Dear elia: Letters from the Asian American Abyss

dear elia: Letters from the Asian American Abyss is a 2024 non-fiction book by writer and scholar Mimi Khúc. Khúc combines memoir, critical university studies, and disability studies to develop a new approach to mental health, with a special focus on Asian American communities. Structured as a series of letters addressed to various audiences including the author's daughter, Elia, as well as to students and colleagues, the book critiques psychiatric frameworks that treat mental illness as individual pathology and instead positions unwellness as an inevitable response to structural conditions. The book won the Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS) 2026 Book Award for Outstanding Contribution in the Interdisciplinary/Multidisciplinary category.