In 2007, Yu was selected by the National Book Foundation as one of its "5 Under 35", a program which highlights the work of the next generation of fiction writers by asking five previous National Book Award fiction Winners and Finalists to select one fiction writer under the age of 35 whose work they find particularly promising and exciting. Yu was selected for the honor by Richard Powers.[1]
In 2021, Yu established the Betty L. Yu and Jin C. Yu Creative Writing Prizes in collaboration with TaiwaneseAmerican.org.[3][4]
Short storiesedit
His fiction was cited for special mention in the Pushcart Prize Anthology XXVIII, specifically "Problems for Self-Study" published in the Harvard Review.[5]
In 2020, Yu released his second novel, Interior Chinatown, which uses the screenplay format to tell the tale of Willis Wu, the "Generic Asian Man" who is stuck playing "Background Oriental Male" and occasionally "Delivery Guy" in the fictional police procedural Black and White but who longs to be "Kung Fu Guy" on screens worldwide.[12] On January 27, 2020, Yu appeared on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah to discuss the book, as well as the lack of on-screen representation for Asian Americans and the Asian American "model minority myth".[13] Yu further appeared on NPR's Weekend Edition with Scott Simon, January 25, 2020,[14] and on the Los Angeles Review of Books Radio Hour with Medaya Ocher and Kate Wolf on February 3, 2020[15] to further discuss the novel.
Yu's non-fiction, essays, book reviews, journalism and other writing have also appeared online and in print in The Atlantic ( "The Pre-pandemic Universe Was the Fiction"), Slate (various reviews and articles on video games such as L.A. Noire and Portal 2), The Wall Street Journal ("Novelist Charles Yu on St. George California Reserve Agricole Rum"), Time ("What It's Like to Never Ever See Yourself on TV"), The Offing ("Thirteen Ways of Looking at 45" about the 45th president of the United States, Donald Trump), The New York Times Style Magazine ("George R. R. Martin, Fantasy's Reigning King"), McSweeney's Internet Tendency ("What Kind of World Is This?"), The Morning News ("Buffalo Wild Wings Grill & Bar", a review) and Polygon ("What future artificial intelligence will think of our puny human video games").
He lives near Irvine, California, with his wife, Michelle Jue, and their two children, Sophia and Dylan.[35] His brother is the actor and TV writer Kelvin Yu.[36]
Awards and accoladesedit
2020: National Book Award for Fiction for the novel Interior Chinatown.[2]
2010: Second Best Science Fiction Novel, from the John Wayne and Elsie M. Gunn Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas for the novel How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
"Bounty", Xprize ANA "Avatars.Inc" Anthology (eBook and also online), March 2020
"The Future of Work: Placebo", Wired, December 17, 2018
"America, The Ride", Lightspeed, November 2018, Issue 102 (anthologized in Resist: Tales from a Future Worth Fighting Against, edited by Hugh Howey, Gary Whitta & Christie Yant (Broad Reach Publishing 2018))
"NPC", Lightspeed, September 2018, Issue 100 (anthologized in Press Start to Play, edited by Daniel H. Wilson & John Joseph Adams (Vintage Books 2015))
"Bookkeeper, Narrator, Gunslinger", Lightspeed, April 2017, Issue 83 (anthologized in Dead Man's Hand: An Anthology of the Weird West, edited by John Joseph Adams (Titan Books, 2014))
"Subtext®: It Knows What You're Thinking Stop Thinking", Wired, December 13, 2016
"Fable", The New Yorker, May 23, 2016, Fiction (May 30, 2016 Issue)
"Re: re: Microwave in the break room doing weird things to fabric of spacetime", Motherboard, Tech by Vice, November 12, 2015
Non-fictionedit
Essaysedit
"The Pre-pandemic Universe Was the Fiction", The Atlantic, April 15, 2020
"What It's Like to Never See Yourself on TV", TIME, January 21, 2020
^ ab"5 Under 35 2007". National Book Foundation. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
^ abcdAlter, Alexandra (November 19, 2020). "Charles Yu Wins National Book Award for 'Interior Chinatown'". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 19, 2020.
^Locus Magazine (February 22, 2021). "Charles Yu Establishes Taiwanese American Creative Writing Prize". Locus Online. Retrieved August 19, 2022.
