Larissa Pham and the Gift of Being Seen

At the Believer, Larissa Pham discusses her new book, Pop Song, with Adalena Kavanagh, and shares her hope that it resonates with Asian women who do not often see themselves in writing. ” I don’t know if I can center my Asianness in my writing any more than it already is,” Pham says, “which is to say, it’s part of every fiber that gets woven. It’s weird to think that my book will be coming out in a climate where, due to an awful, really awful incident of violence, people are looking at Asian women and thinking, yeah, we should probably care. I am wondering how my identity might play into how my book is received, particularly the sections that deal with this particular racialized trauma. My hope is that other Asian women might encounter it and it will contain some bit of truth that feels, if not completely relatable, if not completely comforting, something like a lighthouse spotting another lighthouse from far away.”