Men Without Women is a familiar, easily identifiable, and oddly comforting book for the Murakami reader, privileging the emotional landscape of lonely Japanese men through scaffolding characterization, personal idiosyncrasy, and monkey-wrench narratives instead of dramatic Hollywood plot lines, food porn, or cultural didacticism.
Read MoreEssay about Japanese misogyny, violence, and Kirino's OUT, Published in Ploughshares
According to the rules of the feminist thriller novel Out, murder becomes its own infinite regress.
Read MoreMemoir about Being a Secret Hapa + Nerd Masculinity Republished in Discover Nikkei
My memoir/essay, "American Otaku" about the life of a secret Asian American + nerd masculinity that was originally published in the GMP was recently republished at Discover Nikkei, a site that explores transnational hapa identity + interconnection between cultures, celebrates community + also provides a forum for hapa + nikkeijin history to be retold + therefore, reremembered. If you have a second + you missed it the first time around, you can check out my piece here.
1st Piece Accepted in 2013
After a rigorous (+ very helpful) revision dialogue with Jennifer Derilo, the very sharp, very smart + very detail-oriented Creative Nonfiction editor, I'm proud to announce that my lyrical essay "The Transfusion of Yukiyo Kanahashi" will be published in the upcoming issue of the Kartika Review. This lyrical essay is part personal narrative, part memory + neuroscience critique, + part metamemoir. It's a non-linear work about the last week of my sobo's life (my Japanese grandmother's), intertwined with political, cultural, nostalgic + speculative narrative strands. It's a beautiful + heartbreaking + language-driven + emotionally raw piece, + needs to be shared with the world I think. I honestly can't think of a more culturally important journal to publish an essay about my sobo's life than in the Kartika Review. I'll keep you posted.