E.J. Koh '13 Wins 2022 Association for Asian American Studies Book Award
Alumna E.J. Koh '13 recently won a 2022 Association for Asian American Studies Book Award for her memoir, The Magical Language of Others (Tin House, 2021). Koh placed first in the category of "Creative Writing: Prose."
The Magical Language of Others is a powerful love story told through letters sent from mother to daughter. After a decade in America, Koh’s parents move to South Korea for work, leaving behind fifteen-year-old Koh and her brother in California. Years later, Koh finds the letters her mother had written to her in Korean over the years and sets out to translate them. According to Tin House, "The Magical Language of Others weaves a profound tale of hard-won selfhood and our deep bonds to family, place, and language, introducing—in Eun Ji Koh—a singular, incandescent voice."
Born out of the 1960s movements for racial justice and student activism, The Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS) is an interdisciplinary research and teaching hub for Asian American studies. The AAAS sponsors conferences, symposia, special projects, events, and the annual book awards. Book award categories include best books in history, social science, poetry, and prose, among others.
Of Koh's memoir, the organization stated: “Among the distinguished pool, we found Koh’s exquisite lyricism, compelling narrative, and experimentation with form praise-worthy…Koh weaves, with dynamism and intricacy, a Korean mother’s letters to her daughter and a Korean American daughter’s memories of grieving and forgiveness. Koh skillfully balances humor with melancholy. The Magical Language of Others questions nation and trans-nation, personal and communal, and trauma and healing, inviting us to rethink the rigid distinctions between migration, immigration, and settlement by exploring transnational movements across generations.”
The Magical Language of Others was also the winner of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award, winner of the Washington State Book Award in biography/memoir, longlisted for a 2021 PEN Open Book Award, and named one of the best books by Asian American writers by Oprah Daily.
Koh is also the author of the poetry collection A Lesser Love (Louisiana State University Press, 2017), which won the Pleiades Editors Prize for Poetry. She is the translator, with Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello, of Yi Won’s The World’s Lightest Motorcycle (Zephyr Press, 2021). Koh is the recipient of fellowships from the American Literary Translators Association, Kundiman, and MacDowell. Her poems, translations, and stories have appeared in AGNI, Boston Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, POETRY, Slate, and World Literature Today.