His memory -- his mind, really -- is blocking and altering his recollection of what transpired in the early forties in Chongqing. What he remembers about his mother is especially jagged and conflicting. Such repression is a theme Alex Kuo pursues in many of his stories. Likewise censorship and state terrorism, ideology and dissidence.
Alex Kuo has lived and worked most of his adult life in the states of Idaho and Washington. Since 1963 he has taught writing and cultural studies at several colleges and universities on both sides of the Pacific.
Writing has provided him the opportunity to pursue and explore subjects that he believes are important and relevant to our collective experience.
Recipient of three National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, he has also been awarded the Lingnan American Studies fellowship in Hong Kong and a Senior Fulbright lectureship in Changchun, a Rockefeller Bellagio residency, several research grants, including one from the United Nations for background research for the novel THE MAN WHO DAMMED THE YANGTZE. He has been appointed distinguished writer-in-residence at Fudan University, Knox College and Mercy Corps.
