The Life and Novels of R.F. Kuang

    Delve into the realm of literary powerhouse R.F. Kuang, a Chinese American fantasy novelist with a lot to say about complex themes of power, morality and cultural identity. Boasting an impressive body of work, Kuang has published five novels since her debut in 2018 including the acclaimed trilogy The Poppy War, and the controversial satirical fiction Yellowface. Her novels often portray a unique fusing of mythology and folklore with history and reality. She holds a laundry list of accolades as an author including the Nebula, Locus, Crawford, and British Fantasy Awards. In 2022, she debuted at the number one spot on the New York Times Best Sellers List, and received Blackwell's Books of the Year for Fiction, both awards for her novel Babel, An Arcane History. Her academic prowess is equally formidable, with a Master of Philosophy in Chinese Studies from Cambridge University, and a Master of Science in Contemporary Chinese Studies from the University of Oxford (1). Currently pursuing a PhD in East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale University, she stands at the intersection of scholarship and creative expression.

    Kuang was four years old when her family immigrated to the US from Guangzhou, China. In an essay for Uncanny Magazine, Kuang examines the silence of her parents' pasts that kept her in the dark about her own history and culture. She says, "for many immigrants, Chinese or otherwise, the journey across the Pacific represents a clean break with the past as much as it is a chance to escape" (2). She goes on to describe a palpable fear associated with leaving China during the regime of the Communist Party, an anxiety that even though they were thousands of miles away someone might still be listening (2). Kuang's debut trilogy is born from a curiosity of a culture she was never able to understand due to the nature of her parent's immigration.

"I was writing from a place of rage and anger because I thought it was just astonishing and really tragic that something like this was not really talked about in the West and also not really … acknowledged or apologized for, on the part of Japan."

    The first draft of The Poppy War is imagined after Kuang learns of the horrific mass-murder known as the Nanjing Massacre. This event, like many others, is not commonly taught in Western culture, and Kuang describes the anger and frustration she initially felt regarding the lack of acknowledgement for events like this. Although she is no longer writing from this place, as she tells NPR in an interview, that anger is still present in her characters (3). The main character of The Poppy War, fourteen-year-old Fang Runin (Rin for short) is a peasant from a poor village looking to find a way out of an arranged marriage to an older man. She finds this in acceptance to an elite military academy in which she discovers a mysterious power and trains to become a shaman. Her home country ultimately goes to war against the Federation of Mugen, forcing Rin to become a hardened soldier grappling with themes like the price of war and loss of humanity (4). Kuang describes Rin as being inspired by members of the Communist Party of China such as Mao Zedong and Ding Ling.

    After the successes of The Poppy War trilogy and her novel Babel, inspired by her experiences studying at Oxford and Cambridge, Kuang shifted away from her fantasy/history fusion to explore a more contemporary, satirical style of fiction. Her fourth novel Yellowface, is a commentary on diversity and representation in the publishing world, drawing inspiration from Kuang's own experiences feeling like a "token author" in the industry. The novel is told from the point of view of June Hayward, a struggling writer grappling with feelings of bitterness toward her former classmate Athena Liu, her more successful counterpart. From Hayward's perspective, Liu is only successful because her work centers around Chinese culture and publishers are just looking to fill a diversity quota by working with her. After being the sole witness to Liu's death in a freak accident, Hayward decides to edit and rewrite one of Liu's manuscripts. She eventually feels a sense of ownership over Liu's work and publishes it as her own under the false name Juniper Song, along with author photos that are purposefully racially ambiguous (5). The novel, risky and uncomfortable from the first moments, asks publishers, writers, and readers alike to think more critically about the manners in which books are consumed.

 

"I hate the feeling of being read just because somebody's trying to tick off a diversity checkbox."

    Given the controversial nature of Kuang's most recent work, Yellowface was met with mixed reactions from readers and reviewers alike. In her review for NPR, Keishel Williams says, "Kuang's first foray outside of fantasy is a well-executed, gripping, fast-paced novel about the nuances of the publishing world when an author is desperate enough to do anything for success. I was consistently at the edge of my seat until the very last page. This type of interrogation of the co-opting of culture and stories for capital gain is well-received" (6). Reviews like this seem to praise Kuang highly for shedding light on a topic not commonly touched upon amongst authors and publishers, and take interest in the conversation surrounding Kuang as an Asian author writing the novel from the perspective of a white author. Williams says, "The topic of cultural appropriation galvanizes the entire story and at various angles challenges the idea of what kind of stories writers are allowed to write given their race, gender, sexual orientation, etc" (6). 

