We are thrilled to announce the honorees for the 2023 Kundiman gala: Vivian Lee, T Kira Māhealani Madden, and Bushra Rehman. We can’t wait to celebrate the work of these literary visionaries.
Vivian Lee is a writer and senior editor at Little, Brown. She has worked with authors including Matthew Salesses (Craft in the Real World), Curtis Chin (Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant), Jimin Han (The Apology), Cinelle Barnes (Malaya: Essays on Freedom), and Anna DeForest (A History of Present Illness). She has been published in the Los Angeles Times, Eater, ELLE, Catapult, and more. In 2018, she was recognized for her editorial work as a Publisher’s Weekly Rising Star Honoree. Originally from Los Angeles, she now resides in Queens.
T Kira Māhealani Madden is a hapa-Kanaka Maoli writer, photographer, and amateur magician. She is the Founding Editor of No Tokens, a magazine of literature and art, and has received fellowships from MacDowell, Hedgebrook, Tin House, DISQUIET, NYSCA/NYFA, and Yaddo. Her debut memoir, Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls, was a New York Times Editors' Choice selection, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, and a finalist for the LAMBDA Literary Award for lesbian memoir. Her debut novel, Whidbey, is forthcoming with Mariner, HarperCollins. Winner of the 2021 Judith A. Markowitz Award, she teaches at Mount Holyoke College, and will serve as Distinguished Writer in Residence at University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa in 2024.
Bushra Rehman’s dark comedy, Corona, was chosen by the NY Public Library as one of its favorite books about NYC. She’s co-editor of Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today’s Feminism and author of the collection of poetry Marianna’s Beauty Salon. Her new novel, Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion, is a modern classic about what it means to be Muslim and queer in a Pakistani-American community was chosen as a Best Book and Editor’s Choice by The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, People Magazine, Good Morning America, and Ms. Magazine.
The Kundiman Gala: A Speakeasy Soirée will take place from 6:00–9:00PM ET at Bohemian National Hall (321 E 73rd Street) in Manhattan’s Upper East Side and via livestream. Tickets will go on sale on September 1st.