How to Write an Autobiographical Novel
by Alexander Chee
Essays on writing, identity, AIDS, and learning to see clearly.
For you if
you want to make art from your own life and need someone to show you what that costs and why it's worth it
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Chee grew up Korean American, gay, in a world that had no language for either with any grace. These essays move across his life — learning to write, losing friends to AIDS, becoming a gardener, teaching, politics, identity — with the precision of a writer who has spent decades learning to see clearly. The most important Asian American queer essay collection ever written. Not a how-to guide despite the title — a series of dispatches about what it costs and what it means to make art from your own life, and what autobiography actually is when your life has been shaped by forces most people pretend don't exist.
Where This Book Lives
- Setting
- Korea • East Asia
- Voice
- Written by a Korean author
- Themes
- biographylgbtq+ identity
- Topics
- aids epidemic
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For the family bookshelf
Same idea, written for a younger reader. Good for reading together.
