Join us on Monday, October 26th as we welcome Fatimah Asghar, R.O. Kwon and Ingrid Rojas Contreras to the shop for the release of Daughter of the Mountains. Save the date! RSVP is not required, but appreciated. Seats are limited and on a first-come, first served basis. You can reserve a seat in advance with the purchase of a book or a $3 sliding scale donation to our program.

About the book

A “beautiful poetry collection” (Electric Lit) that breaks open notions of faith to ask how a daughter, alienated from kin, can find love and a home in the world, from the award-winning author of If They Come for Us and When We Were Sisters

“There is, in Daughter of the Mountains, an almost supernatural sense of connectedness, compassion. It’s a blueprint and a manifesto. I sit in stunned gratitude at its guidance.”—Kaveh Akbar, New York Times bestselling author of Martyr!

at the edge of an edge

is an edge. at that edge

is a cliff. beyond that cliff

is me.

Exiled from ancestral homelands, how can one find a place for themself in the world? In this stunning sophomore collection, the acclaimed poet Fatimah Asghar unweaves residual grief to reckon with their relationship to Allah, long-estranged but deeply loved kin, the landscape of their ancestors, and love itself.

In meditative poems, Daughter of the Mountains grapples with multiple facets of fulfillment, betrayal, love, loss, and longing, illustrating how place, lineage, and environment inform the practice of spirituality and vice versa. With wisps of humor, imagery that is as beautiful as it is startling, and powerfully disruptive formal invention, this is an intimately lyrical and explosive collection.

About the author

Fatimah Asghar, author of If They Come for Us, is a poet, filmmaker, educator, and performer. They are the writer and co-creator of Brown Girls, an Emmy-nominated web series that highlights friendships between women of color. They also were a co-producer on Ms. Marvel for Disney + and wrote the

episode "Time And Again." Along with Safia Elhillo, they are the editor of Halal If You Hear Me, an anthology that celebrates Muslim writers who are also women, queer, gender-nonconforming, and/or trans.

R. O. Kwon is the author of the nationally bestselling novel Exhibit, a New York Times Editors’ Choice and the recipient of a Lambda Literary Prize. Kwon’s bestselling first novel, The Incendiaries, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Award. Kwon coedited the bestselling Kink. Kwon’s books have been translated into seven languages and named a best book of the year by over forty publications. Born in Seoul, Kwon has lived most of her life in the United States.

INGRID ROJAS CONTRERAS was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia. Her memoir, The Man Who Could Move Clouds, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. It tells the story of the author's lineage of curanderos, healers who know plant medicine and talk to ghosts, and her mother, who was the first woman in her family to become a curandera. The book won a Medal in Nonfiction from the California Book Awards, was a National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, and was long-listed for a Carnegie Medal in Excellence in Nonfiction. It was named a “Best Book of the Year” by TIME, People, NPR, Vanity Fair, Boston Globe, among others. Her first novel Fruit of the Drunken Tree was the silver medal winner in First Fiction from the California Book Awards, and a New York Times editor’s choice. Her essays and short stories have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, TIME, The Cut, and Zyzzyva, among others. She lives in California. 

About the bookstore

The Booksmith is an independent bookstore located in the Haight Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco since 1976.

Please note:

• Check-in for the event will begin at 6:45pm.
• Priced ticket holders (Book+seat, Pay it Forward!+seat) will have seats held until 7pm. 
• General admission ticket holders will be offered seats at check-in on a first-come, first-served basis. May be standing room.
• Space at the door on the day of the event is usually available.
• Books will be for sale on the night of the event.
• ADA accessible. Bathrooms on site during event hours.
• Events typically end between 8:30 and 9pm.
• Questions? tickets@booksmith.com