JUNE 15
INTERIOR CHINATOWN
BY CHARLES YU
Join us for a free Zoom event featuring Charles Yu in conversation with John Freeman. Learn more at californiabookclub.com.
When Charles Yu’s Interior Chinatown won the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction, it took a lot of people by surprise. The novel, which addresses, among other issues, the stereotypical ways Asians have been characterized in Hollywood, was written in screenplay format, a strategy that might seem unusual. Yet Yu has long been a boundary pusher; his debut novel, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, revolves around a time machine mechanic named—wait for it—Charles Yu, who essentially rewrites the fiction in which he is living, even as we read. Recently, Yu and I corresponded by email about his exhilarating, groundbreaking work.
Why write as a
