Cathy Park Hong is an award-winning poet and the author of Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning. In this widely celebrated book of essays, Hong provocatively infuses cultural criticism, history, and her own person experience to reveal hard truths about the American racialised consciousness. Hong speaks about race and Asian American identity, utilizing the craft of poetry as a lens for social change, and the power of creating art that is influenced by politics, culture, and the current societal moment. Minor Feelings became a New York Times bestseller, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and won the National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography and earned her recognition on TIME’s 100 Most Influential People of 2021 list.
Hong is also the author of three poetry collections including Dance Dance Revolution (which won the Barnard Women Poets Prize), Engine Empire, and Translating Mo’Um. Her debut, Translating Mo’um received a Pushcart Prize, and Dance Dance Revolution was selected for the Barnard Women Poets Prize by Adrienne Rich. She is a recipient of the Windham-Campbell Prize, the Guggenheim Fellowship, and the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. Her prose and poetry have been published in the New York Times, New Republic, the Guardian, Paris Review, Poetry and other journals. She is a Full Professor in English at UC Berkeley.
A vital public intellectual, Hong speaks widely about Asian American identity, the politics of language, and the necessity of art as a vehicle for social transformation. She is known for her incisive commentary on the role of artists in challenging systems of injustice, and for elevating conversations around race, trauma, and cultural memory. Currently, Hong serves as a Full Professor in the Department of English at the University of California, Berkeley.
