Visit the CUNY Graduate Center event page for more information.

The Center for the Study of Women and Society is pleased to present Grace M. Cho in conversation with Hosu Kim, to discuss Cho's new book, Tastes Like War.

About Tastes Like War:

Grace M. Cho grew up as the daughter of a white American merchant marine and the Korean bar hostess he met abroad. They were one of few immigrants in a xenophobic small town during the Cold War, where identity was politicized by everyday details—language, cultural references, memories, and food. When Grace was fifteen, her dynamic mother experienced the onset of schizophrenia, a condition that would continue and evolve for the rest of her life.

Part food memoir, part sociological investigation, Tastes Like War is a hybrid text about a daughter’s search through intimate and global history for the roots of her mother’s schizophrenia. In her mother’s final years, Grace learned to cook dishes from her mother’s childhood in order to invite the past into the present, and to hold space for her mother’s multiple voices at the table. And through careful listening over these shared meals, Grace discovered not only the things that broke the brilliant, complicated woman who raised her—but also the things that kept her alive.

Winner of the 2022 Asian/Pacific American Award in Literature

Finalist for the 2021 National Book Award for Nonfiction

A TIME and NPR Best Book of the Year in 2021