After reading Rebecca F. Kuang’s critically acclaimed fantasy novel Babel I was left amazed and in awe of Kuang’s writing. I couldn’t wait to read more of her work. Thankfully Yellowface was just published, not a fantasy novel but nonetheless already much discussed and appraised; and as it turned out: rightfully so. It’s of course different but still brilliant and engaging in its own way. In Yellowface we follow the moderately successful author June, a white woman, who steals the unpublished manuscript from her dead ‘friend’ and very successful author Athena Lui who is/was Chinese-American.

June sells Athena's idea, a novel about the war efforts of Chinese workers in the First World War, and the already written first draft of that idea as her own. The novel gets published and June rises to literary stardom. From there, a fast paced and captivatingly written story of (self)delusion, deception and critical commentary on cultural appropriation unfolds. As questions and suspicions about the true authorship of the novel emerge, June stops at nothing to defend her web of lies. The way I felt engaged as a reader was, on one hand, due to the skillful and sharp writing style of the monologues and the narration. While on the other hand it felt like I wanted to keep reading for the same reason you continue to watch videos of people saying things that make you go “Wtf” – it aggravates you.

Yellowface grapples with topics like Asian diaspora writing and life, and takes satirical jabs at the publishing industry and toxic twitter culture, while starting important conversations around authorship, plagiarism, cultural appropriation, identity politics, supposed diversity culture in creative fields and the question: ‘Can and should everyone write about any- and everything?’ A definite must-read this year.