Creator

Anthony Veasna So

Cambodian American fiction writer and essayist whose work portrays Khmer American life in California's Central Valley.

Anthony Veasna So was a Cambodian American writer from Stockton, California, whose story collection Afterparties was published in 2021.[1] His fiction follows Cambodian American families in California's Central Valley, and it carries the trauma of the genocide with humor. He died in San Francisco on December 8, 2020, at age 28, before the book appeared.[2][1][3]

Life and career

So grew up in Stockton and finished high school as salutatorian.[2] At Stanford University he first studied computer science, then switched to art and English literature.[2][4] While at Stanford he ran a comedy open-mic night and helped put out several graphic novels, and in the summer of 2013 he performed stand-up comedy in Los Angeles and New York City.[1][5] He also made comics, paintings, photographs and print transfers, often working in collage.[5][2][6]

From 2015 to 2019 So worked as a prose editor for The Adroit Journal.[7] He taught literature and writing at Syracuse University, the Urban School of San Francisco, Colgate University, Catapult, Next Generation Scholars and Oakland's Center for Empowering Refugees and Immigrants.[1][3] Syracuse University accepted him into its MFA program in February 2017, and a 2018 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship supported his MFA in fiction there.[5][4] At Syracuse he studied with Jonathan Dee and Dana Spiotta, and he completed the degree in 2020.[8]

In 2019 So joined Angela So, Sokunthary Svay and Danny Thanh Nguyen for a reading in Portland, Oregon, titled "How to (Not) Write About Genocide." It was the first panel of Cambodian American writers at an AWP Conference.[9] Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins, won a bidding war for a two-book deal: Afterparties and a novel.[5] Ecco announced his death.[10]

Writing

So described himself as a queer Khmer American whose parents were former refugees. He also called himself a failed computer scientist, a parody of the model minority and a Stanford graduate.[10] He said Cambodia was an underlying source of energy in his stories, and that he often wrote from the view of younger people cut off from parts of Cambodian culture.[11] He said his writing and visual art aimed to preserve history and imagine new futures for his people.[4] He wrote slowly and revised heavily. He worked on "Three Women of Chuck's Donuts" for six years.[5]

His fiction appeared in The New Yorker, n+1, Granta, Zyzzyva and Ninth Letter, and his comics in Hobart and Nashville Review.[3][1][9] "Superking Son Scores Again," his first finished story at Syracuse, appeared in n+1. It runs about 8,000 words and deals with badminton, Cambodian American life and inherited trauma.[4] The story received the Joyce Carol Oates Prize in Fiction.[2] n+1 also published his story about chain-smoking Buddhist monks and an essay on watching Crazy Rich Asians.[4] The New Yorker published "Three Women of Chuck's Donuts" in February 2020. In it, a Cambodian immigrant named Sothy and her two daughters run a doughnut shop during the 2008 to 2009 financial crisis.[10][5]

Ecco published Afterparties in August 2021.[1][8] Its nine linked stories follow Cambodian Americans in California's Central Valley through doughnut shops, auto garages, Buddhist temples in the suburbs and Khmer New Year celebrations.[2][6][5] It became a New York Times bestseller, and a television adaptation was announced in January 2022.[6] At his death So was writing a novel, Straight Thru Cambotown. It follows three Khmer American cousins: an illustrator with a hot temper, a pansexual rapper and a comedian-philosopher.[2][1] The collection Songs on Endless Repeat, published on December 5, 2023, gathers his nonfiction and parts of that unfinished novel.[12]

Recognition

  • Joyce Carol Oates Award in Fiction[3]
  • Lambda Literary Fellowship[3]
  • Kundiman Fellow; Paul & Daisy Soros Fellow (2018)[3][4]
  • Ferro-Grumley Award for LGBTQ fiction, for Afterparties (2022)[13]
  • Shortlist, Andrew Carnegie Medal, for Afterparties[6]

In his honor, the literary magazine n+1 set up the Anthony Veasna So Fiction Prize, worth $5,000.[2]

Works


See also

References 13
  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Los Angeles Times, Emerging writer Anthony Veasna So died Dec. 8 at 28 (December 15, 2020)
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 Los Angeles Times, Before rising literary star Anthony Veasna So died, he immortalized Cambodian California (August 1, 2021)
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Shelf Awareness, Obituary Note: Anthony Veasna So (December 15, 2020)
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans, Anthony Veasna So in his own words (December 16, 2020)
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 Poets & Writers, First Fiction: Anthony Veasna So
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Cambodgemag, Cambodia & Diaspora: Anthony Veasna So, "He did not live long enough to see his success" (June 16, 2026)
  7. ↑ The Adroit Journal, Issue Thirty-Six: Remembering Anthony Veasna So (January 26, 2021)
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 The Daily Orange, SU alum posthumously garners praise from former professors in book 'Afterparties' (September 13, 2021)
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Electric Literature, The Cambodian American writers who are reimagining what it means to be Cambodian (June 11, 2019)
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 WCIV, Anthony Veasna So, acclaimed fiction writer, dead at age 28 (December 10, 2020)
  11. ↑ The Adroit Journal, Remembering Anthony Veasna So
  12. ↑ Kirkus Reviews, Songs on Endless Repeat: Essays and Outtakes
  13. ↑ The Publishing Triangle, Here Are the Winners of the 2022 Publishing Triangle Awards (May 2022)
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This page was last edited on 22 October 2026, at 03:05.