The Translator’s Daughter by Grace Loh Prasad
The Ohio State UP, 2024
Grace Loh Prasad’s memoir The Translator’s Daughter follows multiple stories that follow her journey of balancing her Taiwanese heritage with her current life. Through these anthological stories you learn about her history, her family’s history, and some of Taiwan’s history. The book depicts each scene with such vivid descriptions and vibrant characters that the experience is truly immersive.
AB: This is an extremely observant book. Everything is painted so clearly to the reader with every little detail. Did you know you were going to write this book during these experiences? If so, did you have a journal or some form of recording to remember all the details?
GLP: Yes, I kept a diary of my experiences. I didn’t write in it every day, but I often wrote a lot when I traveled to Taiwan to see my parents or during other experiences where I was processing a lot of feelings and trying to make sense of them. Being trapped at the airport in chapter 1/chapter 4 is an example of where I kept a very detailed diary. I recommend this to any writer working on a memoir as it does help to convincingly portray key moments and milestones that would otherwise be harder to call up based on your memory alone.
AB: A consistent theme in your writing is honesty. You give a very impartial view on situations about yourself which normally would create a bias. For example in the book you write very honestly about your relationship with your ex-boyfriend John. Do you get anything out of writing in such an honest way?
GLP: Writing a memoir requires honesty and that includes portraying oneself in situations where maybe you didn’t behave admirably. I’m a writer who writes to learn about myself, and so I have to be willing to examine my mistakes and blind spots. You can’t write a (successful) memoir without being vulnerable. In memoirs but really in any kind of writing, characters that are too perfect end up being boring because we can’t relate. It’s our job as writers to portray three-dimensional human characters, warts and all.
AB: Do you find struggles in writing so honestly and openly? Are there things that hold you back when you’re writing openly or do you prefer it?
GLP: Yes, there are definitely hurdles to overcome when writing memoir or personal essays that examine hard truths or feelings that are still painful or unresolved. A common problem for memoir writers is they worry about how people in their lives will react to their writing, especially if they are writing about family secrets, abuse or difficult relationships. In my case, I didn’t have to worry about that as much because my parents and brother passed away, and most of my extended family in Taiwan doesn’t read or speak English. But for those who are writing about living family members or partners, I think it’s important to be clear about one’s motives. If you are writing to expose a secret or disclose a damaging truth or to criticize/hold someone accountable, you should probably expect some pushback. For me, even though I was writing about my family when they were in vulnerable situations, I was writing from a place of love and not to get back at someone that treated me badly.
AB: The first chapter is so gripping that you make one of the most boring places, an airport, into an anxiety trip. What made you decide to start the book off with such a stressful day of your life?
GLP: I divided my first chapter, Year of the Dragon, into two chapters because it was so long. All together it’s 11,000 words. I knew this would be a major part of my book, but it would have felt too long and unbalanced to include it intact in the middle of the book when all the other chapters were shorter. When writing a book-length work, the first chapter has to be compelling to get readers to be invested in the story, so it’s usually better to start with action. In traditional story structure, most narratives begin with some sort of conflict, so that’s why I started my book in the middle of a stressful situation at the airport, when I got myself into a lot of trouble. I also realized that that situation nicely set up all of the themes that are repeated throughout my memoir–language challenges, not fitting in, borders and timezones, being stuck in an “in between” place, and the difficulty of asking for and getting help as someone living far away from my parents and community.
AB: You talk about your father being a translator and you not being able to speak Taiwanese and the struggles with that. What inspired you to make that a central theme in your first book? In other words, what made that topic what you wanted to write about?
GLP: For me, the struggle of not being fluent in the language of my parents encapsulated all of the other issues and feelings about not belonging and not feeling connected to my heritage. It was the obstacle that interfered with everything when I went to Taiwan, and prevented me from developing closer relationships with my extended family which became even more important to me when my parents passed away. I also thought it was ironic that my father (and mother) were extremely knowledgeable about and comfortable speaking all these other languages, and yet I ended up completely dependent on English because that was the language I grew up with and was educated in, to such an extent that I could not ever fit in again in Taiwan where my parents eventually returned.
AB: Early on in the book, there is a section titled “Album” that takes slivers of your parent’s story and pairs them with photographs. It’s one of the most fascinating parts of the book. What inspired you to add this part?
GLP: I was visiting my parents in Taiwan and leafing through all these old photo albums and drawers full of old snapshots. Like anyone I just felt a natural curiosity about the lives of my parents based on these old photos, and I wondered what it was like for them to be Taiwanese students in America at a time when very few Taiwanese people traveled abroad. “Album” is a work of creative nonfiction in that I imagined their lives based on some of the stories they told me but didn’t know all the exact details. I didn’t interview them. In a way, I was romanticizing the history of my parents. I guess you could say it was an exercise in empathy—I was trying to see the world through their eyes and imagine the challenges they faced as foreign students trying to assimilate in a country that was drastically different from the environment they grew up in.
AB: In your writing you balance setting and emotions seamlessly. This can actually be a difficult balance to maintain in writing. When you’re writing do you prioritize the emotions your character is going through or the vibrant settings you create? Or do you just feel it out?
GLP: It depends on what I’m writing. In the more narrative chapters where there’s a lot of action, I naturally have to do more scene-setting and description. In the essays, I’m more reflective and so it’s more based on emotions but it’s still important to have concrete details and imagery to bring the reader along.
AB: One of my favorite chapters in the book was “The Pig Festival.” The vibrant atmosphere really grabbed me but you included a political aspect to it which I felt took your story to a new scale and was done very effectively. What inspired you to add this?
GLP: For me, it was a novel experience since I had never witnessed a local holiday/festival in Taiwan and this was one that was specific to the city my parents lived in. The political part of it was secondary but ended up being important. We didn’t know before we went that the presidential candidates would be visiting the festival, and of course that greatly impacted my experience because it made the crowds unmanageable and also amped up the excitement. Elections are a time of intense news coverage, and it’s a great way to immerse yourself in a local culture. Talking about the election with my parents also helped me understand the political leanings of my family, and the intertwined history of the Taiwanese Presbyterian Church and the movement for Taiwanese sovereignty.
AB: This is your first book being published. What are some reflections you have on the experience and would you do it again? If so, would you write another personal story or branch out into a different genre?
GLP: Memoir and personal essay are where I feel most comfortable, and I will probably continue publishing individual pieces in this genre. But I also have some fiction projects that I’d like to work on next, although I have a lot more learning to do in that area!
AB: Looking back on your experience writing a book, is there anything that you would do differently? Are there any methods you would recommend other writers trying to write their first book?
GLP: I’m not sure I could have written my book any other way, or faster than I did, because I learned and changed a lot during the course of writing it. If I were writing *this exact* book again, I would probably spend more time interviewing my parents as primary sources. As for advice for other writers (of memoir), I guess I would say: be patient with the process. There’s so much pressure to publish and have a book out and I think it’s a mistake to focus too much on output at the expense of learning and appreciating the arc of your life, and the lessons that are still ahead. My book is a better book because of the experience and maturity I gained as a writer and human over the past two decades.
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Grace Loh Prasad is the author of The Translator’s Daughter (Mad Creek Books/The Ohio State University Press, 2024), a debut memoir about living between languages, navigating loss, and the search for belonging. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Longreads, The Offing, Hyperallergic, Catapult, KHÔRA, and elsewhere. A member of the Writers Grotto and the AAPI writers collective Seventeen Syllables, Prasad lives in the Bay Area.
Aidan Bass earned his B.A. in Creative Writing at SUNY Oswego. He lives and works in Brooklyn, NY, where he enjoys shooting photography and studying film and television.