Portrait of a Thief by Grace D. Li6/21/2023 ![]() It might have been a small thing, to be called Chinese instead of Chinese American, to have this detective who spoke in a Boston accent look at him as if this place, this museum, this art didn’t belong to him, but-it didn’t feel like a small thing. Worse, the detective in charge of the case reveals subtle nativist tendencies while questioning him: ![]() One of the thieves slips a business card into his pocket as they’re making a getaway, leading Will, already dissatisfied with what he’s learned about imperialism as an art history major, to contemplate his own complicity in institutional theft hiding behind the mask of cultural education. ![]() Will Chen is a Harvard student working part-time at Boston’s Sackler Museum when he witnesses the audacious theft of almost two dozen pieces of Chinese art. ![]() What I got instead was a slow burn look into the minds of five relatively privileged Chinese American college students-all around the age of twenty-one-as they grapple round and round with identity, belonging, and moral rectitude, especially as it pertains to cultural heritage. ![]() Li’s Portrait of a Thief expecting a fast-paced, exciting crime thriller with characters who felt close enough to me in the Asian American immigrant experience to be almost instinctively relatable. ![]()
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