The KUOW Book Club is reading “Transplants” by Daniel Tam-Claiborne this month.
The novel follows two young women — one Chinese and one Chinese American — on a university campus in rural Qixian, where they’re both met with hostility. Together, they learn what it means to be their truest selves in a world that doesn’t know where either of them belongs.
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It’s an exploration of race, love, power, and freedom. Over the course of a year, the two central characters navigate themes that will feel prescient today, including migration and identity, and the complexities therein.
Tam-Claiborne is well-known in the Seattle literary community, serving on the board of Seattle City of Literature and frequently moderating conversations with other authors, including C. Pam Zhang and, coming up on Sept. 12, R.F. Kuang. He’s written in other formats, but “Transplants” is his first novel.
Here’s the reading schedule: