Shawn Wong is the author of the novels Homebase and American Knees, the latter of which was adapted into the feature film Americanese. He has edited six multicultural literary anthologies, including Aiiieeeee! An Anthology of Asian American Writers, which has just been reissued in a third edition by the University of Washington Press for its 45th anniversary. Wong is a professor of English and Cinema & Media Studies at the University of Washington. A reprint of Eat a Bowl of Tea by Louis Chu (1961) is the inaugural title from the Shawn Wong Book Fund, which supports books at UW Press in Asian American literature and Asian American studies.
On your nightstand now:
The Magical Language of Others by E.J. Koh (Tin House). When you read this book, you surrender to her narrative voice.
Favorite book when you were a child:
Chin Ling, the Chinese Cricket by Alison Stilwell. She was the daughter of General Joseph Stilwell. My mother knew her, and she signed a copy of the book for me. I still have it. Also, the Boris Karloff recording of Peter and the Wolf used to scare me to death as a kid, but I would put it on the record player over and over.
Your top five authors:
Kay Boyle, the great American writer who was my mentor and teacher at San Francisco State College.
Frank Chin, the first published Asian American author I ever met--in 1969 when I was 19.
John Okada, author of No-No Boy, whose 1957 novel I found in a used bookstore in 1970 when I was trying to be a novelist myself and looking for my Asian American literary history. My 50-year relationship with this novel was documented recently in the New York Times, the New Yorker and on several websites, bringing new attention to this important novel.
Ishmael Reed, who befriended me in the late '60s and eventually published my first novel, Homebase, when no other company would publish it.
Erin Malone, poet, and my wife. Everybody needs to read her work and be guided by her voice.
Book you've faked reading:
As an undergraduate English major at Berkeley, I faked reading Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene. My professor was about 150 years old and he used to read from the book or his lecture notes in a monotone for the entire class. I think he might have been a peer of Spenser.
Book you're an evangelist for:
I just started my own book series, Shawn Wong Books, with the University of Washington Press and our first publication partnership is the 1961 classic novel by Louis Chu, Eat a Bowl of Tea, about post-World War II New York's Chinatown. We hope to publish more classic Asian American works of literature in the future.
Book you've bought for the cover:
Straight Man by Richard Russo. I bought this book after reading the blurbs on the cover. People kept telling me it was one of the funniest books they've ever read. It's about a lowly creative writing professor who becomes chair of his English department. At the time I read it, I was transitioning from being director of the Creative Writing program at the University of Washington to becoming chair of the English department. I thought it would be a good "owner's manual" to guide me.
Book you hid from your parents:
My parents both died at a young age, so I think the only books I hid from them were comic books I would read with a flashlight in bed when I was supposed to be asleep, or I would listen to broadcasts of the SF Giants on my little transistor radio with an earpiece. The era of Willie Mays.
Book that changed your life:
I read You Can't Go Home Again by Thomas Wolfe when I was in high school and it made me want to be a writer, because who doesn't love all that angst and pain as a teenager?
Favorite line from a book:
It's not really a line, but my photo is in Ishmael Reed's novel, Mumbo Jumbo. I'm also a character named Paul Wong in Karen Yamashita's novel I Hotel and a character appropriately named Shawn Wong in Kay Boyle's novel The Underground Woman. I've always loved my part in literary history trivia like those moments.
Five books you'll never part with:
This House of Sky by Ivan Doig. After reading this, you think you belong in Montana and you're a member of Doig's family. I was fortunate to have gotten to know him and every time I was with him, I was in awe of the guy.
King Lear. I read this several times from high school through college and then saw a production of the play at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in London in the '80s where there were no sets, a bare stage and only beige-colored costumes. It was so enthralling to watch as a stage production, it was as if I never read the play and didn't know the outcome.
Books I either read to my son or listened to on tape, such as James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo, Pecorino Plays Ball by Alan Madison, and books by James Howe about Harold the dog, Chester the cat, and the vampire rabbit Bunnicula.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy. The World According to Garp by John Irving. Two books you need if stranded on a desert island or quarantined in the middle of pandemic.