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Powell's Presents: Jeff Chang in Conversation With Walidah Imarisha
Event by: Powell's Books, Inc.
Location: Powell's City of Books, West Burnside Street 1005, Portland
About event
More than a half-century after his passing, Bruce Lee is as towering a figure to people around the world as ever. On his path to becoming a global icon, he popularized martial arts in the West, became a bridge to people and cultures from the East, and just as he was set to conquer Hollywood once and for all, he died of cerebral edema at age thirty-two. It’s no wonder that Bruce Lee’s legend has only bloomed in the decades since. Yet, in so many ways, his legend has eclipsed the man.
Forgotten is the stark reality of the baby boy born in segregated San Francisco who spent his youth in war-ravaged, fight-crazy Hong Kong. Forgotten is the curious teenager who found his way back to America, where he embraced West Coast counterculture and meshed it with the Asian worldviews and philosophies that reared him. Forgotten is the man whose very presence broke barriers and helped shape the idea of what being an Asian in America is, at the very dawn of Asian America.
Water Mirror Echo (Mariner Books) — a title inspired by Bruce Lee’s own way of moving, being, and responding to the world — is a page-turning and powerful reminder. At the helm is Jeff Chang, the award-winning author of Can’t Stop Won’t Stop, whose writing on culture, politics, the arts, and music have made him one of the most acclaimed and distinctive voices of our time. In his hands, Bruce Lee’s story brims with authenticity.
Now, based on in-depth interviews with Lee’s closest intimates and thousands of newly available personal documents, and featuring dozens of unseen photographs from the family’s archive, Chang does the nearly impossible. He reveals the man behind the enduring iconography and stirringly shows Lee’s growing fame ushering in something that’s turned out to be even more enduring: the creation of Asian America.
Chang will be joined in conversation by Walidah Imarisha, author of Angels with Dirty Faces.
Buy the book: https://www.powells.com/events/jeff-chang-9780358726470
Forgotten is the stark reality of the baby boy born in segregated San Francisco who spent his youth in war-ravaged, fight-crazy Hong Kong. Forgotten is the curious teenager who found his way back to America, where he embraced West Coast counterculture and meshed it with the Asian worldviews and philosophies that reared him. Forgotten is the man whose very presence broke barriers and helped shape the idea of what being an Asian in America is, at the very dawn of Asian America.
Water Mirror Echo (Mariner Books) — a title inspired by Bruce Lee’s own way of moving, being, and responding to the world — is a page-turning and powerful reminder. At the helm is Jeff Chang, the award-winning author of Can’t Stop Won’t Stop, whose writing on culture, politics, the arts, and music have made him one of the most acclaimed and distinctive voices of our time. In his hands, Bruce Lee’s story brims with authenticity.
Now, based on in-depth interviews with Lee’s closest intimates and thousands of newly available personal documents, and featuring dozens of unseen photographs from the family’s archive, Chang does the nearly impossible. He reveals the man behind the enduring iconography and stirringly shows Lee’s growing fame ushering in something that’s turned out to be even more enduring: the creation of Asian America.
Chang will be joined in conversation by Walidah Imarisha, author of Angels with Dirty Faces.
Buy the book: https://www.powells.com/events/jeff-chang-9780358726470