ESEA Book Event 📚 You're Invited: An Evening with Curtis Chin
Dear all,
In celebration of East and Southeast Asian Heritage Month 2025, we’re thrilled to invite you to an evening of stories, identity, and community. Join us for a special event featuring award-winning filmmaker, activist, and writer Curtis Chin, in conversation with local activist Hsien Chew, as they delve into themes from Chin’s acclaimed memoir,
Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant.
Date: 25 Sep 2025 Thursday
Time: 18:00-19:00 BST
Location: Guanghwa Bookshop, 112 Shaftesbury Ave, W1D 5EJ
Set in 1980s Detroit, this heartfelt and humorous coming-of-age story takes us inside Chung’s Cantonese Cuisine - a bustling family-run restaurant that served as a rare safe haven for a divided city. From politicians and drag queens to movie stars and everyday locals, Chung’s welcomed everyone under its bright-red awning. For Curtis, it became the backdrop of his youth: a place where he navigated questions of identity, queerness, and belonging as a gay American-born Chinese boy growing up in turbulent times.
Structured around the restaurant’s beloved menu, this memoir is more than a story of food and family - it’s an invitation to consider how community spaces can shape who we are, and how we choose to live in the world.
"Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant is Chin’s story, but it’s also a love letter to the communal spaces that shape us."—TIME
FREE registration is open now through Eventbrite - please check the link below to know more information & reserve your spot!
Best wishes,
Guanghwa Bookshop