[MEMBERS-ONLY EVENT] Virtual Book Club with Cathy Park Hong
6:30 - 8 p.m. New York Time
Calculate your local time »
Join us for a virtual book club led by author Cathy Park Hong to discuss her new book Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning, a ruthlessly honest, humorous, and utterly original exploration of Asian American consciousness and the struggle to be human.
"Brilliant . . . To read this book is to become more human."
—Claudia Rankine, author of Citizen
Gather with others online to reflect, discuss, and connect after diving in to Minor Feelings. We will start with an introduction from Hong, followed by discussion in smaller groups of book club participants. Finally, all are invited to join in conversation and Q&A with the author.
Full description of the book and links to retailers here, including e-book and audio options for immediate access. E-book copies may also be available to borrow from your local library.
This is a members-only event. Members must register to participate.
About the book
Poet and essayist Cathy Park Hong fearlessly blends memoir, cultural criticism, and history to expose fresh truths about racialized consciousness in America. Vulnerable and provocative—the book’s relentless and riveting pursuit of vital questions around family and friendship, art and politics, identity and individuality, will change the way you think about our world.
As the daughter of Korean immigrants, Hong grew up steeped in shame, suspicion, and melancholy. She would later understand that these “minor feelings” occur when American optimism contradicts your own reality—when you believe the lies you’re told about your own racial identity. Minor feelings are not small, they’re dissonant—and in their tension Hong finds the key to the questions that haunt her.
About the author
Cathy Park Hong is the author of three poetry collections including Dance Dance Revolution, chosen by Adrienne Rich for the Barnard Women Poets Prize, and Engine Empire. Hong is a recipient of the Windham-Campbell Literature Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. Her poems have been published in Poetry, The New York Times, The Paris Review, McSweeney’s, Boston Review, and other journals. She is the poetry editor of The New Republic and full professor at the Rutgers University–Newark MFA program in poetry.
Organized by Asia Society. Our book club partners include: Asia Art Archive in America, Asian American Arts Alliance, Asian American Feminist Collective, Asian American Writers' Workshop, GYOPO, Rock the Boat and STOPdiscriminAsian.
Asia Society celebrates Asian Pacific American Heritage Month in May and beyond — join us for programs, interviews, and content that celebrate the influence of Asian Pacific Americans on culture, politics, and society.