Yellowface: An Evening With R. F. Kuang

The inspiration of a TED talk, the exhilaration of a rock concert, and the education of a lecture – that was my evening with Rebecca F. Kuang at Durham Book Festival. From the moment she began her witty personal anecdotes, Kuang captivated a sold-out audience. Her command over the room was undeniable, with confident and familiar phrases honed through her expansive tours for multiple award-winning books. While some of her answers were well-rehearsed, there was an instant connection between this humble literary star and her hundreds of excited fans.

Kuang was in conversation with the event Chair, Simon Savidge, whose humour perfectly complemented hers. Sitting in the audience felt like joining their friendship group, getting in on the latest publishing gossip, while Kuang sets out her aim early to “demystify creative genius”. She seamlessly switched from author to best friend, delivering pep-talks to worried students in the audience, and charming us with lectures on cultural appropriation and the commodification of art in the publishing industry.

Describing the process of writing Yellowface, Kuang had the audience laughing with her quip that the novel’s inspiration “was not God calling, it was the internet”. Haunting memories of 2020’s Twitter storms pervaded both the novel and the atmosphere of the talk.

This trend, paired with increasing awareness of everyday racism and the movement #PublishingPaidMe – highlighting pay disparity between white and POC authors  –  came together to inspire Yellowface.

These concerns are clearly Kuang’s passions and, while she joked that her novel is not a “lazy memoir”, she admitted that she had “never written so explicitly” about herself before Yellowface. Her concerns of 2020 are central to the novel, and her shift into literary fiction was necessary to explore these global interests. But it also showcases Kuang’s creative command across genres, being such a sharp turn from her previous work in fantasy.

When Simon called the book “camp and iconic”, Kuang was quick to add that, while entertaining to think of it as a “tabloid dishrag”, Yellowface is instead an important contribution to an ongoing discourse around the ethics of the modern publishing industry. She lectured the audience about the commodification of books, now seen through the “lens of the colophon” rather than as works of art, and recommended the non-fiction book Big Fiction by Dan Sinykin. She added that publishing often reduces identities to tick-box buzzwords for the commercial boost of performative diversity, giving examples like “our immigrant pain story” or “our queer story of the season”: “The kind of representation that’s easy for publishing to slot identities into cute little boxes.”

It is fascinating that a novel so critical of the publishing industry can be so commercially successful, accessible, and entertaining. Kuang used the discussion not to bask in her success, but to extend the conversation that her book began, holding up a mirror to our flaws as consumers and participants in the flashy Yellowface marketing campaigns that dominated bookshop displays this spring. Kuang’s participation in the commercial rat race for the next bestselling work appears humble and intentional – she is using her success to shine a light on the blemishes of a publishing industry that has ironically both profited from and been criticised by her book. This event felt increasingly like a necessary epilogue to Yellowface, drawing us out of the enthralling entertainment to a deeper reflection on the flawed industry that swept the novel into such success. Over the course of the discussion, Yellowface was pulled away from the bestsellers’ shelf and placed alongside activist texts.

The evening ended with raised hands rather than raised phones – we were all keen to learn more. Kuang responded directly to audience members, answering questions about her literary idols, the place of Yellowface in the canon of Asian literature, and offering inspiration for struggling students. Her genuine engagement, making eye contact across the crowd, felt like a personal lecture.

Kuang closed the event by warning us against the “hyper-financialised world” that prioritises career progression over learning for its own sake. She drew on the sympathy that she had stirred up during the talk for the non-commercial art that is forgotten in place of commercial bestsellers, turning us towards developing passions completely detached from the pressure of productive work experience.

Though Yellowface is firmly a thrilling piece of literary fiction, it continues to stand alongside Kuang’s secondary-world fantasy books as a dystopian novel drawing our attention to the tremendous influence that the internet and capitalism have over art – a world that no reader wants to live in. As she left the stage to thunderous applause, Kuang’s audience raced to the signing table, before breaking out into the evening feeling that they had just witnessed something truly transformative.