Join us for a book talk with Abigail Savitch-Lew, the author of Livonia Chow Mein: A Novel, in conversation with scholar-activist Akemi Kochiyama-Ladson, the granddaughter of Yuri Kochiyama.
Come hear about the inspiration behind the book, the challenges of crafting it, and its insights on Black-Asian relations and cross-racial solidarity. After the talk, stick around for a book signing and a chance to chat with her.
Abigail Savitch-Lew is a writer of fiction and nonfiction and an American of Jewish and Chinese (Ashkenazi and Toisanese) descent. She has a BA in literary arts from Brown University and an MFA in fiction from Rutgers University-Newark. She is the author of the novel Livonia Chow Mein, and her short stories have been published in The Round, Post Road, The Best Teen Writing of 2010, and The Apprentice Writer. Previously, she was a staff reporter for City Limits, an Asian American Writers’ Workshop Margins Fellow, and an adjunct professor of creative writing at Rutgers. She lives in New York with her husband, the artist Emmanuel Knight, her sister-in-law, and their cat.
Akemi Kochiyama-Ladson is a scholar-activist and proud third-generation Harlem native whose writing and work is focused on preserving and understanding our shared histories and building solidarity and collective power across communities. The granddaughter of human rights activist, Yuri Kochiyama, Akemi is Co-Director of the Yuri Kochiyama Solidarity Project (YKSP) where she leads education programs centered in arts, culture, history and archives. In addition to leading walking tours in Harlem, Akemi gives lectures at schools, cultural institutions and community-based organizations. Recent engagements include the Schomburg Center for Research and Black Culture, Theaster Gates’ Black Artists and Archivists Retreat, Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute, Parsons/New School of Design and Union Theological Seminary. A 2026-2027 Scholar-in-Residence at the Schomburg, Akemi is currently conducting research for an autobiographical book about the Kochiyama family. Featuring personal essays alongside materials from the Kochiyama family archives and the Schomburg’s collections, the book maps the family’s story over four generations on the same street within the context of international and multicultural movements and struggles for Black Liberation and human rights in Harlem from the 1920s to 2020s.