LiterASIAN 2023

Vancouver, BC – LiterASIAN returns with established and emerging literary voices coming together for a month of commemoration, celebration, and conversation showcasing the resilience and growth of Asian Canadian voices in CanLit. With this year’s theme of Inclusion 2023, the festival will be packed with events including book readings, writing workshops, panel discussions, and an afternoon dimsum with the authors. Full events schedule available online at http://literasian.com

This year’s featured authors include 2021 Danuta Gleed Literary Award winner Jack Wang (We Two Alone); novelist and playwright Simon Johnston (House of Daughters); writer and teacher Gillian Sze (Quite Night Think); rising star David Ly (Dream of Me as Water); poet and writer Steffi Tad-y (From the Shoreline); and emerging talents Candie Tanaka (Baby Drag Queen) and Emi Sasagawa (Atomweight). Roy Kurita and Sharon Lee (Growing Up Nisei) relives memories of the Japanese Canadian internment during World War II; Winnie L. Cheung and Lee Mei-Fung (Childhood Lost) will share memories of life during the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945); Tāriq Malik (Exit Wounds) will give his personal views on working across poetry, fiction, and visual arts; Hieu Pham-Fraser (The Little Girl) will present on children’s writing and its messages of anti-racism and inclusion and Historic Joy Kogawa House Writer-in-Residence David Mura (A Stranger’s Journey: Race, Identity & Narrative Craft in Writing; The Stories Whiteness Tells Itself) – will lead a series of writing workshops on identity, poetry, fiction, and memoir.

“This is the only festival in Canada that highlights how the Pan-Asian literary voice has added to Canadian literary culture,” says Festival Director Allan Cho. “This year’s festival features writers across Asian North America whose works confronts and challenges the invisibility of anti-Asian racism in the publishing and literary worlds.”

LiterASIAN will take place in Vancouver’s historic Chinatown located on the unceded Coast Salish Territories of the Musqueam, Tsleil Waututh, and Squamish people. Events will be held at the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden, Foo Hung Curios at the Chinatown Storytelling Centre, Centre A International Art Gallery, Floata Seafood Restaurant, and the Historic Joy Kogawa House.

In collaboration with Word Vancouver Literary Festival, will host a special fundraiser event, Wine and Words: Dimsum with the Authors, featuring an afternoon of food and festivities with all of the featured writers. This fundraiser will include dim sum, wine tastings, author readings, with live and silent auctions.