Welcome to Litsy!

My latest roundup of recent reads: Friday Reads March 24: LGBTQ; CanLit; Memoirs; Ramadan; Immigrants; Interconnected short stories
https://youtu.be/W1GOIN9WilE

When you live in one country but belong in another, your feet fall hesitantly upon the earth. I was a stranger in my own country, and there is no greater unease than feeling alone in the midst of an entire population that looks like you.

And I knew the thing that all refugees know: that our parents suffer and sacrifice so that their children may have an easier, better life than theirs. And that those of us who come from war can never fully escape it. Chaos is the cross we carry.

https://youtu.be/d9csvNEmvug

A playlist of all episodes in the Bite-sized Book Chat series: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU-61cZp1pQdBH5V0Zb9q-2ujl4PY8nhf

Chat #1: with Bunthivy from New Brunswick

Ma and Me by Putsata Reang

First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers by Loung Ung

#FirstLineFridays

A fascinating, moving, and beautifully written memoir. Cambodian American journalist Putsata Reang writes with compassion and nuance about her complicated relationship with her mother. Her mom saved her life as a baby as they escaped the genocide and Put tries to be the perfect Cambodian daughter to repay the debt. But she's gay, which makes that impossible. Her own story as a journalist working all over the world is as fascinating as her mom's.

It seems I‘m coming across a lot of books in the last few months in which parents are pushing their daughters to marry, either on their own or in arranged marriages.

This one is a memoir. Putsana- who goes by Put- and her family came to the US to escape war when Put was just a baby. Put thinks of herself as both American and Cambodian. Her relationship with her mom has always been strong, until she comes out as gay.

Great but also sad.

There is some lovely writing in this memoir about a Cambodian American daughter and her relationship with her mother:

"To go to the country of your birth on these terms puts joy so adjacent to sadness that they mute each other's edge."

"When you live in one country but belong to another, your feet fall hesitantly upon the earth."

"When you cannot wrap your daughter in the finest silks, you wrap her in your most elaborate stories."

#QueerBooks

This book is so good! Beautiful writing and a fascinating life story of a woman who was her Cambodian mother's youngest baby when their family fled Cambodia as refugees in the civil war in the 70s. She feels a great debt to her mom that she can never repay and when she comes out as a lesbian it causes a huge rift in their relationship.
#QueerBooks