NEW ORLEANS (press release) – Blue Cypress Books hosts writer Kayla Min Andrews on Tuesday, Jan. 16, at 6 p.m. in celebration of her mother Katherine Min’s final book, “The Fetishist.” Ms. Andrews will be in conversation with author, Maruice Carlos Ruffin. The discussion will be followed by an audience q&a and a book signing.
This event is free and open to the public and will take place at Anna’s, located at 2601 Royal St. Copies of Katherine Min’s book, The Fetishist (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2024) may be purchased before or during the event. More about the event here.
“Darkly funny, strangely poignant and sometimes startlingly vicious, The Fetishist is a wonderful novel from an author we lost too soon, and a sweeping yet intimate statement on the impacts of racism and sexism on Asian American women. . . . Captivating, hilariously twisted . . . simultaneously playful and powerful . . . This remarkably clever, wickedly incisive little book will keep you hanging on every word and leave you with questions you’ll ponder for days.” – BookPage
The Fetishist: In this hilariously savage, poignant novel by acclaimed author Katherine Min, a grieving daughter’s revenge on the man who caused her mother’s death sets off a series of unexpected reckonings.
An exuberant, provocative story that confronts race, complicity, visibility, and ideals of femininity, The Fetishist was written before the celebrated author’s untimely death in 2019. Startlingly prescient, as wise and powerful as it is utterly delightful, this novel cements Katherine Min’s legacy as a writer with a singular voice for our times. More info here.
Katherine Min’s short stories appeared in Ploughshares, TriQuarterly, Prairie Schooner, The Three-Penny Review, Glimmer Train, and others; she received an NEA grant, a Pushcart Prize, a Sherwood Anderson Foundation Fiction Award, two New Hampshire State Council for the Arts Fellowships and a North Carolina State Arts Council Fellowship, and attended residencies at MacDowell, Yaddo, Jentel, Ucross, Hambidge, the Millay Colony, and Ledig House. Her debut novel, Secondhand World, was a runner-up for the PEN/Bingham Award in 2007. The Fetishist is her first posthumous publication.
Kayla Min Andrews lives in New Orleans. She has a piece forthcoming from The Massachusetts Review and has been published in Cagibi for fiction, Halfway Down the Stairs for nonfiction, and Asymptote for literary translation. Her work was nominated for a Best of the Net 2020. She was a finalist in the Tennessee Williams and New Orleans Literary Festival’s Very Short Fiction Contest in 2023. Kayla assisted Putnam on the posthumous publication of her mother’s novel The Fetishist (January 2024), including editing the manuscript. She is an MFA candidate in fiction at Randolph and is working on a novel.
Maurice Carlos Ruffin is the author of the forthcoming historical novel, The American Daughters as well as The Ones Who Don’t Say They Love You, a One Book One New Orleans selection, a New York Times Editor’s Choice and was longlisted for the Story Prize. His debut, We Cast a Shadow, was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and the PEN America Open Book Prize. Ruffin is the winner of the Iowa Review Award in fiction and the Louisiana Writer Award. Ruffin is a professor of Creative Writing at Louisiana State University.
