How We Grow: Belinda Huijuan Tang
"There's loss on the other side, of the people we used to be."
I’m really honored to have author Belinda Huijuan Tang on the newsletter this week. I read her debut novel, A Map for the Missing, over winter break. It was my favorite book of 2023. So much so that I quickly reached out to her for this interview.
I was trying to pinpoint the overarching reason this book resonated with me. I realized that it’s because Belinda’s protagonist grapples with questions most of us have, but rarely ask out loud. What people and places do we have to leave behind to pursue the futures we want most? How do we manage the paradoxical mix of grief and relief that comes from growth? How do we become the creators of our own lives when the creative forces of family and country are so strong? It’s one thing to contemplate these answers as an individual in pursuit of fate. It’s another thing to contemplate them as a parent. A Map for the Missing offers profound perspectives on both.
Before diving into the interview, I want to make note of Belinda’s attentive historical detail. My own family left China just before the book’s timeline. I found myself fully engrossed in seeing China through these character’s eyes, hoping to connect the dots to my own family. Belinda’s words helped me understand something bigger though. History isn’t just the political events the world remembers. It’s also the everyday private lives of people. People who need to figure out what to make for dinner, or decide who to spend a free hour of their day with. It’s the intricate mix of the historical and personal that come together to create a family’s story.
I’m so happy to share my conversation with Belinda, and to be writing a newsletter that has conversations like these. I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I did!
Olivia: Thank you for being here and congratulations on the success of your book! The thread between childhood and adulthood was something you explored through each of your characters in A Map for the Missing. What did you most want readers to take away from this?