Book Talk: "Orphan Bachelors" with Fae Myenne Ng

Fae Myenne Ng’s Orphan Bachelors is an extraordinary memoir of her beloved San Francisco’s Chinatown and of a family building a life in a country bent on their exclusion.

Orphan Bachelors weaves together the history of one family, lucky to exist and nevertheless doomed; an elegy for brothers estranged and for elders lost; and insights into writing between languages and teaching between generations. It also features Cantonese profanity, snakes that cure fear and opium that conquers sorrow, and a seemingly immortal creep of tortoises. In this powerful remembrance, Fae Myenne Ng gives voice to her valiant ancestors, her bold and ruthless Orphan Bachelors, and her own inner self, howling in Cantonese, impossible to translate but determined to be heard.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Ng is a first-gneration Chinese American novelist, and short story writer, born and raised in San Francisco. She is the bestselling and award-winning author of novels Bone and Steer Toward Rock. She attended the University of California, Berkeley, and received her M.F.A. at Columnbia University. She is a continuing lecturer at Berkeley in the Asian American Studies department.

Learn more at faemyenneng.com.

Host or Publisher Chinese Historical Society of America