Yellowface, Rebecca F. Kuang
‘a strident, galloping commentary on the publishing industry, plagiarism, and cultural appropriation’
In Yellowface, R.F. Kuang, who started her literary career with the bestselling fantasy novel, Poppy War, takes to strident, galloping commentary on the publishing industry, plagiarism, and cultural appropriation.
This book is hard to put down. I found myself applauding Kuang’s ease of style as she quickly and clearly lays out the obvious issues that exist in an industry that pigeon-holes writers of colour, and makes it difficult for many writers to survive within its model of business.
Off the bat, Yellowface creates a readerly desire to uncover the plot, when we discover that rising star author Athena Liu has died in a freak accident, an incident that lends itself to her jealous competitor June Hayward, pilfering her work and passing it off as her own, albeit with some of her own flourish. June’s biased perspectives and casual displays of racism are so ham-fisted as to be amusing, which is likely the goal, but some subtleties would have cast it in a more realistic realm. I wondered if Kuang worried that her points wouldn’t hit unless they were made so bluntly; though, I will premise that by acknowledging that the reflection she wants us to make deserves plain-speak and in that sense, is right in eschewing nuance.
The most sinister, discomfiting contemplations one is left with by the time this fast-paced book is finished, is how violent hate can reside right beneath the surface, and how feeling victimized despite being a perpetrator, as June quite clearly is in her thieving, has the capacity to push a person down a far more extreme path than what they set off on.
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