Here are 10 great books by queer AAPI authors for Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month
Happy Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month! LGBTQ+ pioneers and changemakers in the AAPI community have been systematically left out of many cultural conversations. So, to reflect on the past and present of the community, there’s no better way than to curl up with a book and lose yourself in a vibrant tapestry of storytelling.
Here’s our round-up of 10 works written by queer Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) authors.
Last Night at the Telegraph Club
By: Malinda Lo
In this young adult historical novel, Last Night at the Telegraph Club is a coming-to-age story about a Chinese American girl navigating her queerness at a time of violence and chaos for the LGBTQ+ community. Seventeen years old Lily Hu is unsure of the precise time when the question took root, but the answer was evident as soon as she and Kathleen Miller passed the blinking neon sign of the Telegraph Club, a lesbian bar.
Chinatown is not a safe location for two girls to fall in love in 1954 America. Red-Scare paranoia threatens everyone, including Chinese Americans like Lily. Despite her father’s hard-earned citizenship, deportation is imminent, so Lily and Kath are willing to do everything it takes to make their love a reality.
Like a Love Story
By: Abdi Nazemian
In this young adult historical novel, Judy aspires to be a fashion designer and is inspired by her uncle Stephen, a gay man with AIDS who dedicates his life to combating prejudice against the queer community. Reza immediately wins Judy over, and they begin dating. The issue? Reza is growing more and more infatuated with Art, the lone gay student at their school. These three teenagers must learn to love and trust each other in spite of the politics surrounding the AIDS crisis and their shared love for Madonna.
No One Can Pronounce My Name
By: Rakesh Satyal
In this fiction novel, Mid-forties Harit is a lone Indian immigrant who lives with his mother, who is mentally unfit following the death of Harit’s sister, Swati. Harit has started disguising himself as his sister every night by dressing in a sari in an attempt to maintain his mother’s sanity. Ranjana, an Indian immigrant who is also in her mid forties, recently watched her lone kid, Prashant, leave for college. She hides her writing of paranormal romances to escape her worries that her husband has started an affair. The unlikely but essential bond that develops between Harit and Ranjana when their paths meet reveals their respective desires and anxieties.
No One Can Pronounce My Name is a unique, humorous, and perceptive look into the lives of people who must balance the limits of their culture and traditions with their own goals and desires.
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
By: Ocean Vuong
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a letter written by a son to his mother who cannot read. Written when Little Dog is in his late twenties, the letter opens a door into parts of his life his mother has never known and uncovers a family history that started before he was even born, with its epicenter rooted in Vietnam. The power of sharing one’s own experience and the deafening quiet of not being heard are two themes that are explored in equal measure in the poem, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous.
Ocean Vuong writes of people caught between different worlds with astonishing urgency and elegance, and she wonders how we might save and heal one another without sacrificing who we are. The most significant first novel in a long time is driven by the dilemma of how to survive and turn tragedy into a type of delight.
Samoan Queer Lives
By: Dan Taulapapa McMullin
Samoan Queer Lives is an anthology of individual narratives from one of the unique indigenous queer cultures in the world.
This book is the first of its type, including 14 autobiographical tales from Samoans who identify as fa`afafine and LGBTIQ and who live in Samoa, America Samoa, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, and the United States. Features an introduction and foreword written by co-editors Yuki Kihara and Dan Taulapapa McMullin. Every narrative has a portrait to go with it.
Poukahangatus: Poems
By: Tayi Tibble
Poukahangatus is the highly regarded young poet’s American debut, in which she delves into her identity as an Indigenous woman of the twenty-first century. Tibble paves the ground for a daring new approach to engaging history by balancing modernity with ancestry, exploitation, and desire in each poem.
Pizza Girl
By: Jean Kyoung Frazier
Our endearingly flawed heroine, who is eighteen years old, pregnant, and employed as a pizza delivery girl in a suburban Los Angeles neighborhood, is profoundly confused and living a delusional life. In addition to blatantly ignoring her future, she is avoiding her loving boyfriend and supportive mother while grieving the loss of her father—with whom she shares more similarities than she would like to acknowledge.
In this adult fiction, Jenny, a new stay-at-home mother in the neighborhood, who gets dependent on weekly deliveries of pickled wrapped pizzas for her son’s delight, further upends her world. The two women’s relationship starts to become more hazy in odd, complex, and ultimately painful ways as one approaches childbirth and the other approaches middle life.
The Subtweet
By: Vivek Shraya
While falling in love is a common topic of conversation, friendship can also be rather captivating. In this fiction, A life-changing friendship blossoms between two musicians after Rukmini, a well-known musician on the internet, covers one of Neela Devaki’s songs. However, jealousy and self-doubt begin to surface as Rukmini’s star rises and Neela’s stagnates. One tweet causes one friendship to collapse, one job to be wrecked, and the two women to become the focus of an online furor.
More Than Organs
By: Kay Ulanday Barrett
More Than Organs by Kay Ulanday Barrett is a love letter to Brown, Queer, and Trans possibilities that explores “whatever wholeness means” for bodies that are always in transit and the risks and safety that come with it.
In Sensorium: Notes for My People
By: Tanaïs, Tanwi Nandini IslamIn Sensorium: Notes for My People is a beautifully written memoir that tells the story of a queer Muslim woman from Bangladesh who challenges patriarchal culture, educates readers about the history of South Asian nations and the atrocities they faced under colonialism, and holds court via the language of perfume and fragrance.
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