Poet Marilyn Chin, who has described her own writings about life as an Asian American as “daring, both technically and thematically,” will read excerpts from her book “Hard Love Province” on April 27 in the Hayward campus library hosted by California State University, East Bay’s English department.

A Hong Kong native, Chin was raised in Portland, Oregon. She has published four books of poetry and one of prose, been awarded five Pushcart prizes, the PEN/Josephine Miles Award, and numerous fellowships and residencies.

“Marilyn Chin plays many roles in the writing community,” said CSUEB English Professor Jacqueline Doyle. “In addition to teaching in the MFA program at San Diego State and the low residency MFA program at City University of Hong Kong, she is a poet, novelist, translator, anthologist, and activist.” She describes Chin’s writing as “audacious, political, experimental, erotic, elegiac.”

The position of overseeing the event and selecting an author usually rotates among the creative writing faculty, and Doyle is in charge of the series this year. Doyle, who is an avid fan of creative nonfiction and an instructor of the genre, was interested in featuring creative nonfiction writers this year. Authors chosen are based on their ability to enrich the student audience.

Matthew Rothschild, who is a senior editor at The Progressive, a cultural magazine based in Wisconsin, noted that Chin “has a voice all her own—witty, epigraphic, idiomatic, elegiac, earthy…She covers the canvas of cultural assimilation with an intensely personal brush.”

At a Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association conference in October 2014, when questioned on her style of writing, Chin said, “I’m having a lot of fun, making hybrid forms, going back and forth from both eastern and western traditions and playing with form. It’s just endless, endless fun. We just go writing the best we can and working on our craft.”

Her book “Hard Love Province” is a volume of poems composed of sensual elegies in which the speaker grieves for the loss of her beloved. It is the winner of the 2015 Anisfield-Wolf Prize for Poetry, an award that recognizes books that contribute to our understanding of racism and cultural diversity.

“It is inspiring to hear a good writer read his or her work,” Doyle said. “We have many aspiring student writers and lovers of literature, many of whom have never attended an author reading. It’s an exciting opportunity for them.”

CSUEB’s Distinguished Writers Series has been running for nearly 10 years and features at least one poet and one fiction writer at its quarterly events. CSUEB alumni, Stan Pisle, who also provides donations for the English department’s national literary magazine Arroyo, funds the writer series along with matched funds contributed by his employer, AT&T, Inc.

Admission is free for the event, which will take place on Monday, April 27 in the Biella Room at 6 p.m.