Stretching from the present to the future, from China to America and beyond, M Lin’s piercing debut collection depicts characters finding beauty amidst the disorientation of migration, the contradictions of living between cultures, the perverse realities of race and class, and the delicate dance between survival and resistance.

Brimming with joy, insight, and emotional power, The Memory Museum unveils M Lin as an irresistible new talent with fearless political and stylistic imagination.

Parallel Stories:
This Fall Parallel Story resonates from the Museum’s extensive and exceptional Asian Art Collection spanning 5,000 years with over 3,600 objects and curated by the incomparable Susan Tai. It is meant as a tribute to Tai, who retires at the end of this year, and invites us to reimagine and reframe some of the histories, traditions and stories contained in the collection.

To do this, we turn to three contemporary authors—M. Lin, Divya Victor, and Karen Tei Yamashita—who write stories that are both deeply felt and impeccably researched, through a hybrid lens of experience, history, and imagination. This series is a collaboration with The Asian American Studies Department of UCSB. Sameer Pandya, Chairman of the Department and author of the award winning The Blind Writer, Members Only, and Our Beautiful Boys, will facilitate the conversations.