^"National Book Award winner Charles Yu discusses his new prize for Taiwanese American writers". Orange County Register. February 25, 2021. Retrieved August 19, 2022.
^Henderson, Bill (2004). Pushcart Prize XXVIII, 2004: Best of the Small Presses. Pushcart Press. ISBN 978-1-888889-36-9.
^"Charles Yu | Penguin Random House". PenguinRandomhouse.com. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
^"Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017 – John Joseph Adams". www.johnjosephadams.com. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
^ ab"The John W. Campbell Memorial Award" Archived December 29, 2012, at the Wayback Machine Updated 11 July 2011. Retrieved 2012-04-25.
^Miller, Daniel (December 2, 2011). "Chris Columbus' Production Company Acquires Sci-Fi Novel (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
^Charlie Jane Anders, Will Hollywood sentimentalize Charles Yu's How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe?, io9, December 2, 2011, http://io9.com/how-to-live-safely-in-a-science-fictional-universe/ Archived October 19, 2020, at the Wayback Machine
^Carolyn Kellog, The Washington Post, Charles Yu's ‘Interior Chinatown’ brilliantly skewers Hollywood typecasting, https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/charles-yus-interior-chinatown-brilliantly-skewers-hollywood-typecasting/2020/01/27/4d04be48-3711-11ea-bf30-ad313e4ec754_story.html
^"The Daily Show with Trevor Noah – Charles Yu – Tackling On-Screen Asian Representation With "Interior Chinatown" – Extended Interview". cc.com. Comedy Partners. January 27, 2020. Retrieved May 4, 2020.
^"'Interior Chinatown' Puts That Guy In The Background Front And Center". NPR.org. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
^"Los Angeles Review of Books". Los Angeles Review of Books. February 3, 2020. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
^"2020 National Book Awards Finalists Announced". National Book Foundation. October 6, 2020. Retrieved October 28, 2020.
^ abJCARMICHAEL (October 18, 2020). "2021 Winners". Reference & User Services Association (RUSA). Retrieved July 21, 2022.
^ ab"Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu: 9780307948472 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books". PenguinRandomhouse.com. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
^Timothy Tau, INTERIOR CHINATOWN WINS NATIONAL BOOK AWARD: Q&A with Charles Yu, Hyphen Magazine, https://hyphenmagazine.com/blog/2020/11/interior-chinatown-wins-national-book-award
^ ab"2017 Writers Guild Awards Television, New Media, News, Radio, & Promotional Writing Nominations Announced". www.wga.org. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
^"Conversation from the Shadow Lands. An Interview with Charles Yu". Believer Magazine. July 1, 2015. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
^Entire Collection of all "Influenced By" Believer posts, https://www.newtonvillebooks.com/cms/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/BELIEVER.pdf
^"INFLUENCED BY". Believer Magazine. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
^Jaime Clarke, Believer Magazine, L, Influenced by (where Yu discusses Jonathan Lethem), https://jameson-zimmer.squarespace.com/post/2015/02/03/influenced-by-9
^Jaime Clarke, Believer Magazine, R, Influenced by (where Yu discusses Philip Roth and states "I've read more books by Roth than probably any other contemporary writer"), https://jameson-zimmer.squarespace.com/post?offset=1423520640000
^Yu, Charles (June 14, 2019). "Neal Stephenson's New Novel — Part Tech, Part Fantasy — Dazzles". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
^Yu, Charles (May 27, 2015). "'Seveneves,' by Neal Stephenson". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
^Yu, Charles (October 1, 2019). "Short Stories From Joe Hill, Spiked With Mayhem and Evil". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
^Yu, Charles (February 28, 2019). "A Brilliantly Funny and Slightly Bonkers New Novel From Jasper Fforde". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
^Yu, Charles (February 19, 2016). "'The Lost Time Accidents,' by John Wray". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved July 21, 2022.
^Ansari, Aleenah (February 8, 2022). "Charles Yu on identity, representation and what it means to be Asian American". The Seattle Times. Archived from the original on August 19, 2022. Retrieved August 19, 2022.
^Mitchell, Shawn Andrew (May 6, 2013). "Fashionable Nonsense and a Better Brain: Part One of an Interview with Charles Yu". Fiction Writers Review. Retrieved November 19, 2020.
^Birnbaum, Robert. "Charles Yu". The Morning News. Retrieved November 19, 2020.