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Quan Barry

Biography

Quan Barry

Born in Saigon and raised in Massachusetts, Quan Barry is the author of the novels SHE WEEPS EACH TIME YOU'RE BORN, WE RIDE UPON STICKS (winner of the 2020 ALA Alex Award) and WHEN I'M GONE, LOOK FOR ME IN THE EAST, and four books of poetry, including WATER PUPPETS (winner of the AWP Donald Hall Prize for Poetry and a PEN Open Book finalist). Barry’s first play, "The Mytilenean Debate," premieres in the spring of 2022. She is the Lorraine Hansberry Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Quan Barry

Books by Quan Barry

When I'm Gone, Look for Me in the East
by Quan Barry - Fiction, Women's Fiction

Tasked with finding the reincarnation of a great lama --- a spiritual teacher who may have been born anywhere in the vast Mongolian landscape --- the young monk Chuluun sets out with his identical twin, Mun, who has rejected the monastic life they once shared. Their relationship will be tested on this journey through their homeland as each possesses the ability to hear the other’s thoughts. Quan Barry carries us across a terrain as unforgiving as it is beautiful and culturally varied. As their country stretches before them, questions of faith --- along with more earthly matters of love and brotherhood --- haunt the twins.

We Ride Upon Sticks
by Quan Barry - Fiction

In the town of Danvers, Massachusetts, home of the original 1692 witch trials, the 1989 Danvers Falcons will do anything to make it to the state finals --- even if it means tapping into some devilishly dark powers. Against a background of irresistible 1980s iconography, Quan Barry expertly weaves together the individual and collective progress of this enchanted team as they storm their way through an unforgettable season. Helmed by good-girl captain Abby Putnam (a descendant of the infamous Salem accuser Ann Putnam) and her co-captain Jen Fiorenza (whose bleached blond “Claw” sees and knows all), the Falcons prove to be wily, original and bold, flaunting society’s stale notions of femininity.

She Weeps Each Time You're Born
by Quan Barry - Fiction, Historical Fiction

At the peak of the war in Vietnam, a baby girl is born along the Song Ma River on the night of the full moon. This is Rabbit, who will journey away from her destroyed village with a makeshift family thrown together by war. Here is a Vietnam we’ve never encountered before: through Rabbit’s inexplicable but radiant intuition, we are privy to an intimate version of history, from the days of French Indochina and the World War II rubber plantations through the chaos of postwar reunification.