Join us for a virtual conversation in celebration of the release of Fairest by Meredith Talusan. Talusan will be in conversation with Téa Obreht.
Register HERE for this virtual conversaton. Registrants will be emailed an access link the week of the event.
Fairest is a memoir about a precocious boy with albinism, a "sun child" from a rural Philippine village, who would grow up to become a woman in America. Coping with the strain of parental neglect and the elusive promise of U.S. citizenship, Talusan found childhood comfort from their devoted grandmother, a grounding force as they were treated by others with special preference or public curiosity. As an immigrant to the United States, Talusan came to be perceived as white. An academic scholarship to Harvard provided access to elite circles of privilege but required Talusan to navigate through the complex spheres of race, class, sexuality, and her place within the gay community. Talusan emerged as an artist and an activist questioning the boundaries of gender. Talusan realized they did not want to be confined to a prescribed role as a man, and transitioned to become a woman, despite the risk of losing a man she deeply loved. Their evocative reflections will shift our own perceptions of love, identity, gender, and the fairness of life.
Meredith Talusan is an award-winning author and journalist who has written for The Guardian, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Nation, WIRED, SELF, and Condé Nast Traveler, among many other publications, and has contributed to several essay collections. Talusan has received awards from GLAAD, The Society of Professional Journalists, and the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association, and is also the founding executive editor of them.
Téa Obreht’s was born in Belgrade, in the former Yugoslavia, and grew up in Cyprus and Egypt before eventually immigrating to the United States. Her debut novel, The Tiger’s Wife, won the 2011 Orange Prize for Fiction, and was a 2011 National Book Award finalist and an international bestseller. Her fiction and non-fiction has been anthologized in The Best American series, and has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s, Vogue, Esquire and Zoetrope: All-Story. Her second book, Inland, was an instant bestseller and a finalist for the 2020 Dylan Thomas Prize. Starting this fall, she will be serving as Endowed Chair of Creative Writing at Texas State University in San Marcos.
From the June 15th-23rd, purchase copies of FAIREST and they will be sent to queer and trans people of color who currently can't afford it. Learn more here: mtalusan.com/fairestforward