AAWW Radio: New Asian American Writers & Literature - Insurrecto & Filipinx Resistance ft. Gina Apostol & Sabina Murray

Insurrecto & Filipinx Resistance ft. Gina Apostol & Sabina Murray

02/27/19 • 86 min

AAWW Radio: New Asian American Writers & Literature

Gina Apostol’s latest work of fiction, Insurrecto, is a tour de force about about the Philippines’ past and present told through rivaling scripts from an American filmmaker and her Filipino translator. The book was one of the New York Times’ Editor’s Choices for 2018 and won comparisons to Nabokov and Borges for its kaleidoscopic structure. With her trademark wit, uncommon humor, layering of forgotten histories and dueling narratives, Gina tells the story of the atrocities that faced Filipinos who rose up against their colonizers during the Philippine-American war at the turn of the 20th century.

Gina Apostol reads from Insurrecto and then is joined by Filipina-Australian writer Sabina Murray, author of the novel Valiant Gentlemen. Together they discuss weaving together nonlinear narratives, the uselessness of white guilt, Duterte reprising the role of the American colonizer in the Philippines through violence, and much more.

Featuring the songs Ang Lupa ang Dahilan & Agit Speech by Material Support, a Filipina-fronted agit punk band from New York City, agitated by state repression, government corruption, and patriarchy.

Watch the event on our YouTube Channel!

Featuring the songs Ang Lupa ang Dahilan & Agit Speech by Material Support, a Filipina-fronted agit punk band from New York City, agitated by state repression, government corruption, and patriarchy.

Watch the event on our YouTube Channel!

Previous Episode

Subjects of Interest (ft. Kamila Shamsie, Hirsh Sawhney, & Rozina Ali)

In 2017, we hosted novelists Kamila Shamsie and Hirsh Sawhney, both writers who released new novels about South Asian families fractured in the diaspora. Kamila Shamsie’s novel Home Fire takes Sophocles’s classic tragedy Antigone as the starting point for her novel about political tensions in the War on Terror and the way it impacts Muslim families in the West. Hirsh Sawhney’s debut novel South Haven illustrates how grief complicates and splinters intimacy in an Indian-American family.

The two authors read from their work, and talk with journalist Rozina Ali about power structures, American Empire in literature, the collective grief following Partition in 1947, the rise of Hindu fundamentalism, as well as speak to America’s complicity in the formation of ISIS, and debunk myths on the War on Terror.

The authors also do a deep dive on craft, and discuss authenticity and the responsible imagination; as well as how to control (and not control) when your audience misreads your writing.

Next Episode

Pachinko (ft. Min Jin Lee & Ken Chen)

We're featuring audio from a 2017 event collaboration with the Tenement Museum. We celebrated the launch of author Min Jin Lee’s second novel Pachinko, which was a New York Times Notable Book of 2017 and National Book Award Finalist. Pachinko follows one Korean family through generations. The story begins in Korea in the early 1900s and then moves to Japan. The family endures harsh discrimination, catastrophe, and poverty. They also encounter joy as they rise to meet the challenges their new home presents. Through desperate struggle and hard-won triumph, they are bound together by deep roots that are set as their family faces enduring questions of faith, family, and identity. Min Jin Lee reads from her novel and then is interviewed by Ken Chen, the executive director of the Asian American Writers Workshop. They discuss her extensive research and interview process, how growing up in Queens, New York helped her write Pachinko, and much more.

Watch the full event on our YouTube channel, as well as our other past events.