unMothered, unTongued is a collection of lyric essays written from the liminal space of the in-between. These essays thread themselves around questions of language, landscape, and identity, weaving together intersectionalities and intertextualities. Author Lee Horikoshi Roripaugh, a biracial LGBTQIA+ Nisei who was born and raised in Laramie, Wyoming, to a non-native-English-speaking Issei mother, considers not only the tensions in the rifts between intersectional identities (biracial Nisei, LGBTQIA+) but also the tensions between marginalized identities and the landscapes and cultures of the American West; the tensions between nonnative, second, erased, and/or forgotten languages; and the tensions between those who abuse and those who survive. These rifts, intersections, and fractures, while frequently a source of violence and immense grief, are also a source of illumination and clarity. The essays in this collection are written almost entirely in hybrid/lyric forms-oftentimes braided, oftentimes patchworked, oftentimes segmented-reflecting some of the fractured complexities and intersections of Horikoshi Roripaugh's own hybrid identities.
"unMothered, unTongued is an extraordinary collection of essays that masterfully pushes the boundaries of nonfiction. The writing is simply exquisite. Each sentence sings with an elegant precision that cuts like a scalpel to the essence of self, memory, and place. This manuscript tackles nuanced questions of identity, family, culture while simultaneously reimagining the very limits of form and poe
