A National Endowment for the Arts Big Read ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: THE NEW YORKER NPR TIME THE WASHINGTON POST THE ATLANTIC VANITY FAIR VULTURE THRILLIST SHELF AWARENESS SOUTHERN LIVING INSIDEHOOK KIRKUS REVIEWS THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY THE CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY
"Fresh and beautiful. . . . Interior Chinatown represents yet another stellar destination in the journey of a sui generis author of seemingly limitless skill and ambition. The New York Times Book Review
[A] sharply observed, darkly humorous evocation of the Asian American experience. Entertainment Weekly
Satire at its best, a shattering and darkly comic send-up of racial stereotyping in Hollywood . . . presented, perfectly, in the sharply hewed format of a screenplay. . . . Peeling back caricatures to paint vivid individual portraits, Yu eviscerates generalizations with the devastatingly specific. Vanity Fair
Bold, even groundbreaking. . . . Interior Chinatown solders together mordant wit and melancholic whimsy to produce a moving exploration of race and assimilation. San Francisco Chronicle
Interior Chinatown . . . recalls the humorous and heartfelt short stories of George Saunders, the metafictional high jinks of Mark Leyner, and films like The Truman Show. The New York Times
An inventive satire about racial stereotyping. Maureen Corrigan, NPR
Meticulously crafted. . . . Yu tells us about ourselves with his haunting depictions of the immigrant experience, familial relationships, and the abiding desire to break from the pressures of conformity and live an authentic life. Los Angeles Review of Books
Part novel, part screenplay, part screed, and part sociology, this National Book Award winner is always funny and pretty savage. Vulture
Yu has a devilish good time poking fun at the racially blinkered ways of Hollywood. . . . [Interior Chinatown is] rollicking fun, and its reclamation of Asian American history, with all its attendant sorrows and hopes, holds out the possibility of a new, true story ahead. New York Journal of Books
Honest, funny, sad, and necessary satire. Thrillist
Like nothing you ve read before a moving and transportive work abounding with risks that pay off. InsideHook
Passionate and clever. . . . A caustic, absurd, and endearing exploration of Asian American stereotypes, police procedurals, and the immigrant experience. Shelf Awareness
A stunning novel about identity, race, societal expectations, and crippling anxiety told with humor and affection and a deep understanding of human nature. The Washington Independent Review of Books
Conflates history, sociology, and ethnography with the timeless evils of racism, sexism, and elitism in a multigenerational epic that s both rollicking entertainment and scathing commentary. Booklist (starred review)
CHARLES YU is the author of four books, including Interior Chinatown (the winner of the 2020 National Book Award for fiction), and 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. Together with TaiwaneseAmerican.org, he established the Betty L. Yu and Jin C. Yu Writing Prizes, in honor of his parents.
