Shortly before being able to attend the publication of his debut, Afterparties, Veasna So dies of an overdose at just 28 years old. What he won’t get out to see is a 100,000-copy publishing phenomenon in America. What does it mean to be born in the United States and carry the legacy of a tragedy, a genocide, of someone who couldn’t escape? Afterparties tells the vivacity, the dramas, the loves, the changes, the dreams and the nightmares of the Cambodian community of the Californian Central Valley. What do we know about being Khmer? The two sisters in the first story ask themselves this, when a strange Asian enters their shop at night to order a donut that he won’t even touch. If the young Maly asks, taking her newborn cousin into her arms, and the presumed reincarnation of her mother who committed suicide. All the boys and girls we meet in these stories ask, struggling with loves queersocial networks, badminton matches, wat temples, art and technology: among kids in baggy jeanstattoos hand poked, gentrified bars, an ultra-modern context mixes with Cambodian folklore. With a rhythmic, ironic and rich voice, Veasna So tells us about the universe in which he grew up, distant but very concrete, transgressive and traditional, courageously alive and pulsating.
Anthony Veasna So died at the age of 28 of an overdose before his debut collection was published, he has become a real publishing phenomenon, triggering a record first circulation of 100,000 copies in the United States. A graduate of Stanford, he earned his MFA from Syracuse, like so many short-form phenoms before him. Tales of him appeared on The Paris Review, The New Yorker, Grant e ZYZZYVA. Native of Stockton—California’s Central Valley described in Afterparties — ha insegnato a Colgate, Syracuse e al Center for Empowering Refugees and Immigrants di Oakland. Per Afterparties was awarded the ‘Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBTQ+ Literature’ and the ‘John Leonard Prize for First Feature’.
Afterparties
Anthony Veasna So
Tales editions
ISBN 9791280854063
Pg. 280 – 18,00 €
