Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library

05/27/2026

✨Thank you to everyone who joined us for LiterASIAN Toronto 2026: Re-Generation!

We’re grateful to our featured authors Farzana Doctor, Jack Wang, and June Hur; moderator Professor Larissa Lai; and special guest performers Amely Zhou and Hong-Da Chin for an inspiring evening celebrating Asian Canadian literature.

💛A heartfelt thank you to all who attended and helped make this event so meaningful.

Event highlights in photo album: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.968511965813498&type=3

05/27/2026

05/20/2026

✨Reminder: This Friday is LiterASIAN Toronto 2026!

📚Join us as we explore this year’s theme, “Re-Generation,” and celebrate 50 years of Asian Canadian literary history.

🎶Enjoy an evening of inspiring conversations, live performances, and community gathering featuring acclaimed authors and special musical guests.

🥂 Refreshments will be served. We can’t wait to see you there!

📅 Friday, May 22, 2026
🕑 Doors Open: 2:15 PM | Program & Reception: 2:45 – 5:15 PM
📍 Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library, Robarts Library (8th Floor), 130 St. George St., Toronto
📩For inquiries please email [email protected]

05/12/2026

LiterASIAN Toronto 2026 is next week — mark your calendar for May 22!

📚Featuring acclaimed authors Farzana Doctor, Jack Wang, and June Hur, in conversation with moderator Professor Larissa Lai.

🎶Experience a special live erhu performance by Amely Zhou and dizi performance by Hong-Da Chin.

📅 Friday, May 22, 2026
🕑 Doors Open: 2:15 PM | Program & Reception: 2:45 – 5:15 PM
📍 Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library, Robarts Library (8th Floor), 130 St. George St., Toronto
📩For inquiries please email [email protected]

05/04/2026

🔖Only a few spots left. Don’t miss out!

Join us to explore the richness of Asian Canadian literature 📚✨
🎟️ Free and open to all
🥤 Refreshments included

Secure your spot before tickets run out. Learn more and sign up today!
📅 Friday, May 22, 2026
⏰ 2:45–5:15 PM (doors open at 2:15 PM)
📍 Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library, 8th Floor of Robarts Library Building, 130 St. George Street, Toronto

👉 https://libcal.library.utoronto.ca/event/4013537

04/30/2026

🌟Upcoming lecture at the Faculty of Music by Daniel K.L. Chua: Interrogating Global Musical Modernities and Local Agency: Is there are Chinese Way?

📅 May 8, 2026
⏰ 4:30–6:00 pm
📌Walter Hall (Edward Johnson Building). Free admission—all welcome!

ℹ️https://globalwam.webflow.io/interrogating-global-musical-modernities-and-local-agency-is-there-are-chinese-way

04/29/2026

✨ Featured Book Spotlight: The Lost Century by Larissa Lai ✨

On the eve of the return of the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong to China in 1997, young Ophelia asks her peculiar great-aunt Violet about the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong during World War II, the disappearance of her uncle Raymond, and whether her grandmother, Emily, was a murderer.

Emily's marriage - three times - to her father's mortal enemy causes a stir among three very different Hong Kong Chinese families, as well as among the young cricketers at the Hong Kong Cricket Club, who've just witnessed King Edward VIII's abdication to marry Wallis Simpson. But the bickering around the scandal of Emily's marriage is violently disrupted by the Japanese Imperial Army's invasion of Hong Kong on Christmas Day, 1941, which plunges the colony into a landscape of violence none of its inhabitants escape from unscathed, least of all Emily. When her sister's situation becomes dire, Violet, along with a crew of unlikely cosmopolitans, hatches a plan to rescue Emily from the wrath of the person she thought loved her the most - her husband, Tak-Wing. In the middle of it all, a strange match of timeless Test cricket unfolds in which the ball has an agency all its own.

With great heart, The Lost Century explores the intersections of Asian relations, q***r Asian history, underground resistance, the violence of war, and the rise of modern China - a sprawling novel of betrayal, epic violence, and intimate passions.

🌸Learn more about this book and Asian Canadian literature at LiterASIAN Toronto 2026: Re-Generation.

