Dear Seekers is a newsletter and podcast by Sasha Xiao, for the curious souls seeking artistic and spiritual fulfilment. If you love it, please consider sharing it with others. Here’s my About page. Any questions or feedback, you can directly hit reply to this email.
Hi friend,
I recently met Dear Memory, a memoir that has essentially changed my life- not only because it forced some of my own uninvited, buried childhood memories to painfully resurface, but also has opened my imagination to what a memoir could look like. My conversation today is with its author Victoria Chang, and Claire Foster, who led me to this incredible book.
Victoria is a prolific poet who has written many critically-claimed and commercially-celebrated poetry books- including Barbie Chang, The Boss, and Obit, which earned her many noble awards and the spotlight that (surprisingly) led her to a two-year long depression. Victoria is one of those very intriguingly contradictory people- dark and light, reserved yet extroverted, and someone who only looks towards the future while writes to dig through the past.
Claire is a literary translator from French and a bookseller at Type Books in Toronto. For Small Press and The Review of the Center for the Study of Arts and Literatures of North Africa, she has translated short texts by George Sand and Isabelle Eberhardt. Her translation of Pierre Clémenti's 1973 prison memoir, A Few Personal Messages, is forthcoming from Small Press.
I really hope you enjoyed this conversation despite my own (lack-of) experience as an interviewer.
And I’d also like to know if there was one particular book that has left a significant and impactful mark in your life? Please share with me. I genuinely would love to know. You can either leave a comment or hit reply to tell me about it.
Until next week,
Sasha
Pod Conversation with Victoria Chang