"What begins as curiosity about the origins of the orange soon becomes a far-reaching odyssey of citrus for Katie Goh. Goh follows the complicated history of the orange from east to west and west to east, from a luxury item of European kings and Chinese emperors to a modest fruit people take for granted. This investigation parallels Goh's powerful search into her own heritage. Growing up queer in a Chinese-Malaysian-Irish household in the north of Ireland, Goh felt herself at odds with the culture and politics around her. As a teenager, Goh visits her ancestral home in Longyan, China, with her family to better understand her roots, but doesn't find the easy, digestible answers she hoped for. In her midtwenties, when her grandmother falls ill, Goh ventures again to the land of her ancestors, this time to Malaysia, where more questions of self and belonging are raised. In her travels and reflections, she navigates histories that she wants to understand, but has never truly felt a part of. Like the story of the orange, Goh finds that easy and extractable explanations-even about a seemingly simple fruit-are impossible. The story that unfolds is Goh's incredible endeavor to flesh out these contradictions, to unpeel the layers of personhood; a reflection on identity through the cipher of the orange. Along the way, the orange becomes so much more than just a fruit-it emerges as a symbol, a metaphor, and a guide. Foreign Fruit: A Personal History of the Orange is a searching, wide-ranging, seamless weaving of storytelling with research and a meditative, deeply moving encounter with the orange and the self"-- Provided by publisher.
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