📅 Friday, May 22, 2026
⏰ 2:45–5:15 PM (doors open at 2:15 PM)
📍 Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library, 8th Floor of Robarts Library Building, 130 St. George Street, Toronto

👉 https://libcal.library.utoronto.ca/event/4013537

04/29/2026

✨ Celebrate Asian Canadian literature at LiterASIAN Toronto 2026: Re-Generation ✨

📅 Friday, May 22, 2026
⏰ 2:45–5:15 PM (doors open at 2:15 PM)
📍 Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library, 8th Floor of Robarts Library Building, 130 St. George Street, Toronto

👉 https://libcal.library.utoronto.ca/event/4013537

✨ Featured Book Spotlight: Behind Five Willows ✨

From the New York Times-bestselling author of A Crane Among Wolves comes a warm and romantic homage to Jane Austen set in historical Korea, about a reader and a writer who secretly fight against government book banning and find themselves irresistibly drawn together

🎤 Interested in this book? Join the author conversations in LiterASIAN 2026 to hear about the inspiration behind the novel and how Asian Canadian writing influences and reimagines literary possibilities.

04/28/2026

✨ Ready to be inspired? Join LiterASIAN Toronto 2026 and dive into Re-Generation. A powerful theme exploring renewal, growth, and the evolving voices of Asian Canadian literature.

🌱📖 Hear from featured authors as they share how cycles of change shape their stories and creative journeys.

📅 Friday, May 22, 2026
⏰ 2:45–5:15 PM (doors open at 2:15 PM)
📍 Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library, 8th Floor of Robarts Library Building
👉https://libcal.library.utoronto.ca/event/4013537

✨ Featured Book Spotlight: The Riveter by Jack Wang ✨

A cross-cultural love story set against the dramatic backdrop of the Allied invasion of Europe in WWII.

Vancouver, 1942. Josiah Chang arrives in the bustling city ready to serve his country in the war against fascism, but Chinese Canadians are barred from joining the army out of fear they might expect citizenship in return. So, Josiah heads to the shipyard to find work as a riveter, fastening together the ribs and steel plates of Victory ships.

One night, Josiah spots Poppy singing at a navy club. Despite their different backgrounds, they fall for each other instantly and begin a starry-eyed romance that lasts until the harsh reality of their situation is made clear. Determined to prove himself, Josiah takes a train to Toronto where he’s finally given the chance to enlist. After volunteering for the 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion and jumping into Normandy on D-Day, he must fight through the battlefields of Europe to make it back to the woman he loves.

By turns harrowing and exhilarating, The Riveter explores what one man must sacrifice to belong to the only country he has ever called home.

🎤 Interested in this book? Join the author conversations in LiterASIAN 2026 to hear about the inspiration behind the novel and how Asian Canadian writing influences and reimagines literary possibilities.

04/27/2026

✨ Featured Books ✨

📖 The Beauty of Us - Farzana Doctor

September 1984, Thornton College private school.
After 15-year-old Zahabiya’s father remarries, she can’t wait to leave home and convinces him to send her away to boarding school. But will she fit in? She joins a clique of smart students but isn’t sure if she measures up or how to read the mixed messages from a guy she’s crushing on.

Seventeen-year-old Leesa has been at Thornton since middle school after her parents’ messy divorce. She’s been climbing the school’s social ladder with equal measures of meanness and manipulation. She’s also guarding a big secret that she has to work overtime to keep from her friends.

Fresh out of university, this is Nahla’s first real teaching job, and she’s drowning. She has her distractions though: the flirty art teacher and a cryptic notebook left behind by her deceased predecessor, Mademoiselle Leblanc.

Zahabiya and her friends — all racialized girls and victims of Leesa’s bullying — uncover Leesa’s secret. But can they help Leesa? Nahla, too, is embroiled in her own mystery, assisted by Mademoiselle Leblanc’s ghost. Each is indelibly changed by what they learn.

🎤 Interested in this book? Join the author conversations in LiterAsian 2026 to hear about the inspiration behind the novel and how Asian Canadian writing influences and reimagines literary possibilities.

⚡ Spots are limited. Register now before it’s full!
👉 https://libcal.library.utoronto.ca/event/4013537