R.F. Kuang’s latest work is provocative. The New York Times called it “both addictive and slightly sickening,” which the author proudly shared on TikTok the week of its release. And Reese Witherspoon just announced it as part of her July book club, saying she “could not put this book down.” At first glance, the cover and title are eye-catching: a bright yellow cover, with an Asian woman’s eyes looking left, as if giving someone a bombastic side eye (some have likened this to “The Great Gatsby” on TikTok, where I obviously spend most of my time). In bright white letters, the title “Yellowface” creates associations with a racist practice that, unfortunately, still exists.
Even the premise is shocking. In chapter one, Kuang introduces the relationship between a young, white author, June, our narrator and anti-hero (cue the Taylor Swift song), and her “frenemy,” the successful Chinese American author Athena. But by the end of that chapter, Athena is dead, robbed of her voice by choking on a pandan pancake. The rest of the book unravels, with June taking Athena’s unpublished manuscript about Chinese laborers in World War I and passing it off as her own under a racially ambiguous name. Even Kuang agrees, it’s a car crash where you can’t look away.
If you’ve read Elaine Hsieh Chou’s “Disorientation”, the premise might seem familiar. The former was loosely based on a 2015 controversy, when white poet Michael Derrick Hudson submitted and published his work under a Chinese pseudonym. Both are works of satire. But where Chou’s work takes place in a more academic setting to provide broader commentary (particularly, coming out of the 2016 U.S. election), Kuang uses satire to target a more specific subject: the publishing industry.
Welcome to the “Goblin Era”
“Yellowface” is a different turn from Kuang’s previous fantasy and dark academia works — only because she doesn’t like doing the same thing twice. Here, she takes on…
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