AAWW Fave: Migrant Father Fragment (ft. lê thị diễm thúy, M Zhang, & Hua Hsu)

Now that we’ve published over 50 episodes of AAWW Radio, we’re selecting a few of our favorites to republish for our new listeners. One of our earliest episodes is Migrant Father Fragment from 2017 featuring authors lê thị diễm thúy, Q.M. Zhang, and moderated by Hua Hsu. It features wonderful readings of their books The Gangster We Are All Looking For and Accomplice to Memory and an incisive conversation about their writing process and putting memories to paper. Q.M. Zhang and lê thị diễm thúy, writers of fragmented, hybridic, family narratives explore themes of immigration, grief, and the father with The New Yorker’s Hua Hsu. A hybrid memoir/novel that’s part espionage, part historical documentary, Q.M. Zhang’s Accomplice to Memory tells the story of her father’s mysterious exodus from China during the country’s Civil War and WWII: all the silence and love that you’ve come to know from your Asian immigrant family, but with added subterfuge and geopolitics. Guggenheim Fellow lê thị diễm thúy, whose recent Asian American classic, The Gangster We Are All Looking For, tells the collage-like, semi-autobiographical story of a refugee family that immigrates to San Diego, leaving behind a stark past of war and liberation in Vietnam. Watch the video for Migrant Father Fragment here.