Revisiting: Novelist Vanessa Hua--Shining a Light on Chinese-American Voices

Author and 2020 NEA Literature Fellow Vanessa Hua is getting a lot of well-deserved praise for her recently released novel, Forbidden City which tells the story of the Chinese Cultural revolution as experienced by a woman who is a member of Chairman Mao’s dance troupe. In fact, Vanessa ‘s NEA Literature Fellowship enabled her to finish the book, so it seemed like a good time to revisit my 2020 interview with her—which remains one of my favorites both because of the books and because of Vanessa—she has a wonderful sense of humor and a feel for an apt turn of phrase. In this podcast, she talks about her novel A River of Stars  which she describes as “a pregnant Chinese Thelma and Louise” and her book of short stories Deceit and Other Possibilities whose theme she says is “model minorities behaving badly.” These two books explore the lives of immigrants in San Francisco’s Chinatown and the divide between 1st generation parents and 2nd generation children.  She also discusses the 2020 Lit Fellowship which allowed her work on Forbidden City, as well as her experiences as a journalist, as a writer of fiction, as a mother and as a 2nd generation Chinese-American.  She is clear these experiences don’t exist in silos but are always informing one another.