Last of Her NameBy Mimi Lok.
Winner of the 2020 PEN America Literary Award for Debut Short Story Collection, Mimi Lok's Last of Her Name narrates the interconnected lives of diasporic women from ’80s UK suburbia to WWII Hong Kong and contemporary CaliforniaMimi Lok’s Last of Her Name is an eye-opening story collection about the intimate, interconnected lives of diasporic women and the histories they are born into. Set in a wide range of time periods and locales, including ’80s UK suburbia, WWII Hong Kong and contemporary urban California, the book features an eclectic cast of outsiders: among them, an elderly housebreaker, wounded lovers and kung-fu fighting teenage girls. Last of Her Name offers a meditation on female desire and resilience, family and the nature of memory.
Mimi Lok is a Chinese writer and editor. Born and raised in the UK, she holds an MFA in creative writing from San Francisco State University. Her writing has been published or is forthcoming in McSweeney’s, Lucky Peach, Nimrod and Hyphen, among other publications. She is the cofounder, Executive Director and Editor of Voice of Witness, an award-winning nonprofit that illuminates human rights issues through an oral-history book series (published by Haymarket and Verso) and a national education program. PRAISE AND REVIEWSco ChronicleAlexis Hurling Mimi Lok’s “Last of Her Name” is a smorgasbord of powerful writing and angsty emotion wrapped into eight meditations on what it means to feel slightly out of place ... her stories are insightful, painfully honest and deeply unsettling — a dynamite combination in a new writer on the scene. New York Times: Book Review Siobhan Jones Lok has written the kind of understated book you catch yourself thinking about weeks after you finish it. Absorbing and deeply human, these characters — who either live in China or are of the Chinese diaspora — feel more like people you might’ve known than like fictitious renderings of Lok’s imagination. A pleasure to read and mull over for days. Publishers Weekly [An] impressive debut. ... Lok is an expert at peeking into the souls of those who have been displaced or disregarded ... this touching collection is easy to pick up and hard to put down. Los Angeles Times These stories are tough, gorgeous and humane. They feel universal and also deeply specific. I loved the brash intelligence, the way this debut collection can be fun, funny and incredibly serious. How many versions of each one of us are there? One hopes Lok will have time to find more. Ploughshares In her debut story collection, Last of Her Name, Mimi Lok is not interested in providing answers or pat endings. The stories open up, instead, in the way of myth or fairy tale, transcending the story itself. Poets & Writers Whether in seven pages or fifty, Lok brings each story to life in clear, precise prose, and draws the reader’s eye to strangeness and injustice without slipping into a didactic tone. NPR Michael Schaub Lok writes with the self-assuredness of a literary veteran and the insight of someone who's spent a lifetime studying how humans interact. Largehearted Boy Mimi Lok's collection Last of Her Name features empathetically drawn characters whose lonely lives haunt the reader long after the book is closed. Karla Strand Lok’s attention to detail and reflective connections make for an intimate and layered experience, for the characters and their readers. San Francisco Chronicle Alexis Hurling Mimi Lok’s “Last of Her Name” is a smorgasbord of powerful writing and angsty emotion wrapped into eight meditations on what it means to feel slightly out of place ... her stories are insightful, painfully honest and deeply unsettling — a dynamite combination in a new writer on the scene. New York Times: Book Review Siobhan Jones Lok has written the kind of understated book you catch yourself thinking about weeks after you finish it. Absorbing and deeply human, these characters — who either live in China or are of the Chinese diaspora — feel more like people you might’ve known than like fictitious renderings of Lok’s imagination. A pleasure to read and mull over for days. Publishers Weekly [An] impressive debut. ... Lok is an expert at peeking into the souls of those who have been displaced or disregarded ... this touching collection is easy to pick up and hard to put down. Los Angeles Times These stories are tough, gorgeous and humane. They feel universal and also deeply specific. I loved the brash intelligence, the way this debut collection can be fun, funny and incredibly serious. How many versions of each one of us are there? One hopes Lok will have time to find more. Ploughshares In her debut story collection, Last of Her Name, Mimi Lok is not interested in providing answers or pat endings. The stories open up, instead, in the way of myth or fairy tale, transcending the story itself. Poets & Writers Whether in seven pages or fifty, Lok brings each story to life in clear, precise prose, and draws the reader’s eye to strangeness and injustice without slipping into a didactic tone. NPR Michael Schaub Lok writes with the self-assuredness of a literary veteran and the insight of someone who's spent a lifetime studying how humans interact. Largehearted Boy Mimi Lok's collection Last of Her Name features empathetically drawn characters whose lonely lives haunt the reader long after the book is closed. A 2020 PEN America Literary Awards Finalist for Debut Short Story Collection Pen America Editors at Pen America The stories in Mimi Lok’s Last of Her Name are more than just deeply felt, richly imagined, and darkly comic; they feel necessary. In these pages, we find fractals. The microscopic contains the macro. The collection ranges all over our globe while distilling breathtaking, tiny moments of tremendous significance. | 
