Carcanet to publish collection of writing by Youn

Carcanet will publish the fourth collection from Monica Youn, titled From From, having first published her in the Carcanet New Poetry anthology in 1999.

Rights for the UK and Commonwealth (excluding Canada) were acquired for Carcanet Press by m.d. Michael Schmidt, from Katie Dublinski, rights manager at Graywolf Press, who will publish the American edition. From From will publish on 25th May 2023.

The collection spans personal essays and verse, arising from the question “Where are you from? No – where are you from from?” which, Youn says, is often demanded of Asian Americans. The synopsis reads: “In this dazzling collection, one sequence deconstructs the sounds and letters of the word ‘deracinations’ to create a sonic landscape of micro – and macroaggressions, assimilation and self-doubt. A kaleidoscopic personal essay explores the racial positioning of Asian Americans and the epidemic of anti-Asian hate. Several poems titled ‘Study of Two Figures’ anatomise and dissect the Asian other: Midas the striving, nouveau-riche father; Dr Seuss and the imaginary daughter Chrysanthemum-Pearl he invented while authoring his anti-Japanese propaganda campaign; Pasiphaë, mother of the minotaur, and Sado, the 18th century Korean prince, both condemned to containers allegorical and actual.”

Of the upcoming collection, Schmidt said: “I was delighted that Monica had ‘homed’ to Carcanet. We last published her in PN Review and in our anthology New Poetries II (1999). Her work has developed and matured, and From From is a collection more pertinent today than ever.”

Youn was raised in Houston, Texas, the daughter of Korean immigrants. She now splits her time between Brooklyn and Southern California, where she is an associate professor of English at UC Irvine. She has been awarded the Levison Prize from the Poetry Foundation, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the William Carlos Williams Award of the Poetry Society of America, a Witter Bytter Fellowship from the Library of Congress and a Stegner Fellowship, among other honours.