“Back then, there was no such thing as spending too much time in the car. We would have driven anywhere so long as we were together.”

We don’t know where Hua Hsu is headed at the start of his Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir, Stay True, but we sense it will be an unforgettable ride. With just a few words, he transports us—back to when time was infinite, a car meant freedom, and there was nothing better than hanging out with friends. In his first two lines, Hua performs the trick of making us both nostalgic and eager to find out what comes next.

Barely two hundred pages long, Stay True is, on the surface, a coming-of-age story: It chronicles Hua’s life as a first-generation Taiwanese American who, like so many young people, formed his sense of self according to what he rejected, in his case, anything mainstream. The more obscure the band, the shabbier the thrift store outfit, the better. It’s therefore a surprise when he strikes up a friendship with Ken during their freshman year at Berkeley. An assimilated Japanese American frat boy who favors Abercrombie & Fitch and—gasp—Dave Matthews, Ken turns out to be an unlikely kindred spirit. Over countless cigarettes, late-night dorm talks, and drives around the Bay Area in Hua’s Volvo, the two young men try to puzzle out their identities and their place in American culture, which doesn’t easily make room for Asians.

 When Ken is killed in a car-jacking the summer before senior year, Hua is left with questions that haunt him for decades. Stay True is the fruit of his long rumination, and its quiet power will hit you like a stealth bomb.

Mark Twain said, “A successful book is not made of what is in it, but what is left out of it.” Which is a perfect description of Stay True, a straightforward book with a complex subtext. Hua will discuss Stay True—along with his first book, A Floating Chinaman, and his many wonderful stories for The New Yorker, where he is a staff writer—with his (and our) good friend Bryan Curtis. Bryan is a writer, an editor-at-large at The Ringer, and co-host of the brilliant podcast The Press Box. He’s one of our most engaging Festival moderators, and his conversation with Hua is sure to be memorable.

The Festival is right around the corner, so get your tickets now! Don’t miss the chance to see Hua Hsu and other award-winning greats, including Jesmyn Ward, Anthony Doerr, Tracy K. Smith, Anne Lamott, David Grann, Julia Alvarez, Tommy Orange, Patrick Radden Keefe, and so many more.

This festival would not be possible without the generous support of the Gale Family Foundation, Santa Fe Tourism, and so many other donors and supporters. We couldn’t be more grateful to everyone who bought tickets, made tax-deductible contributions, and attended the Festival in 2023. We hope you’ll want to get even more involved this year. Please consider making a contribution below, no matter the size. It means everything to us!

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