User:Shanghai Girl USA/sandbox

Vivian Yang (杨薇) is a veteran self-publishing Chinese-American writer [1] whose works debunk the notion of a culturally- and ethnically-homogeneous China. Her debut novel Shanghai Girl won her an Individual Artist Literary Fellowship from The New Jersey State Council on the Arts and was translated and published in Japan as Shan Hai Gaaru. Her novel Memoirs of a Eurasian won The WNYC Leonard Lopate Show Essay Contest and was reviewed by Publishers Weekly, [2] which also profiled her.

In 2012, she served as a panelist in the Writing Achievement Levels Setting for Grades 8 and 12 for “The Nation’s Report Card”, and is a 2014 Mentor of The New York Foundation for the Arts' Immigrant Artists Program, Literary Arts Discipline.

Contents [hide] 1 Personal Life 2 Works 3 Reviews 4 References

Personal Life [edit]

Vivian Yang was born in Shanghai in November 1960. Since three days old, she was raised by her maternal grandmother Li Lanyun 李兰云 in the household of her great-grandfather Li Sihao 李思浩, a Buddhist philanthropist and pre-Communist era multi-term Finance Minister of China and Acting Governor of Bank of China. This earliest upbringing by her elders was to have a direct impact on her writing.

She moved to the United States in 1986 after teaching English and journalism at Shanghai International Studies University, her undergraduate alma mater. She earned an MA in communication at Arizona State University and studied creative writing at Columbia University while working in New York. She was a Tuition Scholar at The Bread Loaf Writer's Conference where her work was published in its daily "Crumb". Her stories, journalistic work, reviews, personal essays and op-eds have been published in China Daily, Far Eastern Economic Review, HK Magazine, The National Law Journal, The New York Times, South China Morning Post, and The Wall Street Journal Asia.

She lives in New York City.

Works[edit]

1. Memoirs of a Eurasian, ISBN-13: 9781461013419; ISBN: 1461013410 2. Shanghai Girl, ISBN-13: 9781461123569; ISBN: 1461123569 3. Shan Hai Gaaru ISBN-13: 9781461193074, ISBN: 1461193079

Reviews[edit]

Publishers Weekly wrote: (Memoirs of a Eurasian is) “an engaging exploration of a world unknown to most Westerners. Yang navigates Hong Kong and the insular Chinese world of Shanghai with equal ease, convincingly charting the protagonist’s life from childhood to adolescence and adulthood. ... Readers will find this fascinating novel very enjoyable and readable.” [   ]

Kirkus Review wrote: "The reader experiences 20th-century China -- the Cultural Revolution, the industrialization of the coastal regions and the transformation of Hong Kong -- through (the protagonist)’s struggles and triumphs and the novel progresses competently from episode to episode. This gives Memoirs of a Eurasian a pleasing, consistent tension ... The novel is structured as an Asian woman recounting her life story to a Westerner, and as such brings to mind Arthur Golden’s massively successful Memoirs of a Geisha. Despite these superficial likenesses, the protagonists of the novels are entirely different. While Geisha gave a delicately crafted look at the exotic, Yang's tale is more relatable ... (and) provides a unique perspective on an under-explored era." [   ]

Hyphen Magazine wrote: “Memoirs of a Eurasian is a complex novel spanning four decades of cultural upheaval in China. … One particularly bold narrative detour is when a character leaves for Japan and then falls prey to cannibalism. Yang presents the event with little sensationalism. … The moments of sensuality in the novel are recounted less as sexual awakenings and more as empowering moments for the female characters of the story. These moments serve as some of the most powerful of the story, and demonstrate Yang’s willingness to take her narrative beyond a comfortable zone.”  [    ]

JADE Magazine wrote: "Shanghai Girl is a delicious tale of cross-cultural adjustment, personal ambition, and self-discovery, peppered with steamy sex, ruthless exploitation, and mysterious murder. ... From the streets of old Shanghai to a feast of monkey brains, Yang scripts scenarios that readers may otherwise never experience for themselves. And to have done this all in her second language! ... We are anxiously awaiting Yang's next masterpiece! "    [    ]

EVE magazine wrote: “Shanghai Girl is superb literature ... one of the best of contemporary novels written by Chinese authors; we eagerly await Yang's next literary feat.”   [    ]

HK Magazine wrote: “Shanghai Girl – a feat in itself. Yang puts a new, often lighthearted spin on frequently covered topics like Chinese identity, the U.S. immigrant experience and reverberations of the Cultural Revolution.”   [    ]

Reviews of Vivian's books have appeared in HK Magazine,               Hong Kong Standard,          Hyphen, Kirkus Review, Publishers Weekly, SAMPAN (Boston), and                   South China Morning Post.

References[edit]

Vivian Yang's Official Homepage

The World Journal (in Chinese)

San Diego Chinese Press

Publishers Weekly "Author Profile" of Vivian Yang, January 2, 2012

South China Morning Post  multiple dates .....

Vivian Yang's essay in The Asian Wall Street Journal on being an Asian-American Writer  exact date

new stub: self-published writers

Categories: American writers of Chinese descent Chinese emigrants to the United States Self-published Writers    Bread Loaf Writers' Conference alumni  Shanghai International Studies University faculty