First UK festival for east and south-east Asian writing announced

The ESEA Lit Fest guarantees a ‘a joyful, thought-provoking celebration of ESEA tradition that’s open to all folks’

The bookshop Foyles is to accomplice with a publishing community to launch a brand new pageant that includes writers from east and south-east Asia, considered the primary within the UK centered wholly on writers from the area.

Operating in September, the ESEA Lit Fest is being launched by the ESEA Publishing Community, a bunch of publishing professionals within the UK e book trade, in partnership with the bookshop.

The group was based in 2022 by publicity director Maria Garbutt-Lucero, who works at Hodder & Stoughton, and commissioning editor Joanna Lee, who works at impartial writer Atlantic Books. Its goal is to amplify the voices of east and south-east Asian writers and promote ESEA expertise working throughout the UK publishing trade.

Garbutt-Lucero, who co-manages and writes for Florence Welch’s e book membership Between Two Books and launched a Filipino meals pop-up in 2018, stated that whereas rising up she “felt the dearth of literature out there by east and south-east Asians, significantly British voices”.

“We wish to change that for future generations by making a joyful, thought-provoking celebration of ESEA tradition that’s open to all folks,” she continued. “We couldn’t have a greater accomplice than Foyles, as they're passionate, long-standing advocates for ESEA literature and are completely situated, near the center of issues in Chinatown.”

Garbutt-Lucero stated the pageant had enlisted “two icons of the ESEA group”. Helena Lee, who created the East Aspect Voices salon in 2020 and printed an anthology of the identical title, will host an East Aspect Voices occasion, whereas the author Jenny Lau, whose platform Celestial Peach brings the ESEA meals group collectively by potlucks and fundraisers, will run considered one of her #AsianDessertExchange charity fundraisers.

Joanna Lee stated: “In 2022’s East Aspect Voices, Helena Lee talks in regards to the ‘cycle of systemic non-representation’ of British east and south-east Asian id. In publishing and the media extra broadly, we’ve discovered this to be true and endlessly irritating – our goal with the ESEA Lit Fest is to disrupt this cycle, create house for solidarity, and showcase the breadth of ESEA expertise from throughout the diaspora. We’re thrilled to be partnering with Foyles on this initiative and are enthusiastic about what’s to come back.”

The pageant will happen at Foyles’ flagship retailer on Charing Cross Street in London on 23 September, throughout ESEA Heritage Month.

The ESEA Publishing Community has held occasions to convey publishing professionals and writers collectively, together with a lunar new yr celebration. Forthcoming occasions embrace a Debuts Evening, in partnership with writer 4th Property on 16 February, that includes authors Cecile Pin, Wiz Wharton and Nicola Dinan in addition to a preview of RF Kuang’s Yellowface.

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