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Homeseeking
Additional information
| Author | Karissa Chen |
|---|---|
| Genre | Adult – Literary, Adult – Upmarket |
| Publisher | PRH, Putnam |
| Release Date | January 7, 2025 |
Description
An epic and intimate tale of one couple across sixty years as world events pull them together and apart, illuminating the Chinese diaspora and exploring what it means to find home far from your homeland.
“Weaves expertly between past and present…. A kaleidoscopic yet intimate view of the Chinese diaspora, Homeseeking explores how identities flex and transform during war—and which fundamental parts of us remain the same no matter where we find ourselves.” —CELESTE NG
A single choice can define an entire life. Suchi first sees Haiwen in their Shanghai neighborhood when she is seven years old, drawn by the sound of his violin. Their childhood friendship blossoms into love, but when Haiwen secretly enlists in the Nationalist army in 1947 to save his brother from the draft, Suchi is left with just his violin and a note: Forgive Me.
Sixty years later, recently widowed Haiwen spots Suchi at a grocery store in Los Angeles. It feels to Haiwen like a second chance, but Suchi has only survived by refusing to look back. In the twilight of their lives, can they reclaim their past and the love they lost?
Homeseeking follows the separated lovers through six decades of tumultuous Chinese history, telling Haiwen’s story from the present to the past while tracing Suchi’s from her childhood to the present, meeting at the crucible of their lives. From Shanghai to Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the United States, neither loses sight of the home they hold in their hearts.
About the Author
K
arissa Chen is the author of the novel HOMESEEKING, forthcoming from Putnam in 2024. She splits her time between New Jersey and Taipei, Taiwan. She is the author of the chapbooks Meditations on My Name (AWST Press) and Of Birds and Lovers (Corgi Snorkel Press). Her fiction and essays have appeared in The Atlantic, Eater, The Cut, NBC News Think!, Longreads, PEN America, Catapult, Gulf Coast, and Guernica, among others. Her flash fiction has twice been chosen for Wigleaf’s Top 50 (Very) Short Fictions. She has also contributed articles on literature, food, and Asian American interest to national publications such as Audible Range and Eater.
Karissa was a Fulbright Fellow in Taiwan in 2015-2016 and has been awarded an artist fellowship from the NJ Council on the Arts. She was a Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation Creative Fellow in 2017 to Millay Colony and was the recipient of the diFilipis-Rosselli Scholarship at the Napa Valley Writers Conference in 2011. She is a Kundiman Fiction fellow and a VONA/Voices fellow. She has also been awarded residences at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, the Ragdale Foundation, and Willapa Bay AiR.
Karissa currently serves as the Editor-in-Chief at Hyphen magazine. She is also a Contributing Editor at Catapult and a Cofounding Editor of Some Call It Ballin’.
She received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College. She has coordinated and facilitated creative writing workshops for incarcerated young men in Valhalla, New York and has taught creative writing in Brooklyn, NY and Taipei, Taiwan. She is working on a novel.
She is represented by Michelle Brower at Trellis Literary Management.
Karissa also customizes websites sometimes. Contact her if you need help with one!
