Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng

by Kylie Lee Baker

Because a bat eater is the kind of person that white men want to hurt, the kind of person who tangles their fear and hate together and elicits their rage, the kind of person who scares them. And Cora knows all too well that you can’t fear someone who has no power over you.

I dedicated this book to “everyone we lost in the pandemic,” but “everyone” should also include “everything.” The pieces of ourselves that died in 2020. The hope we had in others, the trust we had in our leaders, the dreams we once believed in. Everyone who reads this book (at least, in the year it debuts) has lived through 2020 and will compare the experiences of these characters to their own at that time. There was so much we couldn’t predict.

Do not let your empathy stop at the borders of your own community.