{"id":23597,"date":"2025-05-05T11:14:25","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T09:14:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogak.donostiakultura.eus\/liburu-dantza\/?p=23597"},"modified":"2025-05-05T11:16:55","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T09:16:55","slug":"yellowface","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogak.donostiakultura.eus\/liburu-dantza\/yellowface\/","title":{"rendered":"Yellowface"},"content":{"rendered":"

Harper Collins International, 2023
\n323 p.
\nISBN 978-0-00-853278-9<\/p>\n

Post hau ingelesez dago.<\/p>\n

R.F.Kuang<\/strong>, an author known primarily for her speculative fiction, surprises us in Yellowface<\/em><\/a> by delving into the dark underbelly of the publishing world, exploring themes of cultural appropriation, racism and the obsession with success. The story follows June Hayward, a writer in search of recognition who, after the death of her friend Athena Liu, decides to steal her unpublished manuscript and publish it as her own under the pseudonym Juniper Song. As the novel gains popularity, June is faced with the consequences of her act and the shadow of truth that haunts her.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

With a morally ambiguous character we discover how the literary world works, how image and marketing often take precedence over the real content and value of the books that are published. June’s reflections, but also justifications, lead us to reflect on the publishing business and its ethics and morality. As readers and outside observers we often find ourselves confused by feeling sorry for or empathising with someone like the protagonist. This is made possible by the first-person narration, something we have to keep in mind when thinking about the objectivity of the version of the story we know.<\/p>\n

The novel, which oscillates between black humour and scathing criticism, has been very well received by critics. On May 12, 2025, at 19:00<\/strong>, at a meeting of the Donostia Book Club<\/strong>, we will be able to see if the participants in our literary circle also like it. If you want to analyse the text in depth, here are some questions suggested by the publisher:<\/p>\n

Roland Barthes published the essay \u201cThe Death of the Author<\/em>\u201d in 1967 on whether or not the author\u2019s identity and biography are relevant to the meaning of a text. What do you take the \u201cdeath of the author\u201d to mean? Do you agree? How much does the identity and biography of the author affect how you interpret a text, if at all? Does it change things if the author is still living? If they died over a century ago?<\/p>\n

June feels betrayed by Athena for writing a story about a traumatic experience she suffered during college. Do you think what Athena did was wrong? What obligations, if any, do authors have towards living subjects who inspire their stories?<\/p>\n

Can we ever argue that someone does or doesn\u2019t have the right to tell a certain story? Where do we draw the line between this and censorship? What makes for \u201cbad\u201d literary representation? What constitutes the \u201charm\u201d done by bad literary representation?<\/p>\n

Much of June\u2019s anxiety about her writing career comes from paranoia about how other authors perceive her and compare against her. Is writing a necessarily solitary activity?<\/p>\n

The text employs recurring imagery of masks and skin; June imagines unzipping Athena\u2019s skin and pulling it on over herself. There are some references to the white desire to slip into another skin. In what ways is this trope salient to understanding racialization today?<\/p>\n

June justifies finishing Athena\u2019s manuscript by arguing it is better for her story to reach the world than to linger unpublished, or to be posthumously published in unfinished form. Do you agree?<\/p>\n

June and Athena\u2019s friendship seem defined by the way they constantly hurt each other. Why do you think they were drawn to each other? Why did they keep seeing one another?<\/p>\n

Athena in many respects rankles against her canonical status as an Asian American author. She rants about being pigeonholed; she rejects overtures by younger Asian American writers. Why might she feel resentful towards her own community?<\/p>\n

Source: https:\/\/www.readinggroupguides.com\/reviews\/yellowface\/guide<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Harper Collins International, 2023 323 p. ISBN 978-0-00-853278-9 Post hau ingelesez dago. R.F.Kuang, an author known primarily for her speculative fiction, surprises us in Yellowface by delving into the dark underbelly of the publishing world, exploring themes of cultural appropriation, racism and the obsession with success. The story follows June Hayward, a writer in search […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":23599,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-eleberria"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogak.donostiakultura.eus\/liburu-dantza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogak.donostiakultura.eus\/liburu-dantza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogak.donostiakultura.eus\/liburu-dantza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogak.donostiakultura.eus\/liburu-dantza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogak.donostiakultura.eus\/liburu-dantza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23597"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogak.donostiakultura.eus\/liburu-dantza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23613,"href":"https:\/\/blogak.donostiakultura.eus\/liburu-dantza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23597\/revisions\/23613"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogak.donostiakultura.eus\/liburu-dantza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogak.donostiakultura.eus\/liburu-dantza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogak.donostiakultura.eus\/liburu-dantza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogak.donostiakultura.eus\/liburu-dantza\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}