This year’s Asian American Cultural Center slAAm! Book Club author is Gene Luen Yang, featuring his book American Born Chinese. On October 27th Gene Yang will give a lecture from 4-6pm in the Student Union Theater.
This event is sponsored by the Asian American Cultural Center, the Asian and Asian American Studies Institute, the slAAm! Book Club, and The Rightors Fund for Children's Literature.
More about Gene Yang:
Gene Luen Yang began drawing comics in the fifth grade. His rise to prominence as a cartoonist began in 1997, when he received the Xeric grant for self-publishing for his Gordon Yamamoto and the King of the Geeks. After putting out several issues on his own, it was picked up by the independent comics publisher Slave Labor, who published it and Loyola Chin and the San Pelegran Order (later collected into a single volume as Animal Crackers). While working on these comics, Yang received his Master’s degree in education from Cal State Hayward and began teaching at a San Francisco school. He is a founding member of the Bay Area’s Art Night Crew, a local group of cartoonists.
American Born Chinese, Yang’s first graphic novel with the then-fledgling publisher First Second, put him on the map in the bookstore and the library market, where it was one of the leading graphic novels to make a real impact. American Born Chinese, the story of a teenager struggling with his identity, was the first-ever graphic novel ever to be named a finalist for the National Book Award, causing a firestorm of controversy about whether graphic novels were eligible for the award, and whether they were “real books.” The book went on to win the Printz Award, the ALA’s award for the best young adult book published that year. It is the only graphic novel to ever receive the Printz. To date, it has sold around 400,000 copies, and it is taught in high schools and colleges around the country.
A strong believer in collaboration, Yang has published books in partnership with esteemed cartoonists Derek Kirk Kim (The Eternal Smile, Duncan’s Kingdom), Thien Pham (Level Up), and Sonny Liew (The Shadow Hero). Yang’s work has also been included in the anthologies Up All Night, Secret Identities, Strange Tales, Nursery Rhyme Comics, Shattered, Open Mic, andComic Squad: Recess. After speaking out against the lack of diversity in the casting of the Avatar: The Last Airbender movie, Yang was asked to write the Avatar: The Last Airbender comics, which he does to this day, as well as writing Superman (with John Romita Jr., Klaus Janson, and Howard Porter) for DC Comics.
For more information, contact: Sarah Lindahl at sarah.lindahl@uconn.edu