LAUNCH for Mimi Lok / Last of Her Name, w/Rita Bullwinkel

The Bindery is thrilled to host the launch party for Mimi Lok‘s debut story collection, Last of Her Name. She’ll be in conversation with Rita Bullwinkel (Belly Up). Please save the date and join us!

Last of Her Name is an eye-opening novella and 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 urban California, Mimi Lok’s debut features an eclectic cast of outsiders: among them, an elderly housebreaker, wounded lovers, and kung-fu fighting teenage girls.

The title story follows the parallel, interweaving journeys of a mother and daughter as they grapple with their respective foes, taking us from the suburbs of England to a Chinese village on the eve of World War II, and exploring the hidden lives and secret histories within an immigrant family. Collectively, Lok artfully presents unique exploration of love, longing, and endurance.

Mimi Lok is the recipient of a Smithsonian Ingenuity Award and an Ylvisaker Award for Fiction, a finalist for the 2018 Katherine Anne Porter Fiction Prize, and a finalist for the Susan Atefat Arts and Letters Prize for nonfiction. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in McSweeney’s, Electric Literature, Nimrod, Lucky Peach, Hyphen, the South China Morning Post, and elsewhere. Mimi is also the executive director and editor of Voice of Witness, a human rights/oral history nonprofit she co-founded that amplifies marginalized voices through a book series and a national education program. Mimi currently lives in San Francisco, CA. Find her online at mimilok.com.

Rita Bullwinkel is the author of the story collection Belly Up. Her writing has been published in Tin House, Conjunctions, BOMB, Vice, NOON, and Guernica. She is a recipient of grants and fellowships from The MacDowell Colony, Brown University, Vanderbilt University, Hawthornden Castle, and The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation. Both her fiction and her translation have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes. She is an Editor at Large for McSweeney’s. She lives in San Francisco.

Please note: this event will be held at The Bindery, 1727 Haight.

The Bindery bar opens at 7pm. Event starts at 7:30pm.

RSVP appreciated but not required.

As with all of our events, seating may be limited; you can guarantee a seat by pre-purchasing the book below — when checking out, just be sure to include a note that you’d like to attend the event. If you cannot attend the event but would like to request a signed copy of Last of Her Name, order below and put your request in the comments field. To request signed copies of Rita’s book, follow the same instructions here.