Curtis Chinn & Winnie M Li - Chinese-American Identity and the City in Memoir and Fiction

We are absolutely delighted to announce that we have Curtis Chin, (author of Everything I Learned I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant) and Winnie M Li, (author of Complicit and Dark Chapter) joining us here at The Heath Bookshop to discuss Chinese-American Identity and the City in Memoir and Fiction for this special event in collaboration with University of Birmingham. They will be interviewed by Rona Cran.

They will be in discussion for around an hour. There will then be a book signing afterwards. 

A co-founder of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop in New York City, Curtis Chin served as the non-profit's first Executive Director. He went on to write comedy for network and cable television before transitioning to social justice documentaries. Chin has screened his films at over 600 venues in twenty countries. He has written for CNN, Bon Appetit, the Detroit Free Press, and the Emancipator/Boston Globe. A graduate of the University of Michigan, Chin has received awards from ABC/Disney Television, New York Foundation for the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, and more. His memoir, Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant was published by Little, Brown in Fall 2023. His essay in Bon Appetit was selected for Best Food Writing in America 2023.

Everything I learned, I learned in a Chinese Restaurant: 

Nineteen eighties Detroit was a volatile place to live, but above the fray stood a safe haven: Chung’s Cantonese Cuisine, where anyone-from the city’s first Black mayor to the local drag queens, from a big-time Hollywood star to elderly Jewish couples-could sit down for a warm, home-cooked meal. Here was where, beneath a bright-red awning and surrounded by his multigenerational family, filmmaker and activist Curtis Chin came of age; where he learned to embrace his identity as a gay ABC, or American-born Chinese; where he navigated the divided city’s spiralling misfortunes; and where-between helpings of almond boneless chicken, sweet-and-sour pork, and some of his own, less-savoury culinary concoctions-he realized just how much he had to offer to the world, to his beloved family, and to himself.Served up by the cofounder of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop and structured around the very menu that graced the tables of Chung’s, Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant is both a memoir and an invitation: to step inside one boy’s childhood oasis, scoot into a vinyl booth, and grow up with him-and perhaps even share something off the secret menu.

Winnie M Li is an American author, activist, and educator based in the UK. Her novel Complicit was a New York Times Editors’ Choice and shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature’s Enc Award. Her debut novel Dark Chapterwon The Guardian’s Not The Booker Prize, was nominated for an Edgar Award, and translated into ten languages. She has recently adapted it for the screen. Winnie’s work often explores gender and racial inequality, trauma, and displacement, and she has received an honorary doctorate from the National University of Ireland in recognition of her work. She also holds a PhD from the London School of Economics in Media and Communications, and is an Assistant Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Birmingham. Winnie’s third novel, What We Left Unsaid, will be published in August 2025.

Complicit:

THE THING IS . . . WHO DIDN’T HAVE ANYTHING TO GAIN BY HAVING A CLOSE RELATIONSHIP WITH HIM? ALL THAT MONEY? HE DREW US ALL IN LIKE BEES TO HONEY ­– AND HE KNEW IT THE ENTIRE TIME.Ten years ago, Sarah left behind a career in Hollywood that she had sacrificed everything for. Now she lectures at a small college, her dreams of showbiz success long behind her.

When a curious journalist raises her filmmaking past, Sarah must finally tell her own story and confront the old dreams that she left behind. But with old dreams come new realisations, and Sarah can’t help but wonder: was she complicit in the terrible events that happened all those years ago? And is she content to let the past stay buried?

POWERFUL AND TIMELY, COMPLICIT IS A GLIMPSE INTO THE DARK GLAMOUR OF HOLLYWOOD, AND THE PRICE OF AMBITION IN A DANGEROUS WORLD. A COMPELLING SLOW BURN THAT ASKS THE QUESTION: IF SPEAKING UP COULD COST YOU EVERYTHING, WHAT WOULD YOU REALLY DO?

Rona Cran is Associate Professor of Twentieth Century American Literature at the University of Birmingham. They are the author of Collage in Twentieth-Century Art, Literature and Culture (Routledge, 2014) and I Remember Kim (Verve Poetry Press, 2023). Forthcoming books include Conversations with New York School Poets (Edinburgh University Press, 2025), Multiple Voices: New York City Poetry After 1950 (LSU Press, 2026), and Shadows and Benedictions, a memoir about sharks.

See you there,

Catherine & Claire