Homeseeking

An epic and intimate tale of one couple across sixty years as world events pull them together and apart, illuminating the Chinese diaspora and exploring what it means to find home far from your homeland.

"Weaves expertly between past and present.... A kaleidoscopic yet intimate view of the Chinese diaspora, Homeseeking explores how identities flex and transform during war—and which fundamental parts of us remain the same no matter where we find ourselves." —CELESTE NG

A single choice can define an entire life. Suchi first sees Haiwen in their Shanghai neighborhood when she is seven years old, drawn by the sound of his violin. Their childhood friendship blossoms into love, but when Haiwen secretly enlists in the Nationalist army in 1947 to save his brother from the draft, Suchi is left with just his violin and a note: Forgive Me.

Sixty years later, recently widowed Haiwen spots Suchi at a grocery store in Los Angeles. It feels to Haiwen like a second chance, but Suchi has only survived by refusing to look back. In the twilight of their lives, can they reclaim their past and the love they lost?

Homeseeking follows the separated lovers through six decades of tumultuous Chinese history, telling Haiwen’s story from the present to the past while tracing Suchi’s from her childhood to the present, meeting at the crucible of their lives. From Shanghai to Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the United States, neither loses sight of the home they hold in their hearts.

Story Locale:Shanghai; Hong Kong; New York; Taiwan; Los Angeles

About the Author

Karissa Chen is a Fulbright fellow, Kundiman Fiction fellow, and a VONA/Voices fellow whose fiction and essays have appeared in The Atlantic, Eater, The Cut, NBC News Think!, Longreads, PEN America, Catapult, Gulf Coast, and Guernica, among others. She was awarded an artist fellowship from the NJ Council on the Arts as well as residences at Millay Colony where she was a Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation Creative Fellow, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, the Ragdale Foundation, and Willapa Bay AiR. She was formerly the Senior Fiction Editor at The Rumpus and currently serves as the Editor-in-Chief at Hyphen magazine. She received an MFA in Fiction from Sarah Lawrence College and splits her time between New Jersey and Taipei, Taiwan.

Author Residence: Taipei, Taiwan

Author Hometown: Guttenberg, NJ, USA