Gene Luen Yang Author of “American Born Chinese”
Why did you think “American Born Chinese” would be told most effectively told through a graphic novel?
• With “American Born Chinese,” I felt I wanted to highlight the issues within the stereotypes that have been created for Asians. For example, to describe the Monkey King character to someone through a standard text, I don’t think it would have the same sort of emotional impact as seeing him visually on the page.
• I knew from the beginning I wanted to focus on creating a story that portrays more than just words, because my own cultural growing up included a lot of graphic novels and I believe this was something that shaped me into who I am today.
Do you feel like graphic novels have grown
