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Dear Cyborgs

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Dear Cyborgs
First edition
AuthorEugene Lim
PublisherFSG Originals
Publication date
June 6, 2017
Pages176
Preceded byThe Strangers (2013) 
Followed bySearch History (2021) 

Dear Cyborgs is a 2017 novel with elements of speculative fiction by American writer Eugene Lim. Lim wrote two other novels before Dear Cyborgs. Critics gave the novel mostly positive reviews.

Development

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Lim wrote the novel before the 2016 presidential election.[1] He nevertheless wrote it in "a state of despair" due to climate change and economic inequality, which he refers to as two “slow apocalypses”.[1]

Lim has said that he believes "...superheroes are the central mythology of our collective global era" on their inclusion in the novel.[1]

Influences

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A number of works influenced Lim during while writing Dear Cyborgs.[2] Tan Lin's Insomnia and the Aunt and Yongsoo Park's Boy Genius both influenced the novel's plot as existing works that subvert tropes in Asian American assimilation plots.[2] Robert Creeley’s The Island and Eileen Myles’ Inferno—both "poet's novels"—influenced Lim's authorial presence.[2]

Setting

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The novel alternates between several settings, including a "white-bread suburban" town in Ohio during the 1980s, and New York City circa 2011, during a fictionalized version of Occupy Wall Street.[3][4] Lim grew up in small-town Ohio, and later moved to New York.[5]

Publication history

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FSG Originals, an imprint of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, published the novel in 2017.[6]

References

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  1. ^ a b c Cutaia, Sara (5 June 2017). "Eugene Lim Wrote 'Dear Cyborgs' in a State of Despair". The Chicago Review of Books. Retrieved 3 January 2018.
  2. ^ a b c Lim, Eugene (6 June 2017). "Eugene Lim: American classics that influenced Dear Cyborgs, mostly in pairs". Library of America. Retrieved 3 January 2018.
  3. ^ Hassani, Amelia (1 June 2017). "Review: DEAR CYBORGS by Eugene Lim". Ploughshares. Retrieved 3 January 2018.
  4. ^ Lorentzen, Christian (27 June 2017). "Eugene Lim's Dear Cyborgs Engages the Post-Occupy Moment". Vulture. Retrieved 3 January 2018.
  5. ^ Barkan, Ross (15 August 2017). "How Eugene Lim's "Dear Cyborgs" Explores Life, Death, and Asian Identity". The Village Voice. Retrieved 3 January 2018.
  6. ^ "Dear Cyborgs". Macmillan. Retrieved 3 January 2018.