Dear Cyborgs

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Dear Cyborgs
Dear Cyborgs.jpg
First edition
AuthorEugene Lim
PublisherFSG Originals
Publication date
June 6, 2017
Pages176
Preceded byThe Strangers (2013) 
Followed bySearch History (2021) 

Dear Cyborgs is a 2017 novel with elements of speculative fiction by American writer Eugene Lim. Lim wrote two other novels before Dear Cyborgs. Critics gave the novel mostly positive reviews.

Contents

Development

Lim wrote the novel before the 2016 presidential election. [1] He nevertheless wrote it in "a state of despair" due to climate change and economic inequality, which he refers to as two “slow apocalypses”. [1]

Lim has said that he believes "...superheroes are the central mythology of our collective global era" on their inclusion in the novel. [1]

Influences

A number of works influenced Lim while writing Dear Cyborgs. [2] Tan Lin's Insomnia and the Aunt and Yongsoo Park's Boy Genius both influenced the novel's plot as existing works that subvert tropes in Asian American assimilation plots. [2] Robert Creeley's The Island and Eileen Myles’ Inferno—both "poet's novels"—influenced Lim's authorial presence. [2]

Setting

The novel alternates between several settings, including a "white-bread suburban" town in Ohio during the 1980s, and New York City circa 2011, during a fictionalized version of Occupy Wall Street. [3] [4] Lim grew up in small-town Ohio, and later moved to New York. [5]

Publication history

FSG Originals, an imprint of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, published the novel in 2017. [6]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Cutaia, Sara (June 5, 2017). "Eugene Lim Wrote 'Dear Cyborgs' in a State of Despair". The Chicago Review of Books . Retrieved January 3, 2018.
  2. 1 2 3 Lim, Eugene (June 6, 2017). "Eugene Lim: American classics that influenced Dear Cyborgs, mostly in pairs". Library of America. Retrieved January 3, 2018.
  3. Hassani, Amelia (June 1, 2017). "Review: DEAR CYBORGS by Eugene Lim". Ploughshares . Retrieved January 3, 2018.
  4. Lorentzen, Christian (June 27, 2017). "Eugene Lim's Dear Cyborgs Engages the Post-Occupy Moment". Vulture . Retrieved January 3, 2018.
  5. Barkan, Ross (August 15, 2017). "How Eugene Lim's "Dear Cyborgs" Explores Life, Death, and Asian Identity". The Village Voice . Retrieved January 3, 2018.
  6. "Dear Cyborgs". Macmillan. Retrieved January 3, 2018.