Sun Yung Shin to release new book in October

MINNEAPOLIS (Aug. 5, 2016) — Coffee House Press announced the October release of “Unbearable Splendor”, the latest book from Minneapolis based poet and author Sun Yung Shin.

Unbearable Splendor uses poetry as essay, exploring issues of Shin’s American, Korean-adoptee, mother, Catholic, Buddhist identity and her passions for mythology, science fiction, Borges and Sophocles.

Shin has a practice that uses intellectual and formal tools to consider fundamental ideas like personal history within the political economy, parentage and parenthood, identity and binaries. She knows what it means to be an outsider and what it means to be at home.

Shin will take part in “Community Conversation: A Good Time for the Truth” at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 17. at Ramsey County Library — Roseville, 2180 Hamline Ave N, Roseville, MN 55113. Shin will lead a discussion of “A Good Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota.”  This collection of 16 essays gives you a chance to understand what it is like to live as a person of color in Minnesota. Shin will facilitate and guide the discussion based on the concerns raised in the essays, particularly in light of recent events.

Shin is a poet and educator. Her poetry debut, Skirt Full of Black, received the Asian American Literary Award in 2008, also Coffee House Press, as was her second book, Rough and Savage. Her anthology, A Peculiar Price: New Writing on Racial Realities in Minnesota was published by Minnesota Historical Society Press in 2016.

Shin is the co-editor of the anthology Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption. She also authored Cooper’s Lesson, a bilingual Korean/English illustrated book for children.

Shin is a 2014-15 McKnight Foundation fellow for literature and has received grants and fellowships from the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Bush Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, and elsewhere. She lives in Minneapolis.