“Writing as an Other”

“What is the relationship between the role of the outsider and literary writing?” Pulitzer Prize-winning Viet Thanh Nguyen poses this question in his new book To Save and To Destroy, which is based on a series of six lectures at Harvard. Having escaped from the Vietnam War to a refugee camp in Pennsylvania when he was four, Nguyen is no stranger to being an outsider who carries both the burdens and pleasures of being the “minor” writer. In this event, he’ll be joined by two other brilliant literary outsiders: Greg Sarris, Chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria and celebrated author of fiction and memoir that delve into complexities of belonging and identity as a Native American, and award-winning novelist and filmmaker Tara Dorabji, the daughter of Parsi-Indian and German-Italian migrants, whose Call Her Freedom won the Simon & Schuster BOOKS LIKE US Grand Prize. In an era of constant “othering” within nations entrenched in colonialism and violence, it is natural for victims to feel their pain is unique. The challenge for “other”-American writers, then, is to practice what Nguyen calls “capacious grief” and to connect our sorrows in an act of radical hope. At our Saturday headliner event moderated by artist, writer, and Professor of African American literature Ajuan Mance, whose work explores the intersection of race, gender, and power, these authors will explore how they use storytelling and cultural sovereignty in the face of dominant ideologies, simultaneously embracing and overcoming their identities as “outsiders".