Anthony Veasna – Infinite Self

Anthony Veasna so died unexpectedly last winter, before his debut short-story collection, Afterparties, was released. Everyone remembers him differently.

- By E. Alex Jung

One of the last photos Anthony took of himself, four days before he died.

I. THE NEXT LITERARY SUPERSTAR (YES, HE KNEW HE WAS THE SHIT)

HERE’S SOMETHING everyone can agree on. For the occasion of his first book, Afterparties, Anthony Veasna So would have loved it all: the interviews, book tour, readings, attention, praise, pans, mythmaking, the opportunity to opine on the treacly queer writers he hates (or at least shade them) and the insufficiency of Asian American identity. He might talk about how he identified as Cambodian American before Asian American and, for that matter, Californian before American, which would have been a way of making space for himself as well as others. Some writers might be tentative about the limelight, but not him. His parents survived the Khmer Rouge genocide, and he survived Stockton, California, so you can be damned sure he’d make every second count.