Wishing real world wasn’t starting to feel so much like her dystopian novel
Arts & Culture Wishing real world wasn’t starting to feel so much like her dystopian novel Celeste Ng. Photos by Melissa Blackall Clea Simon Harvard Correspondent March 11, 2025 5 min read Celeste Ng discusses new book about mother and son, how the personal becomes political — and vice versa The personal is political in Celeste Ng’s books. In her three best-selling novels, the Cambridge resident highlights Asian American characters and how issues around ethnicity and cultural origin can create tensions for them, both in their families and in the wider world. Her third and latest novel, “Our Missing Hearts,” follows a mother and biracial son in a future Cambridge where behavior considered unpatriotic is criminalized and can result in children being taken from their parents. Here “un-American” art and books are banned, and an underground network of librarians keeps such books — and our knowledge of the past — alive. The novelist noted her dystopian creation is starting to...