Flesh, Tongue

Poetry. Asian & Asian American Studies. As a child of immigrants, Yaya Yao always "craved an unbroken narrative: an arc that would give my existence a sense of context and continuity." In this brilliant and provocative first collection she confronts her inherited fragmented self and her hunger for a home, using scraps of personal and communal memory to bridge languages, worldviews, and physical distance from the ancestral homeland. Bits of Cantonese, Mandarin, Hokkien, and Shanghainese are translated and altered to explore the dynamics between language and identity. In this collection, Yaya Yao has created a unique and authentic voice.