribs\, and\, of course\, her famous Hong Kong Milk Tea Tiramisu\, which made renowned Italian butcher and Top Chef guest judge Dario Cecchini shed tears of joy. \nKing keeps the needs of the home cook in mind\, making recipes accessible while inspiring readers to experiment with food\, culture\, and flavor. Her recipes\, crafted from a lifetime spent cooking for her Chinese family\, in restaurants\, and on television\, show how simple techniques\, attention\, and graceful application of the Asian pantry can elevate familiar dishes and create new\, thrilling classics. With stunning photography\, personal stories\, and expert guidance\, Cook Like a King is a thoughtful\, playful examination of the flavors that shape our lives. \n\n\n\nChef Melissa King is a Cantonese American\, Bay Area Michelin-star trained chef. She’s most known as the winner of Top Chef: All-Stars\, winning the most challenges of any season\, and the host of Tasting Wild with National Geographic. She’s an award- winning chef entrepreneur\, TV personality\, model\, and LGBTQ and AAPI philanthropist. She has curated menus for events such as the Met Gala and was also featured on an AAPI special for Sesame Street. Her unique style of cooking combines modern California cuisine with Asian flavors.
URL:https://potluckasianamerica.org/event/cook-like-a-king-by-melissa-king-with-esther-choi-ticketed/
LOCATION:Rizzoli Bookstore\, 1133 Broadway\, New York\, NY\, 10010\, United States
CATEGORIES:Book,In Person
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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250709T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250709T200000
DTSTAMP:20250709T142944Z
CREATED:20250627T143723Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250709T142944Z
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SUMMARY:A Bomb Placed Close to the Heart by Nishant Batsha
DESCRIPTION:Nishant Batsha’s expansive and poignant novel of love\, radical ambition\, and intellectual rebirth set at the dawn of World War I.\n\n\nJoin us for a conversation with author Nishant Batsha to celebrate his new book\, the extraordinary story of a marriage caught at the intersection of radical politics and everyday life. He’ll be speaking with Executive Director of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop Jafreen Uddin\, followed by a signing. \nThis event is co-presented by AAWW. \nPLEASE NOTE: RSVPs are encouraged but not required. Seating is limited and will be first come\, first served. Doors open at 5:30 pm. \nCan’t attend? Order your signed copy (please specify that you would like it signed in the comments box at checkout). \n\n\n\nAn expansive and poignant novel of love\, radical ambition\, and intellectual rebirth set at the dawn of World War I \nAt a party near Stanford University’s campus in 1917\, Cora Trent\, a graduate student raised in the rugged mining towns of the American West\, meets Indra Mukherjee\, an Indian revolutionary newly arrived in California. Indra is grieving the recent loss of a friend and unsure of the place violence has in the cause of national liberation\, while Cora is seeking a new life that stays true to her aspirations as a writer and an idealist. They spark an instant connection\, and their passionate romance deepens as they attend protests alongside anticolonial dissidents and socialize with eccentric thinkers in Berkeley and Palo Alto. All the while\, Indra awaits orders from a mysterious German spymaster. \nCora and Indra quickly marry\, even as the United States is drawn into the conflict in Europe and wartime patriotism begins to give way to increasing intolerance. When news of arrests threatens their future together\, they are forced to flee to New York City with the hope that they can avoid the attention of the British and American authorities. Trying to find footing in their new life\, Cora and Indra must reckon with divergent ambitions that challenge the foundations of their hasty marriage—and their freedom. \nProfound\, immersive\, tenderly written\, and with finely wrought characters drawn from the forgotten archives of American history\, A Bomb Placed Close to the Heart is an extraordinary story of a marriage caught at the intersection of radical politics and everyday life. \n\n\n\nNishant Batsha is the author of the novel Mother Ocean Father Nation\, named a finalist for a 2023 Lambda Literary Award and listed as one the best books of 2022 by NPR\, among other honors. He lives in Buffalo\, New York\, with his family. \n\n\n\nJafreen Uddin is Executive Director of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop\, a national literary nonprofit dedicated to amplifying Asian and Asian diasporic storytelling. She is the first woman to lead the organization since its founding in 1991. She previously served as Deputy Director of Development for Special Events at PEN America and as Events Manager with the Brennan Center for Justice. Jafreen regularly supports and volunteers her time with a number of arts and social change organizations\, including serving on the Steering Committee for LitNet and as a Literary Council Member for the Brooklyn Book Festival.
