Asian American authors have come together to help Matthew Salesses’s wife, who was diagnosed with cancer in March.
Matthew Salesses’ wife, Cathreen, was diagnosed with Stage 4 stomach cancer earlier this year, not long after the birth of their second child. She has been battling with the cancer through long term hospitalisation in Korea.
Salesses is an English professor at Coe College in Iowa and the author of ‘The Hundred-Year Flood’. He is currently in Korea with his wife.
Fellow Asian American authors, friends and colleagues have since offered their support for Cathreen via a GoFundMe campaign, organised by Margaret Rhee. Rhee is the author of poetry collection ‘Love, Robot’.
On the page, Salesses is described as a “cherished writer, teacher, and friend in the Asian American and larger literary community”.
Money raised through the campaign will support the family and those who donate will “receive inspired books and gifts by formative Asian American writers creating today and into the future”. Gifts include autographed copies of books such as Celeste Ng’s ‘Everything I Never Told You’ and Times critic at large Viet Thanh Nguyen’s ‘Refugees’ and ‘Nothing Ever Dies: Vietnam and the Memory of War.’
As of today, Thursday 21 December, the page has exceeded its initial goal of $3,500 by $319, but is still accepting donations.
I know I say I hate people, but I love some people very much and one of them has cancer and many of the others have been super generous and amazing in their support. So thank you, always, forever, my friends.
— Bumbles Bounce (@salesses) December 18, 2017
