Some readers may read Rebecca F. Kuang’s upcoming release Yellowface as satire—an entertaining commentary on racism in North America’s publishing industry.
But for anyone who has worked in the publishing industry in any capacity, Kuang says, “this is just straight realism.”
“And especially for BIPOC in publishing: not just writers, but also editors, agents, editorial assistants, everybody working on the other side,” the New York Times bestselling author of The Poppy War, and Babel, or Necessity of Violence tells RepresentASIAN Project.
“We’ve had to become hyper aware of how our race and racialization is used, not just against us, but also without us as some kind of weird marketing commodity, divorced from the embodied experience of being Asian.”
As a result, Kuang wanted to write a novel that depicted this phenomenon.
“It is as much realism as it is satire. A ridiculous satire just happens to be the right mode to tell it because the industry is so ridiculous.”
Yellowface comes out on May 16 during Asian Heritage Month/AAPI Month in North America.
The novel follows white American author June Hayward whose career has been nothing short of mediocre, unlike her rival and former classmate Athena Liu, who found international success during their creative studies at Yale.
For most of their acquaintance, Hayward feigns friendship with Liu, despite her seething jealousy and bitterness.
But Hayward’s mediocre career as an author changes after Liu suddenly dies.
“We’ve had to become hyper aware of how our race and racialization is used, not just against us, but also without us as some kind of weird marketing commodity, divorced from the embodied experience of being Asian.”
R.F. Kuang
In the midst of processing Liu’s death, Hayward steals Athena’s unpublished manuscript and publishes as her own, under a new pen name that will sell in a world that celebrates underrepresented identities—Juniper Song.
And Hayward becomes an overnight success.
It’s a theme many racialized and marginalized people have experienced from white creatives, business people, leaders: resentment towards diversity and representation of minorities.
And similar to the real world of macro and microaggressions, Yellowface reminds readers that in the end, whiteness prevails in the Western world.
Like most creatives, Kuang is nervous about every book she publishes. But she admits that she is particularly nervous about Yellowface.
“People like stories that make them feel good about themselves. Stories that are so relentlessly negative, that hold mirrors up to how people behave, that make people feel uncomfortable, are, unfortunately, the only stories I’m interested in telling,” she says.
“Nobody leaves those stories with a good taste in their mouth. People get mad at you. And I think I would have been really nervous to publish Yellowface if I were a debut author.”
Yellowface takes on Hayward’s perspective on the writing and publishing industry.
And while some readers may wonder how Kuang was able to tap into Hayward’s entitled, racist attitude, she says it was easy because she has met many people like Hayward. In fact, many racialized and marginalized writers have.
Similar to the real world of macro and microaggressions, Yellowface reminds readers that in the end, whiteness prevails in the Western world.
“I’ve unfortunately internalized June’s voice into doubting every move I make. Whenever I feel like I’ve achieved something or that I’m proud of my own work, I hear June’s voice in the back of my head, muttering, ‘Well, you don’t really deserve that. And the only reason why you’re there is because you’re their token, diverse author,’” says Kuang.
“It’s very hard for me to separate myself from June’s voice because that is the sentiment that threatens to overwhelm any BIPOC writer trying to make it in the industry. The only way that I can get control of that voice is to trap it in between the pages, and to finally lay it out in sunlight and say everything that you believe in everything, you’re arguing makes absolutely no sense.”
At its core, that’s the central point of Yellowface: racialized creatives are exhausted by an industry and system that protects whiteness.
Despite the barriers and obstacles, Kuang has found success as a bestselling fantasy author since her debut in 2018.
And though she says her career has come to look like Liu’s, she was not an overnight success.
At its core, that’s the central point of Yellowface: racialized creatives are exhausted by an industry and system that protects whiteness.
“I find myself in conversations with authors who are on the other side, imagining that I’ve always been where Athena is. It’s very much not that way. So I understand that bitter jealousy,” she says.
In fact, Kuang was the debut author who went to a bookstore and no one showed up, and who watched the same signed book stay on shelves for weeks.
“Writing is an incredibly isolating activity. I understand the panic, and frustration, and the constant struggle, and the humiliation. I felt that for the large majority of my publishing career. I think a lot of writers feel this way. Very few of us are overnight bestsellers.”
Over time, however, Kuang has managed to find peace with herself—only feeling joy for other author’s success.
One way she’s found this calmness has been meeting writers in person because it’s easy to hate construction.
“Social media has been great for connecting people obviously. But I’m nervous about this environment in which all we’re seeing of the people are these very carefully constructed, and versions of them that are also very easily influenced by rumours told by everybody else—what makes that isolation and hyper-competitiveness,” says Kuang.
Yellowface hits bookshelves May 16, 2023. The novel is available for pre-order now.
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