Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures will present an online discussion with author Charles Yu on October 18 as part of next year's Ten Evenings series.
The author of four books and numerous television scripts, Charles Yu won the 2020 National Book Award for Interior Chinatown, an ambitious satire about race, pop culture, immigration, assimilation, and escaping roles we are forced to play. Willis Wu doesn’t perceive himself as the protagonist in his own life: he’s merely Generic Asian Man. Sometimes he gets to be Background Oriental Making a Weird Face or even Disgraced Son, but always he is relegated to a prop. Yet every day, he leaves his tiny room in a Chinatown SRO and enters the Golden Palace restaurant, where Black and White, a procedural cop show, is in perpetual production. He’s a bit player here, too, but he dreams of being Kung Fu Guy—the most respected role that anyone who looks like him can attain. Or is it?Tickets for the 7:30 pm event go on sale July 6.