May's Modern Fiction Book Club Pick:
Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
Join us for a stimulating conversation with your lovely book club host, Sílvia, and other book lovers. Come for dinner or a natural wine, stay for the conversation and new friendships.
More info about this month's book:
White lies. Dark humor. Deadly consequences… Bestselling sensation Juniper Song is not who she says she is, she didn’t write the book she claims she wrote, and she is most certainly not Asian American—in this chilling and hilariously cutting novel from R.F. Kuang, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Babel.
Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars. But Athena’s a literary darling. June Hayward is literally nobody. Who wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks.
So when June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena’s just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers during World War I.
So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song—complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? Doesn’t this piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller? That’s what June claims, and the New York Times bestseller list seems to agree.
But June can’t get away from Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring June’s (stolen) success down around her. As June races to protect her secret, she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.
With its totally immersive first-person voice, Yellowface grapples with questions of diversity, racism, and cultural appropriation, as well as the terrifying alienation of social media. R.F. Kuang’s novel is timely, razor-sharp, and eminently readable.
This book can be purchased at Fable.
Location of the event:
Fable - Cafe, Coffee, English Books, Rua dos Prazeres 10A, Lisbon, 1200-820
About the Venue: Fable
Fable is a wellness cafe and English bookshop in Lisbon. We offer colorful, wholesome meals, specialty coffee, natural wine, cold-pressed juice and a thoughtfully curated selection of both fiction and non-fiction books in English. We also host a medley of events and workshops, usually focused on creativity, wellness, book launch parties, and inclusive community gatherings.
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