The Age of Goodbyes: Li Zi Shu, YZ Chin, and Ipek Burnett
7:00 pm PT
The Ruby | San Francisco, CA
Event admission is free. Registration is required.
Li Zi Shu and YZ Chin join Ipek Burnett at The Ruby to talk about family history, political turmoil, and the redemptive grace of storytelling in Li Zi Shu’s wildly inventive novel, The Age of Goodbyes, translated by YZ Chin.
In 1969, in the wake of Malaysia’s deadliest race riots, a woman named Du Li An secures her place in society by marrying a gangster. In a parallel narrative, a critic known only as The Fourth Person explores the work of a writer also named Du Li An. And a third storyline is in the second person; “you” are reading a novel titled The Age of Goodbyes. Floundering in the wake of “your” mother’s death, “you” are trying to unpack the secrets surrounding “your” lineage.
The Age of Goodbyes—which begins on page 513, a reference to the riots of May 13, 1969—is the acclaimed debut by Li Zi Shu. The winner of multiple awards and a Taiwanese bestseller, this dazzling novel is a profound exploration of what happens to personal memory when official accounts of history distort and render it taboo.
Co-presented by The Ruby(opens in a new tab) and Feminist Press(opens in a new tab).
The exact address of the event is not listed. Location information will be sent after registration(opens in a new tab).
Li Zi Shu is the author of more than a dozen books, including the novels Worldly Land and The Age of Goodbyes, which won the China Times Open Book Award. Her work has been recognized with multiple literary prizes in Malaysia, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, including several Huazhong Literary Awards.
YZ Chin is the author of Edge Case, a New York Times Editors’ Choice and an NPR pick for best books of 2021. She also wrote Though I Get Home, which won the Louise Meriwether First Book Prize and the Asian/Pacific American Award For Literature honor title. In addition, YZ is a MacDowell fellow and the translator of The Age of Goodbyes by Li Zi Shu. Born and raised in Taiping, Malaysia, she now lives in New York.
Ipek S. Burnett, PhD, is a depth psychologist and Turkish novelist living in San Francisco. She’s the author of A Jungian Inquiry into the American Psyche: The Violence of Innocence and the editor of the upcoming volume Re-Visioning the American Psyche: Jungian, Archetypal, and Mythological Reflections.