Theo Bennett★ Reader · Lv 2
todayA razor-sharp satire of publishing and ambition I could not put down, even as it made me squirm.
Fiction
Yellowface
by R.F. Kuang
4.5· 1,435 ratings
Published 2023331 pagesEnglishBiting · Compulsive
The truth is fluid. There is always another way to spin the story.
Why read it
When her far more successful friend dies in a freak accident right in front of her, a struggling white writer steals the dead woman's unpublished masterpiece, a novel about Chinese laborers in World War I, polishes it, and publishes it as her own.
The premise
June Hayward reinvents herself as the ambiguously ethnic Juniper Song and rides Athena Liu's stolen manuscript to literary stardom. As accusations of plagiarism and cultural appropriation mount online, the novel becomes a razor-edged satire of publishing, racial gatekeeping, social-media mobs, and the lengths a person will go to justify a theft to herself.
The story behind it
R.F. Kuang, already acclaimed for The Poppy War and Babel, published Yellowface in 2023 as a contemporary departure. It became an instant New York Times bestseller and one of the most discussed literary novels of the year for its unsparing look at the industry that produced it.
What awaits inside
- 01
The theft
What awaits is a stolen manuscript and a narrator determined to convince herself, and you, that she deserves it.
- 02
Publishing's machinery
Marketing, sensitivity readers, and diversity optics are dissected with insider precision and acid wit.
- 03
The mob and the ghost
Online pile-ons escalate alongside eerie signs that Athena's memory will not stay buried.
- 04
Who gets to tell a story
The book interrogates authenticity and appropriation without letting any party off the hook.
From the book
The night Athena chokes to death on a pancake in her apartment while June watches, then leaves with the only copy of the manuscript.
The escalating Twitter storms accusing June of theft and racism, which she narrates with furious self-pity.
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