Asian American Classics with Alexander Chee, Jessica Hagedorn, & Hua Hsu

Penguin Classics is republishing four Asian American classics, offering a perfect chance for readers to learn more about the rich history of Asian American literature before 1965: The Hanging On Union Square by H.T. Hsiang; East Does West by Younghill Kang; No-No Boy by John Okada; and America Is In The Heart by Carlos Bulosan.

Join us for a celebration of four canonical Asian American texts! Whiting Award-winner Alexander Chee reads from East Goes West, Younghill Kang’s 1937 picaresque satire about a Shakespeare-loving Korean immigrant’s sojourn through America. National Book Award Finalist Jessica Hagedorn shares a passage from Carlos Bulosan’s Cultural Front novel America Is In the Heart, which follows a Filipino migrant farmworker affected by imperialism abroad and racial abuse here. New Yorker contributor Hua Hsu touches on H.T. Hsiang’s The Hanging On Union Square, an oddball novel written about the milieu of the early 20th Century Left by an undocumented communist immigrant and Hollywood extra. Moderated by Ken Chen.