Meng Jin & K-Ming Chang in Conversation With Rachel Khong

Meng Jin’s debut novel, Little Gods, was praised as “spectacular and emotionally polyphonic" (Omar El-Akkad) and “meticulously observed, daringly imagined” (Claire Messud). Now Jin turns her considerable talents to short fiction, in ten thematically linked stories. Written during the turbulent years of the Trump administration and the first year of the pandemic, these stories explore intimacy and isolation, coming-of-age and coming to terms with the repercussions of past mistakes, fraying relationships, and surprising moments of connection. Moving between San Francisco and China, and from unsparing realism to genre-bending delight, Self-Portrait with Ghost (Mariner) considers what it means to live in an age of heightened self-consciousness, seemingly endless access to knowledge, and little actual power. Gods of Want (One World) features stories that center the bodies, memories, myths, and relationships of Asian American women, in the vein of the electrifying relationships in Killing Eve and Yellowjackets - from K-Ming Chang, the National Book Award "5 Under 35" honoree and author of Bestiary. With each tale, Chang gives us her own take on a surrealism that mixes myth and migration, corporeality and ghostliness, queerness and the quotidian. Stunningly told in her feminist fabulist style, these are uncanny stories peeling back greater questions of power and memory. Jin & Chang were joined in conversation by Rachel Khong, author of Goodbye, Vitamin.
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