Creator

Sokunthary Svay

Khmer American poet, librettist and scholar who co-founded the Cambodian American Literary Arts Association.

Sokunthary Svay is a Khmer American poet, librettist and scholar from the Bronx and a founding member of the Cambodian American Literary Arts Association.[1][2] She has published a poetry collection and a memoir, and she has written the librettos for two operas with the composer Liliya Ugay.[2][3]

Career

Svay is a writer, poet and musician, and her practice also takes in scholarship, public speaking and performance.[1][2] She has been board president of the Cambodian American Literary Arts Association, and she has served as poetry editor for Newtown Literary.[1][4] She earned a PhD in English from the CUNY Graduate Center. She teaches English at Queens College and at City College in Harlem.[2][1] She has received fellowships from the American Opera Project, Poets House, Willow Books and CUNY. Her commissions have come from Washington National Opera, the Asian American Writers' Workshop, the Chautauqua Institution, White Snake Project and ISSUE Project Room.[2][5]

Svay was featured in New York magazine's "Living in a Sanctuary City" portfolio. She was also featured in the New York Immigration Coalition's This is Our NY, which was shown in Times Square.[1] In March 2019 she read at "How to (Not) Write About Genocide" in Portland, Oregon, with Angela So, Danny Thanh Nguyen and Anthony Veasna So. It was the first time Cambodian American writers had come together for a panel at the AWP Conference. She has said that she wants to write her own story rather than another survival memoir of the genocide.[6]

Writing

Her first poetry collection, Apsara in New York, was published by Willow Books in 2017 and debuted at Poets House.[1][3] Bunkong Tuon called the book transnational and pan-ethnic in scope.[4] Her memoir, Put It On Record: A Memoir-Archive, followed in 2023.[1] Her poem "I am the Apsara's daughter" dates from 2021.[3]

Her writing has appeared in Women's Studies Quarterly, Prairie Schooner, LONTAR, Mekong Review, Perigee and Margins.[1] Her other credits include the anthology Homelands: Women's Journeys Across Race, Place and Time, FLESH and Blue Lyra Review, and her work has been published in Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, London and Australia.[4] It has also appeared in anthologies and has been performed by actors and singers.[2]

Opera

Svay held the American Opera Projects' Composer & the Voice Fellowship, dated 2017 to 2018 in one listing and 2017 to 2019 in another. The fellowship gave her experience writing for voice and the opera stage with Liliya Ugay.[1][4] Her first opera, Woman of Letters, set by Ugay, had its world premiere at the Kennedy Center in January 2020 as part of the American Opera Initiative.[2] She received an OPERA America IDEA grant, and her second opera with Ugay, Chhlong Tonle, premiered in March 2022.[2][7]

Recognition

  • Pushcart Prize nomination[4]
  • Composer & the Voice Fellowship, American Opera Projects (2017)[1]
  • OPERA America IDEA grant[2]
  • Willow Arts Alliance Residency Fellow[4]
  • First Friday Residency, Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning[4]

Works


See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 Wikipedia, Sokunthary Svay
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 Sokunthary Svay, About
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Academy of American Poets, Sokunthary Svay
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 AbeBooks, Apsara in New York, author note (2017)
  5. ↑ Asian American Writers' Workshop, Sokunthary Svay (May 21, 2020)
  6. ↑ Electric Literature, The Cambodian American Writers Who Are Reimagining ... (June 11, 2019)
  7. ↑ Asia Society, The Evolution of Arts in Cambodia (April 19, 2023)
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This page was last edited on 26 September 2026, at 23:43.