    On the other side of things, the novel also received backlash for "fall[ing] into its own trap," as Zoe Hu's review for the Washington Post puts it (7). Hu criticizes June Hayward as a character straddling the line between intelligence and ignorance. Although she is meant to be the sort of narrator that the reader understands they cannot trust, her seeming awareness of certain parts of Asian culture contrasts with the ignorance of her actions throughout the novel in such a way that, "June becomes not an unreliable narrator but an unbelievable character" (7). In other words, if June seems to be so acutely aware of nuances among Asian culture, then the choices she makes contradict that knowledge in a way that may not necessarily align within her character. Hu also felt that the novel seemed to generalize the publishing industry as a whole. She writes, "The literary agents in 'Yellowface' are so lacking in specificity as to be interchangeable, but not in a redemptively parodic way" (7). This suggests that although Kuang is attempting to highlight certain shortcomings and flaws within the industry, it does not necessarily offer any routes to improve upon either the people within the industry or the industry itself.

    I was interested in exploring Kuang's work further particularly because her novels The Poppy War and Babel have been on my TBR for quite some time. For one reason or another I have yet to get around to them, but after this deep dive into her work they have made their way to the top of my list. Through my research, I am impressed by the amount of education Kuang has received, particularly regarding Chinese studies. Although her work is fiction and fantasy, knowing that she has a deep and ongoing understanding of Chinese culture and history makes me appreciate her work that much more. I came across this virtual lecture she gave to the University of Manitoba, where she discusses "Asian American" as a literary category and the reduction of an author's work to this sort of grouping. The lecture is a valuable watch if you are interested in furthering the conversation present in her novel Yellowface: 

    Before this post I had been unaware of the novel and the waves it made throughout the publishing industry. I was interested in Babel because I thought commentary on the nature of academia was interesting and bold, so I am not surprised that Kuang would tackle something as daring as the industry that employs her. Researching this novel has made me think a lot about the nature of consumption and how nuanced representation within publishing is. I have always tried to maintain a level of diversity in my reading list, but Kuang raises a good point that reading marginalized authors just for the sake of ticking a "diversity checkbox" can be a problematic practice and an exercise in reader privilege. Moving forward, I want to think more intentionally about reading for the sake of understanding the vast expanses of human experiences different from my own.

Works Cited

1. "About - Rebecca F. Kuang." Wordpress. https://rfkuang.com/about/
2. Kuang, R.F. "How to Talk to Ghosts." Uncanny Magazine, no. 21, 2018. https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/how-to-talk-to-ghosts/. Accessed 10 February 2024.
3. Yu, Alan. "In The Poppy War Series, R.F. Kuang asks: 'What If Mao Was A Teenaged Girl?'" NPR, 24 November 2020. https://www.npr.org/2020/11/24/937995479/in-the-poppy-war-series-r-f-kuang-asks-what-if-mao-was-a-teenage-girl. Accessed 8 February 2024.
4. "The Poppy War (publisher page)." HarperCollins. Accessed 15 February 2024. https://www.harpercollins.com/products/yellowface-r-f-kuang?variant=40985522831394
5. "Yellowface (publisher page)." HarperCollins. Accessed 15 February 2024. https://www.harpercollins.com/products/yellowface-r-f-kuang?variant=40985522831394
6. Williams, Keishel. "'Yellowface' takes white privilege to a sinister level." NPR, 15 May 2023. https://www.npr.org/2023/05/15/1175725398/r-f-kuang-novel-yellowface-takes-white-privilege-to-a-sinister-level. Accessed 8 February 2024.
7. Hu, Zoe. "'Yellowface,' a satire of race and publishing, falls into its own trap." The Washington Post, 12 May 2023. https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2023/05/12/yellowface-kuang-book-review/. Accessed 8 February 2024.
8. "R.F. Kuang Lecture 'The Poppy War in Context: Asian American Speculative Fiction' (Oct 28 2020)." YouTube, uploaded by Dr Erin Keating, 31 October 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9xxcOh6Rg0. Accessed 15 February 2024.
9. Bansheequeen. R.F. Kuang Author Image. https://the-poppy-war.fandom.com/wiki/R._F._Kuang. Accessed 12 February 2024.
10. The Poppy War Trilogy. Amazon, https://www.amazon.com/Poppy-War-Dragon-Republic-Burning/dp/9124133701. Accessed 12 February 2024.
11. Packman, John. R.F. Kuang; Yellowface. HarperCollins. Rolling Stone, https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/r-f-kuang-yellowface-publishing-industry-1234736246/. Accessed 12 February 2024.