Growing up in Dallas, Texas, Rebecca F Kuang "wrote and read voraciously".
"I was reaching for anything in sight that had written words on it," Kuang told ABC News.
"It's how I made sense of the world. It was my absolute favourite hobby."
When she was younger, Kuang would beg her mother to take her to the public library.
"We would fight over how many fiction books I was allowed to bring home because she only wanted me to be reading science textbooks," she said.
"And I was reading classics as early as I could comprehend them. And I was writing fan fiction, or versions of a diary or short stories.
"I was just always doing it and my parents really encouraged that."
Kuang never thought writing could become a full-time profession though.
"I think in a lot of immigrant households, you're really encouraged to pursue careers with financial security and my parents very responsibly wanted me to become a doctor or lawyer or a diplomat or something stable.
"I think the arts are always a little bit scary. The arts are such a gamble. And I also wanted that kind of security for myself."
Kuang says her first novel happened almost by accident when she was living in Beijing on a gap year.
"In my spare time, I started writing The Poppy War, which is my debut novel.
"And then I finished it, and I thought, 'Oh, my goodness, what should I do with this? Maybe I'll try sending it to a literary agent and see what happens.'
"And one thing led to another, I found an agent, and she found an editor and the book came out and people liked it.
"And I think at that point, my parents said, 'OK, fine, you can give this writing thing a try, it seems like it's working out for you.' And things have just kind of snowballed from there."
Fast forward to 2023 and Kuang was named on the TIME100 Next list, which recognises rising leaders in a variety of fields including business and the arts.
"It was just such a huge honour I wasn't expecting at all," Kuang said.
"It was exciting that I got to be in a space like that just for one night, I felt very much like Cinderella."
The appeal of Yellowface
Kuang's fifth novel, Yellowface, has an enticing set-up that takes you on quite the ride: "Athena Liu is a literary darling and June Hayward is literally nobody. When Athena dies in a freak accident, June steals her unpublished manuscript and publishes it as her own… What happens next is entirely everyone else's fault."
Kuang wrote the bestseller during the pandemic. She says part of why she thinks Yellowface is so successful is that people love to get a glimpse into a world that fascinates them that they might not necessarily have access to.
"I think we all love behind-the-scenes stories," Kuang said.
"Certainly, I do. And any novel or film that gives you a closer look into an industry that most of us don't have personal experience with — [I'm] thinking of shows like The Bear and Succession, even that ridiculous publishing drama Younger that I was watching while I was in the pandemic — you think anything that shows how the sausage is made is just already very cool.
"And I think there's a lot of curiosity about how the publishing industry operates because so much of how it works runs contrary to what readers expect.
"I think part of the appeal is just that it's a dishy industry gossip story. And we like those across all industries."
'Yellowface is quite realistic'
But Kuang says people are mistaken when they refer to Yellowface as a satirical novel.
"Well, aside from the opening incident, which has never happened to me, I don't know any authors who [have] actually stolen a manuscript while a body was still warm.
"Most of the other encounters in Yellowface are pulled either directly from personal experience or from stories I've been told about other people's personal experiences.
"It's always kind of funny to me when people call the story absurdist or satirical, because to be satire, you really have to dramatise or exaggerate the traits that you're poking fun of.
"But Yellowface is quite realistic, actually, in a lot of the depictions of how executives speak to authors, how authors speak to each other.
"I think that kind of nasty and embittered and paranoid energy in the room that you sense during so many of June's encounters with other people in the industry, that's something that's very real and to me did not have to be exaggerated at all."
Kuang will visit Australia for the first time for the All About Women festival.
"It's such a tremendous honour that the first time I step foot in Sydney, I'll be there to speak at the Sydney Opera House," she said.
"Something that I think gets overlooked a lot in conversations about Yellowface, since it is so very explicitly about the publishing industry … but something we don't talk about as much is the gender dynamic and the aspect of female friendship between June and Athena.
"And it's something I've been fascinated in for a long time … it's a theme that I've always loved reading about and have written now, quite explicitly about.
"So, I hope I get to talk about that."
Rebecca F Kuang will appear at the Sydney Opera House on Sunday 10 March as part of the All About Women festival.
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2024-03-06 22:00:01Z
CBMiXWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvbmV3cy8yMDI0LTAzLTA3L3JlYmVjY2EtZi1rdWFuZy1vbi10aGUtc3VjY2Vzcy1vZi15ZWxsb3dmYWNlLzEwMzU0MzI2ONIBKGh0dHBzOi8vYW1wLmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvYXJ0aWNsZS8xMDM1NDMyNjg
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