5 titles from uplifting Asian women authors

International Women’s Day is an important day to celebrate the achievements of women around the world. In honor of this day, we want to highlight the work of uplifting Asian women authors who have made significant contributions to literature. These uplifting Asian women have overcome various obstacles to create works that are both impactful and inspiring. Here are just a few of the many incredible Asian women authors worth reading. We’ve also highlighted their words as quotes that you can reflect on throughout the year!

See also: 10 books by Asian Canadian and Asian American women you need to add to your reading list

The Story of Us by Catherine Hernandez

In this heavy-hitting release, Mary Grace Concepcion is an overseas Filipino worker, who left her husband to be a caregiver in Hong Kong. She travels to Canada, with the hope she can sponsor her husband. When she arrives in Toronto, she navigates employers and her new life as a Personal Support Worker. She begins caring for Liz, an elderly patient with Alzheimer’s disease. Then, Liz challenges Mary Grace’s conservative beliefs with Liz’s legendary past. Mary Grace becomes her biggest ally and finds a found family in Canada. The Story of Us honours the Trans community, and also the LGBTQ2IA+ and Filipinx communities.

“I have lived for years as a seed in the ovaries of my mother while my mother gestated in the  body of my Lola Daning. I was a dream of a dream back then, a nesting doll of possibility. Before I had my own organs, I listened to the simultaneous beating of my grandmother’s heart (bass heavy, slow, sure) and my mother’s heart (quick, excited) in an odd mismatch of a song.”

Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng

Bird Gardner lives with his father, who is quiet, loving, and broken. They reside in a society governed by laws aimed at preserving “American culture” amidst economic instability and violence. The authorities the power to relocate children of dissidents, especially those of Asian descent, to ensure peace and prosperity. Libraries have been mandated to remove books deemed unpatriotic. These books included those of Bird’s mother, Margaret, a Chinese American poet. Margaret abandoned the family when he was nine years old. Having grown up disavowing his mother, Bird has no knowledge of her work or what led to her departure. He is aware that he should not inquire. However, when he receives a mysterious letter containing an enigmatic drawing, he embarks on a quest to locate her. Along the way, he reminisces about the folktales and stories she shared with him, now lost in time.

“Why did I tell you so many stories? Because I wanted the world to make sense to you. I wanted to make sense of the world, for you. I wanted the world to make sense.”

How to Stand Up to a Dictator by Maria Ressa

Maria Ressa is an international journalist and 2021 Nobel Peace Prize Winner. Her company Rappler covered President Duterte’s drug war and shone a light on the creep towards authoritarianism in the Philippines. In How to Stand Up to a Dictator, Maria maps a network of global disinformation: Duterte’s drug wars; America’s Capitol Hill; Britain’s Brexit; Russian and Chinese cyber-warfare; Facebook and Silicon Valley’s political motivations; to our own clicks and attention span.

“Facebook is the world’s largest distributor of news, and yet studies have shown that lies laced with anger and hate spread faster and further than facts on social media. Without facts, you can’t have truth. Without truth, you can’t have trust. Without trust, we have no shared reality, no democracy, and it becomes impossible to deal with our world’s existential problems: climate, coronavirus, the battle for truth.” ― Maria Ressa

The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li

Agnes receives news that her friend, Fabienne, died in childbirth. In her grief, Agnes remembers their past, growing up together as inseparable friends in Saint Remy, France. As children in a war-ravaged town, they’d built a private world for each other. Until Fabienne hatched the plan that set them upon their separate futures as adults. The Book of Goose is a haunting story of friendship, art, exploitation, and memory.

“The world had no place for two girls like us, though I was slow then, not knowing that Fabienne, slighted, thwarted, even fatally wounded, tried to make a fool of that world, on her and on my behalf.” 

How to Read Now: Essays by Elaine Castillo

How to Read Now is a rallying call to rethink the way we read. In a series of essays, she reminds us how to read into also how history or books want to be read, especially if how it wants to be read erases histories or marginalized voices. The essays remind us and show us how to approach history with a critical eye and challenge the traditional narratives that have been passed down to us.

“When artists bemoan the rise of political correctness in our cultural discourse, what they’re really bemoaning is the rise of this unexpected reader. They’re bemoaning the arrival of someone who does not read them the way they expect—often demand—to be read; often someone who has been framed in their work and in their lives as an object, not as a subject.” ―Elaine Castillo

The works of these Asian women authors are just a few examples of the incredible contributions that women have made to literature. Let us celebrate the achievements of these authors and all the women who have paved the way for future generations. By uplifting and supporting women’s voices, we can create a more equitable and just world for all.