Lucky Creatures

“well-crafted debut collection of linked essays […] Astute, intimate, and engaging.” —Kirkus Reviews

“affecting debut essay collection…Readers will expect good things from Trinidad to come.”—Publishers Weekly

“There’s an entirely original voice in these essays that seems to me created out of a tremendous intimacy. And I say this because I almost thought of it as gently done, at first, but there is certainly bravura, honesty, love, family, horniness, jealousy, and yes pains and longings that are harder to name and are maybe never named. Trinidad is making space on the page for the people in the stories he is telling, their languages, their lives, the money they earned and the money they didn’t, the heartbreak and the connections both.”—Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel“From Gina Apostol to Oliver de la Paz and dozens of other voices besides, Filipino-American literature is in a place of rich burgeoning. How thrilling for American readers, then, to know more about the work being done by the writers of the broader Filipino diaspora. Writing from New Zealand, Joseph Trinidad is part of this marvelous diasporic literature. His formally intrepid collection of essays, Lucky Creatures, brings new eyes and a new heart to the old stories of leaving and losing, becoming and belonging. From the everyday surrealisms of childhood in one country to the “sustainable contradictions” of being in a new country, Trinidad proposes that maybe the truest home is in art, in imagination and language and their capacity to envision the fullness of a motley self. Lucky Creatures left me feeling exultant and recognized.”—Rick Barot, author of Moving the Bones“Joseph Trinidad’s Lucky Creatures burns with aliveness and originality. Trinidad writes about the places and people he loves with generosity, candor, insight, and a sharp attention to the hilarity and heartbreak of life. […] Trinidad is an innovative, bold voice who moves, entertains, and surprises me with his brilliance. He writes with care and generosity towards those creatures lucky enough to be written about.”—Grace Talusan, author of Body Papers“In Lucky Creatures, Joseph Trinidad has written brilliant new essays, as moving as they are funny. A coming-of-age narrative full of duwende, lucky fish, and FaceTime conversations with the dead, this collection gives us lessons on love and attention, while also exploring what is worth keeping, what is worth letting go of, and what is inevitably lost, broken, or transformed through the process of migration. Lucky Creatures is delightful, heartfelt, and dazzlingly wise.”—Marianne Chan, author of Leaving Biddle City

Joseph Trinidad is a Filipino writer who lives in Te-Whanganui-a-Tara | Wellington. His work has been featured in Landfall, North & South, Te Papa, The Spinoff, Turbine | Kapohau, and Migrant Zine Collective. He is the winner of the 2023 Adam Foundation Prize from the International Institute of Modern Letters and the 2023 Asian Ink from Playmarket.

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