About the Author

Mandy Moe Pwint Tu is a writer and poet from Yangon, Myanmar. Her work has appeared in Longleaf Review, West Trestle Review, perhappened mag, and elsewhere. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from Sewanee: The University of the South and is an incoming MFA candidate at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. She is a Thomas J. Watson Fellow.

Reviews

“Mandy Moe Pwint Tu’s first poetry chapbook is a true sacrifice to memory; a dreamlike journey into memories of an old Yangon once loved but now gone. These poems speak of generational trauma, death, and grief in dreamlike fragments of childhood memories and monsoon drowned street sides. Her poems Orange Peel, Pigeons, and At Sixty, My Mother, tells stories of generations past, against the background of old Myanmar. Shedding light on our childhood ways, the humanity and culture in which we grew up in. Mandy’s words ground the reader in a surreal yet earthly state, as it makes us yearn to return to our own roots. Monsoon Daughter, is a portrait of the heart; true and unwavering to the tender agony of a difficult love, loss and family.”

—Khin Chan Myae Maung, author of Giving Alms

“In Monsoon Daughter, Mandy Tu is, by turns, weaver of technicolor dreams and speaker of dangerous truths. She deftly carries readers through memories and myths from her childhood in Myanmar and Switzerland to her early womanhood in exile in the States. Central to Tu’s work is grief, “the only miracle [she] knows.” In this collection, she mourns her father’s abuse, his sudden death, and her country’s devastation under postcolonial military violence. But what draws me to Tu’s poetry is its complexity. She calls out violences, broken promises, and internal scars, but she also captures life’s bounty—the neighbor’s mango tree collapsed onto her house in the monsoon wind, the massaging of her mother’s feet, her brother peppering each strand of ramen noodle. I can’t recommend this book highly enough. Make tea. Settle in for the storm.”

—Aurora Shimshak, Poet and Memoirist

"Mandy Moe Pwint Tu’s chapbook reflects so much on love, both outside and within arcs of grief. In the aberrant space found in dynamics between people, Monsoon Daughter captures a world that reverberates and changes. As the perspectives shift, from landscapes to details found in conversation, Tu’s speakers bravely move through thresholds until they find a place for solace, even if for a moment.”

—Haolun Xu, filmmaker and author of Ultimate Sun Cell