Winner of the inaugural 2024 Sarabande Prize in the Essay, selected by Alexander Chee and excerpted in Adi Magazine

Lucky Creatures is a bold and playful collection about rebuilding life after migration, queerness and the transnational experience for readers of Ocean Vuong’s The Emperor of Gladness 

In his debut essay collection, award-winning Filipino-Kiwi essayist Joseph Trinidad explores the lessons of his grandmother’s chicken farm and his grandfather’s lucky fish, Ara the golden arowana; the vibrancy of his home country and its rites of passage such as tuli, beauty pageants, and national Boy Scout jamborees; the contradictions of Aotearoa-New Zealand, his adopted country, which demands his family’s labour and insists that they leave their mother tongues at the border; and his own journey of coming out, along with the hard work of actualization that follows as he and his partner grapple with the desire to have a baby.

Inspired by the creatures of Filipino folktales and immigrant touchstones such as FaceTime and “that one cousin from the States,” Lucky Creatures answers every immigrant’s question: “Was the move worth it?” Each resulting essay is an unforgettable exploration of life as a queer, Brown, transnational hybrid—filled with warmth, grace, and humour of the lucky creatures who can hear the call of home.