URL:https://potluckasianamerica.org/event/a-bomb-placed-close-to-the-heart-by-nishant-batsha/
LOCATION:Rizzoli Bookstore\, 1133 Broadway\, New York\, NY\, 10010\, United States
CATEGORIES:Book,In Person
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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20250502T183000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20250502T200000
DTSTAMP:20250412T044111Z
CREATED:20250412T043706Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250412T044111Z
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SUMMARY:Vietnamese Writers in the Diaspora on Displacement\, Creativity\, & Otherness
DESCRIPTION:Fifty years since the Fall of Saigon\, writers examine the legacies of displacement and creativity that have shaped the Vietnamese diaspora.\n\n\nDVAN\, the Creative Writing MFA Program at the New School\, Poets & Writers\, and The Brooklyn Rail\, with support from the Authors’ Guild and AAWW\, present Viet Thanh Nguyen with Cathy Linh Che\, Lan Duong\, Isabelle Thuy Pelaud\, and Monique Truong. \nFifty years since the Fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War\, our panel will discuss two new books about the legacies of displacement and creativity that have profoundly shaped Vietnamese communities worldwide. The Cleaving is an unprecedented collection edited by Pelaud\, Duong\, and Nguyen\, featuring 37 Vietnamese writers on their complex ties to their homeland. To Save and To Destroy: Writing As An Other is a deeply personal and analytical meditation by Viet Thanh Nguyen on the role of literature in shaping solidarity and addressing historical wounds. \n  \nPLEASE NOTE: \n\nThis event is mixed seated/standing. Seating is limited and will be first come\, first served.\nRSVP is encouraged but not required.\nDoors open at 6 pm.\nCan’t attend? Order your signed copy of The Cleaving or To Save and to Destroy (please specify that you would like it signed in the comments box at checkout).\n\n\n\n\nViet Thanh Nguyen is the author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Sympathizer and of Nothing Ever Dies\, a finalist for the National Book Award. A recipient of the MacArthur Foundation and Guggenheim fellowships and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences\, Nguyen is Aerol Arnold Chair of English and Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity at the University of Southern California. He is the first Asian American member of the Pulitzer Prize Board. Born in Vietnam\, Nguyen arrived in the United States as a child refugee with his parents and grew up in San Jose\, CA\, where his family opened the city’s second Vietnamese grocery store. He lives in Pasadena\, CA. His most revent book is TO SAVE AND TO DESTROY: Writing as an other. \n\n\nCathy Linh Che is a writer and multidisciplinary artist. She is the author of Becoming Ghost (Washington Square Press\, 2025)\, Split (Alice James Books) and co-author\, with Kyle Lucia Wu\, of the children’s book An Asian American A to Z: a Children’s Guide to Our History (Haymarket Books). Her video installation Appocalips is an Open Call commission with The Shed NY\, and her film We Were the Scenery won the Short Film Jury Award: Nonfiction at the Sundance Film Festival. \n\n\nLan Duong is Associate Professor in Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Southern California. She is the author of Treacherous Subjects: Gender\, Culture\, and Trans-Vietnamese Feminism\, coeditor of Troubling Borders: Southeast Asian Women in the Diaspora\, and cowriter of Departures: An Introduction. Dr. Duong’s second book project\, Transnational Vietnamese Cinemas and the Archives of Memory\, examines Vietnamese films across history and across several institutional and community-oriented sites. Her book of poems\, Nothing Follows\, was published by Texas Tech University Press in 2023. She is a founding member of the Critical Refugee Studies Collective. \n\n\nIsabelle Thuy Pelaud is a professor at SF State University interested in the role of race and war in shaping identity and cultural productions. She wrote the very first book on Vietnamese American literature titled This Is All I Choose To Tell: History and Hybridity in Vietnamese American Literature and co-edited the award winning book Troubling Borders: An Anthology of Art and Literature by Southeast Asian Women in the Diaspora. After growing up in France\, she moved to the United States where she earned her doctorate from UC Berkeley and spent her career identifying the unique barriers facing Vietnamese American writers prior and after writing a book. Her academic work has been featured in The Cambridge History of Asian American Literature\, Themes in Contemporary North American Fiction\, Journal of Asian American Studies\, The Asian American Literary Review\, Amerasia Journal\, and Michigan Quarterly Review. She is now working on her creative writing. \nAs an Ethnic Studies Scholar\, Isabelle Thuy Pelaud devoted her life to rectifying the systemic and cultural barriers she identified in her scholarships. To this aim\, she co-founded with Pulitzer Prize winner Viet Thanh Nguyen a non-profit organization called the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network (DVAN.org). For almost two decades Nguyen and Pelaud created\, through this organization\, opportunities for diasporic Vietnamese writers to be nurtured and empowered\, and for their work to be more visible. In three years for exemple\, they helped publish 18 books. Their last book The Cleaving: Vietnamese