In this episode of "Keen On", Andrew is joined by Asako Serizawa, the author of "Inheritors", to tell the story of a Japanese family fragmented by the Pacific side of World War II. The pair also explore the complex ways in which we live, interpret, and pass on our tangled histories.
Asako Serizawa was born in Japan and grew up in Singapore, Jakarta, and Tokyo. A graduate of Tufts University, Brown University, and Emerson College, she has received two O. Henry Prizes, a Pushcart Prize, a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, and a fiction fellowship from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Her first book, INHERITORS, won the PEN/Open Book Award and The Story Prize Spotlight Award. It was also longlisted for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize. A Spanish translation of INHERITORS is forthcoming from Tusquets Editores S.A. (Colección Andanzas).
A long time in the making, the book also received support from the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Troedsson Villa Residency in Nikko, Japan.
Asako Serizawa on the Cycle and Influence of Family History