Kaya to the Future—30 Years of Independent Publishing from the Asian Diaspora! 

Kaya Press broke new ground 30 years ago as the first Asian diasporic publishing company, and we’re still going strong today, a major feat for any independent press.

For Kaya Press, we are entering our 30s feeling more passionate and determined than ever about the work we do: nurturing and supporting Asian diasporic voices! This would not be possible without our community. Your support has seen us through and makes it possible to collectively continue reinventing our best selves and imagine our shared future. 

We need your help to raise $36,000 by December 31, 2024. DONATE HERE.

Kaya had an exciting year in 2024, and our successes included publishing five new titles (In Search of Hiroshi, I ask about what falls away, Everything Good Dies Here, Song of Arirang, and I Will Not Go) as well as Maya Lu’s Double Happiness, forthcoming December, which is the first title from our new Milkteeth chapbook imprint, started by our interns and focused on emerging writers. Line Papin’s The Girl Before Her was also a finalist for CLMP’s Firecracker Award in Fiction!

As part of Kaya’s commitment to PACBI, we also printed and distributed 500 copies of Fargo Nissim Tbahki’s essay “Notes on Craft: Writing in the Hour of Genocide”, originally published in Protean, as a  free zine.

Plus, the Kaya crew grew with two new associate editors, Austin Nguyen and Kaitlin Hsu. They helped put on the Southern California events for the first ever decentralized Asian American Literature Festival and are growing a network of Asian American editors through First Pass: Editing From Beyond the Margins.

In 2025, with more hands on deck, Kaya will be publishing and promoting ten titles:

• The second title from Milkteeth (March 2025)

Written by Annakai Geshlider, this chapbook of poems adventures through Los Angeles, fashioning an internal compass out of desire, belonging, and the imagination.

• US-Edition of Anam (April 2025) 

Written by André Dao, the American edition of a dazzling work of autofiction that won Australia’s prestigious Prime Minister’s Literary Award in 2024 and the next installment in Ink & Blood, our joint imprint with the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network (DVAN).

•  A New edition Lois-Ann Yamanaka’s Blu’s Hanging (May 2025) 

Written by Lois-Ann Yamanaka, this heartbreaking novel returns to print for the first time in over 20 years, narrated in the pidgin English of Moloka’i and with a new afterword from erin Khuê Ninh.

• Not Yet Gods (June 2025) 

Written by South Korean science fiction star Djuna and translated from the Korean by Jihyun Park and Gord Sellar, a follow up to the short story and novella collection Everything Good Dies Here, as well as the next installment of our Magpie Series on Global Korean Literature in Translation.

• New Edition of Hyperart: Thomasson (June 2025) 

Written by Genpei Akasegawa, translated by Matt Fargo—our in-demand collection of Akasegawa’s writing on Thomasson is finally back on shelves with new material, part of a new dedicated  translated Japanese literature imprint: Short Peace!

• I Guess All We Have is Freedom (June 2025) 

Written by Genpei Akasegawa, translated by Matt Fargo—a striking collection of short stories from a giant of the contemporary Japanese art world.

• Reprint of The Beginning of the East (August 2025) 

Written by Max Yeh and originally published in 1992, marking 500 years since Christopher Columbus’s world-altering voyages—an inventive first novel that remaps imperialism and its reverberations.

• Reprint of Blue Dragon White Tiger (August 2025) 

Written by Trần Văn Dĩnh, the first Vietnamese American novel written in English and published in the United States. Originally published in 1983 and out of print for decades. Along with Anam, the next installment in Ink & Blood.

• New Edition of City Terrace Field Manual (September 2025) 

Written by Sesshu Foster and originally published in 1996, a powerful collection of prose poetry that maps the physical and psychological terrain of East Los Angeles.

• No Talk Li’ Dat (October 2025) 

Edited by R. Zamora Linmark, an anthology of work written in Hawaiian pidgin from 1920s to present.

Until the end of 2024, every dollar you donate to Kaya Press will be matched thanks to the generosity of an anonymous donor—please consider making a tax-deductible gift today to double your support!

The funds we raise this year will go directly towards supporting our new associate editors expanding our list of titles as we grow Kaya Press into a more stable organization for the next 30 years! 

Kaya from the Past, Present, and Future

Since Kaya Press made a splash on the New York literary scene in the mid-1990s, we’ve consistently published innovative, overlooked, and award-winning Asian Pacific American and Asian diasporic books. Of course, you’ve been an integral part of making these past three decades possible, and we’re counting on you to lay the foundation for the next three thousand! We want to take a moment to look back on where we’ve come from and how much further we want to go. Follow along over the next month as we bring back some Kaya highlights of the 90s, 00s, 10s and today!

By raising $36,000 with your support, we will continue to nurture and support API voices.