Restless Books is proud to be publishing the winner of its first Prize for New Immigrant Writing in nonfiction: Filipino-American debut author Grace Talusan’s memoir, The Body Papers. In her artful and searching book, Talusan sheds light on dark experiences: childhood abuse, multiple preventive surgeries, being an undocumented immigrant, depression, fraught family dynamics, and her struggle to reconcile cultural identities as a Filipino immigrant. Weaving in government documents, medical records, immigration papers, and family photographs, The Body Papers is a moving, timely, and ultimately uplifting narrative of what women’s bodies can be made to endure. Grace teaches at Tufts and Grub Street in Boston, and she’s embarking in a country-wide author tour in 2019. Catch her at the below events!
Mar. 18, 2019: Elliott Bay Bookstore (Seattle, WA)
Mar. 23, 2019: Filipino American National Historical Society (Seattle, WA)
Mar. 28, 2019: AWP Conference (Portland, OR)
Mar. 28, 2019: Powell's Books with Alex Marzano-Lesnevich (Portland, OR)
Apr. 3, 2019: Porter Square Bookstore with Celeste Ng and Jenna Blum (Cambridge, MA)
Apr. 7, 2019: Grub Street Muse and Marketplace Conference (Boston, MA)
Apr. 8, 2019: Rizzoli Bookstore (New York, NY)
Apr. 9, 2019: Columbia University with Gina Apostol and Meredith Talusan (New York, NY)
Apr. 11, 2019: Tell-All Boston (Boston, MA)
Apr. 13, 2019: USM Glickman Library (Portland, ME)
Apr. 19, 2019: Red Ink Reading Series at Books Are Magic (Brooklyn, NY)
Apr. 25, 2019: University of California Irvine Illuminations Authors Reading (Irvine, CA)
Apr. 27, 2019: Skylight Bookstore (Los Angeles, CA)
Apr. 28, 2019: Eastwind Bookstore with Patty Enrado (Berkeley, CA)
Apr. 30, 2019: San Francisco Public Library (San Francisco, CA)
May 5, 2019: Bay Area Book Festival (Berkeley, CA)
May 8, 2019: PEN World Voices Festival: “Literary Quest” at the Tenement Museum (New York, NY)
May 11: PEN World Voices Festival: “It Happened to Me” at SubCulture (New York, NY)
May 23, 2019: Brookline Booksmith with Ilan Stavans and Anjali Singh (Brookline, MA)
June 12, 2019: Belmont Books (Belmont, MA)
Jun. 22, 2019: When You Can't Go Home Again: Refugee and Exile Authors in the U.S. (Washington, DC)
Jun 26, 2019: Politics and Prose with Aaron Bobrow-Strain (Washington, DC)
Jun. 29, 2019: Philippine Expressions Bookshop (San Pedro, CA)
Aug. 8, 2019: Carmichael’s Bookstore (Louisville, KY)
Nov. 17, 2019: Von Bar Sunday Salon (New York, NY)
Nov. 23-24, 2019: Miami Book Fair International (Miami, FL)
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About the Author
Grace Talusan was born in the Philippines and raised in New England. A graduate of Tufts University and the MFA Program in Writing at UC Irvine, she is the recipient of a U.S. Fulbright Fellowship to the Philippines and an Artist Fellowship Award from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Talusan teaches the Essay Incubator at GrubStreet and at the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts. She is the Fannie Hurst Writer-in-Residence at Brandeis University for 2019–2021. The Body Papers, winner of the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing, is her first book.
By Grace Talusan
Winner of the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing
Winner of the Massachusetts Book Award for Nonfiction
Grace Talusan’s critically acclaimed memoir The Body Papers, a New York Times Editors’ Choice selection, powerfully explores the fraught contours of her own life as a Filipino immigrant and survivor of cancer and childhood abuse.
Paperback ISBN: 9781632060242 • Mar 3, 2020
Hardcover ISBN: 9781632061836 • Apr 9, 2019