Dear Memory
Letters on Writing, Silence, and Grief
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Milkweed Editions
Publishing:30th Apr '26
£14.99
This title is due to be published on 30th April, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
This collection of letters in Dear Memory delves into the complexities of memory, identity, and the quest for self-understanding across generations.
In Dear Memory, poet Victoria Chang explores the intricate relationship between memory and identity through a poignant collection of letters and mementos. Memory is portrayed not as a blooming flower, but as something that bleeds internally, a process that is both willed and summoned. The letters are deeply rooted in the fragments of Chang's own family stories, drawn from her mother's reluctant sharing and her father's silence. These personal histories are sculpted from tangible family relics, such as marriage licenses and photographs, alongside the haunting questions that linger without answers.
This collection is not merely a transcription of memories but a transformative process that shapes both the writer and the reader. Chang's reflections on trauma, loss, and the complexities of being both American and Chinese reveal how grief can spark a profound desire for self-discovery. Through her carefully crafted missives, Dear Memory illustrates the delicate balance between remembering and forgetting, offering insights into the ways individuals navigate their histories.
In letters addressed to family, mentors, and fellow poets, Chang invites readers to witness her journey of reconciliation with the past. The work serves as a model for understanding how we can find ourselves within the narratives of our histories, ultimately highlighting the power of memory as a tool for connection and understanding.
Praise for Dear Memory
"[Dear Memory] is an open-ended inquiry not of a bounded life but of an ongoing present, full of longing and imperfection . . . Chang has followed language to the edge of what she knows; the question her book asks is whether language can go further still . . . Her own project is not to erase those incisions—or even, as a child might hope, to heal them—but to retrace and redescribe them. If there are wounds in the past, she seeks to live with them as scars." —New Yorker
"Groundbreaking . . . Chang's lyrical experiment memorably evokes an individual family's time capsule and an artist's timeless yearning to shape carbon dust into incandescent gem." —Thúy Dinh, NPR
"Chang's work is excavation, a digging through the muck of society for an existential clarity, a cultural clarity and a general clarity of self." —New York Times Book Review
"Both a chronicling of [Chang's] family's history and a powerful, stirring rumination on ancestry, inherited trauma and home." —TIME Magazine, "Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2021"
"[Dear Memory is] a collage of fragments constituting a moving portrait of the poet herself." —Los Angeles Times, "Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2021"
"Dear Memory is the work of a gifted poet, a wordsmith who is conscious that absent a chance to be an eyewitness to the past, we are left to spin our own webs of emotional significance and nostalgia." —Lorraine Berry, Minneapolis Star Tribune
"After the impressive formal innovations of her 2020 book, OBIT, which won multiple national awards, Chang continues to find new ways to plumb her experiences on the page . . . Depending on what one brings to this book, each reader may find their own moment of goosebumps or tears . . . This book is moving in a way that transcends story and message; it captures a pure sense of another person's heart." —Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review
"Chang has assembled a collection of letters to family, past teachers, and fellow poets, as well as family memorabilia, creating not just a moving family history but a rumination on the creative and self-shaping act of remembering." —Literary Hub, "Most Anticipated Books of 2021"
"A moving consideration of ancestry and loss . . . [Chang's] prose is sharp and strong—memory is the 'exit wound of joy,' she writes—and her creativity shines in her incorporation of the collage-like visual elements, which add depth. Fans of Chang's poetry will be delighted." —Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
"Ever inventive, ever searching, Chang bends genres to approach an unmanageable emotion." —Observer
"These letters to the past that are paving stones to the future is the verdant ground that Victoria Chang explores in these, dare I say, memorable essays." —Colorado Review
“Victoria Chang's Dear Memory is a tender exploration of grief, an excavation into stories untold, memories unshared, the treasures that await our discoveries if we trace through the lives that held ours. It is a vulnerable and evocative experience of what it means to miss, to yearn, to return to the pieces of our most beloved." —Kao Kalia Yang
ISBN: 9781639550654
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
136 pages