Home Water: Stories, Poems & Prints

Writer and artist Juliette Chen was raised in a family that always managed to keep one step ahead of colonies that were toppling like dominoes during the last century. Raised in the former British colony of Hong Kong, it is ironic that she has washed up on the shores of yet another former British colony--America.Her writing and prints are suffused with a wistfulness for vanished worlds. Like Lot's wife, the immigrant knows the risk of looking back but cannot help herself. Chen is particularly attuned to the marginalized and vulnerable--whether it's a child growing up in wartime Vietnam, or an abused foreign bride.Chen's prints capture moments of solitude and reflection of the street people of Hong Kong; simple melodies gleaned from the cacophony of the metropolis."I especially loved the artistic creativity of this book...The short prose pieces inform the poetry, the poetry informs the prose, and the portraits of workers and solitary people in Hong Kong inform the writing in a kind of gorgeous symbiosis. Chen's words are beautiful throughout the book; there is a painful irony in how these lyric, musical words often describe female oppression and abuse.In her introduction to the book, Chen explores her heritage and documents her reactions to being a new immigrant to America, a topic that could not be more relevant today....Many of Chen's images remain in my memory months after first reading the book. Her voice is strong, authentic, and all her own."--Ellen LaFleche, Winning WritersNorth Street Book Prize 2018, Honorable Mention