American Laodyssey
A new collection of verse and art from Bryan Thao Worra and S. Bay Koulabdara exploring 50 years in the Lao diaspora.
Coming Soon:
A new collection of verse and art from Bryan Thao Worra and S. Bay Koulabdara exploring 50 years in the Lao diaspora.
2023 marks the 50th anniversary since the end of the secret bombing of Laos and a clandestine war that ultimately sent over 500,000 people with roots in Laos into diaspora across the United States and the globe.
What does it mean to rebuild and reimagine who you are, who you have been, and who you are becoming?
In this new collection by Lao American poet Bryan Thao Worra in collaboration with the artist S. Bay Koulabdara, readers will be taken on a journey through the eyes of a generation caught in a pivotal transition for the Lao at the end of a complex conflict and the start of an American entering a new era of computerization and interconnection. American Laodyssey is at once a historic and mythic collection of over 55 classic poems of Bryan Thao Worra from the 1990s to the 2020s and new artworks by S. Bay Koulabdara. Personally selected by the artists, these poems provide a retrospective of three decades of creative writing responding to a Laos in transition in America and across the globe.
These particular poems are among the most noteworthy in his body of work, the subject of academic papers and poems by other writers, in addition to his major award winners. These are among his most frequently taught poems, reprinted in global anthologies, newspapers and journals, exhibits, and events such as the 2012 London Summer Games or the Smithsonian Asian American Literature Festival. Some have never been collected before in a book, while others take on new meaning next to newer and older poems and artworks.
American Laodyssey provides an ideal introduction for new readers with extensive notes, a historical timeline of Lao American history, and even helpful phrases in English and Lao for those in the middle of their own American Laodyssey and beyond.