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© Eliza Romero

Hear Grace Talusan, author of The Body Papers, in conversation with Eliza Romero of Decolonize Your Bookshelves.

Not every family legacy is destructive. From her parents, Talusan has learned to tell stories in order to continue. In excavating abuse and trauma, and supplementing her story with government documents, medical records, and family photos, Talusan gives voice to unspeakable experience, and shines a light of hope into the darkness.

Decolonize Your Bookshelves is a book club founded by blogger and activist Eliza Romero, also known as Aesthetic Distance. The group will focus on Asian American writers who tell stories of struggle and triumph, and explore themes of civil unrest, assimilation, racism, and profound alienation. Because a disproportionate number East Asian writers are represented in the American mainstream compared with other Asians, the club will delve into the works of South and Southeast Asian authors , including Filipino, Indian and Vietnamese creators. The goal: thought-provoking discourse that reveal the absolute necessity of these works to the American collective identity.

Where: Enoch Pratt Central Library, France-Merrick Creative Arts Center, 400 Cathedral Street, Baltimore, MD 21201

When: Tuesday, October 22 at 6:30 PM

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.

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