Interior Chinatown: WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD 2020

(Paperback)

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Description

Willis Wu doesn't perceive himself as a protagonist even in his own life: He's merely Generic Asian man. Sometimes he gets to be Background Oriental Making a Weird Face or even Disgraced Son, but he is always relegated to a prop. Yet every day he leaves his tiny room in a Chinatown SRO and enters the Golden Palace restaurant, where Black and White, a procedural cop show, is in perpetual production. He's a bit player here, too, but he dreams of being Kung Fu Guy - the most respected role that anyone who looks like him can attain. At least that's what he has been told, time and time again. Except by one person, his mother. Who says to him: Be more.

Playful but heartfelt, a send-up of Hollywood tropes and Asian stereotypes, Interior Chinatown is Charles Yu's most moving, daring, and masterly novel yet.

Reviews

From Paul Beattys The Sellout to Brandon Taylors Real Life, some of the most talked-about novels from the U.S. in recent years have been male coming-of-age narratives shaped by experiences of racism. Styled as a typewritten television script, [Interior Chinatown is a] zany spin on the genre.

* Daily Mail *
"Highly inventive and hilarious." (How To Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe) * The Times *
"Brimming with alternative universes, futuristic landscapes and gleeful metaphysics..... Yu's spirit of invention is infectious." (How To Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe) * The Sunday Times *

Author Bio

CHARLES YU is the author of three books, including the novel How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (a New York Times Notable Book and a Time magazine best book of the year). He received the National Book Foundation's 5 Under 35 Award and was nominated for two Writers Guild of America Awards for his work on the HBO series, Westworld. He has also written for shows on FX, AMC, and HBO. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Wired, among other publications