Writers in the Diaspora that they co-edited with Lan Duong is the direct result of their activist and academic works. This collection of dialogues shows with utmost clarity that their fight is absolutely needed and is highly relevant to American culture. \n\n\nBorn in Saigon\, South Vietnam (now Ho Chi Minh City\, Vietnam)\, Monique Truong came to the U.S. as a refugee in 1975. She’s a novelist\, essayist\, children’s picture book author\, and librettist. Her novels are The Sweetest Fruits (Viking\, 2019)\, Bitter in the Mouth (Random House\, 2010)\, and the national bestseller The Book of Salt (Houghton Mifflin\, 2003). Her children’s picture book Mai’s Áo Dài (Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books\, 2025) is co-written with Thai Nguyen and illustrated by Dung Ho. Along with Barbara Tran and Khoi Luu\, she’s a contributing co-editor of Watermark: Vietnamese American Poetry & Prose\, 25th Anniversary Edition (Texas Tech University Press/DVAN Series\, 2023). A graduate of Yale College and Columbia Law School\, she’s a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship\, Princeton University’s Hodder Fellowship\, Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters\, New York Public Library’s Young Lions Award\, Bard Fiction Prize\, and John Dos Passos Prize for Literature\, among other honors. \n\n\n\nThe first and only book to gather the voices and perspectives of Vietnamese diasporic authors from across the globe. \nEdited by Isabelle Thuy Pelaud\, Lan P. Duong\, and Pulitzer Prize–winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen\, The Cleaving brings together Vietnamese artists and writers from around the world in conversation about their craft and how their work has been shaped and received by mainstream culture and their own communities. This collection highlights how Vietnamese diasporic writers speak about having been cleaved—a condition in which they have been separated from\, yet still hew to\, the country that they have left behind. \nComposed of eighteen dialogues among thirty-seven writers from France\, Indonesia\, Kyrgyzstan\, Canada\, Australia\, Israel\, and the United States\, the book expands on the many lives that Vietnamese writers inhabit. The dialogues touch on family history\, legacies of colonialism and militarism\, and the writers’ own artistic and literary achievements. Taken together\, these conversations insist on a deeper reckoning with the conditions of displacement. \nFeatured writers: Hoai Huong Aubert-Nguyen\, Amy Quan Barry\, Doan Bui\, Thi Bui\, Lan Cao\, Cathy Linh Che\, André Dao\, Duy Đoàn\, Lan P. Duong\, Dương Vân Mai Elliott\, Le Ly Hayslip\, Matt Huynh\, Violet Kupersmith\, Thanhhà Lại\, Vincent Lam\, T.K. Lê\, Tracey Lien\, Marcelino Trương Lực \, Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai\, Anna Möi\, Beth (Bich) Minh Nguyen\, Diana Khoi Nguyen\, Hieu Minh Nguyen\, Hoa Nguyen\, Philip Nguyễn\, Thảo Nguyễn\, Vaan Nguyen\, Viet Thanh Nguyen\, Isabelle Thuy Pelaud\, Andrew X. Pham\, Aimee Phan\, Abbigail Nguyen Rosewood\, Bao Phi\, Dao Strom\, Kim Thúy\, Paul Tran\, Monique Truong\, Minh Huynh Vu\, Ocean Vuong \n\n\n\nFrom the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sympathizer (now an HBO series) comes a moving and unflinchingly personal meditation on the literary forms of otherness and a bold call for expansive political solidarity. \nBorn in war-ravaged Vietnam\, Viet Nguyen arrived in the United States as a child refugee in 1975. The Nguyen family would soon move to San Jose\, California\, where the author grew up\, attending UC Berkeley in the aftermath of the shocking murder of Vincent Chin\, which shaped the political sensibilities of a new generation of Asian Americans. \nThe essays here\, delivered originally as the prestigious Norton Lectures\, proffer a new answer to a classic literary question: What does the outsider mean to literary writing? Over the course of six captivating and moving chapters\, Nguyen explores the idea of being an outsider through lenses that are\, by turns\, literary\, historical\, political\, and familial. \nEach piece moves between writers who influenced Nguyen’s craft and weaves in the haunting story of his late mother’s mental illness. Nguyen unfolds the novels and nonfiction of Herman Melville\, F. Scott Fitzgerald\, Ralph Ellison\, William Carlos Williams\, and Maxine Hong Kingston\, until aesthetic theories give way to pressing concerns raised by war and politics. What is a writer’s responsibility in a time of violence? Should we celebrate fiction that gives voice to the voiceless—or do we confront the forces that render millions voiceless in the first place? What are the burdens and pleasures of the “minor” writer in any society? Unsatisfied with the modest inclusion accorded to “model minorities” such as Asian Americans\, Nguyen sets the agenda for a more radical and disquieting solidarity with those whose lives have been devastated by imperialism and forever wars. \n\n\n\nThis event is co-sponsored by the Arts Writing concentration of The New School’s MFA Creative Writing Program. \n\n\n\n\nThis event is funded in part by Poets & Writers through public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs\, in partnership with the City Council.
URL:https://potluckasianamerica.org/event/vietnamese-writers-in-the-diaspora-on-displacement-creativity-otherness/
LOCATION:Rizzoli Bookstore\, 1133 Broadway\, New York\, NY\, 10010\, United States
CATEGORIES:Book,In Person
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