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Rowan Hisayo Buchanan

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Rowan Hisayo Buchanan
Born (1989-06-02) June 2, 1989 (age 35)[1]
OccupationWriter
NationalityAmerican and British
Alma mater
Genre
Notable worksHarmless Like You, Starling Days
Website
rowanhisayo.com

Rowan Hisayo Buchanan (born June 2, 1989) is an American and British writer. Her novels include Harmless Like You, which received a Betty Trask Award and the 2017 Author's Club First Novel Award, and Starling Days. She is the editor of Go Home!, an anthology of stories by Asian American writers.

Early life and education

Buchanan was born to a half-Chinese, half-Japanese American mother and a British father, and grew up between London and New York.[2] She earned her B.A. from Columbia University, where she was a Core Scholar.[3] She lived in Tokyo while working as an intern for a management consulting firm, then earned her M.F.A. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.[4][5]

Career

Novels

Buchanan's debut novel, Harmless Like You, was published in the U.K. by Sceptre in 2016 and in the U.S. by Norton in 2017. The novel follows the overlapping stories of Yuki Oyama, a Japanese-American girl in 1960's New York who fights to become an artist, and her estranged son Jay, who in 2016 must travel to Berlin to confront a mother who abandoned their family when he was two. There was a "fierce" six-way bidding war among publishers for the manuscript,[6] and Harmless Like You was praised by Lorrie Moore and Alexander Chee.[7][8]

The Guardian called Harmless Like You a "startling debut" in England.[9] The book won a Betty Trask Award and the Author's Club First Novel Award.[10][11] The novel was also shortlisted for the Desmond Elliot Prize, but did not win.[12] In America, The New York Times Book Review placed the hardback and paperback releases of the novel in its "Editor's Choice" section.[13][14] National Public Radio selected Harmless Like You as a Great Read and noted that the novel was "highly anticipated".[15] Ilana Masad wrote in the Los Angeles Review of Books that "there is no doubt about how good an artist she is, for this book demonstrates that she is an excellent one".[16]

Buchanan's second novel, Starling Days, was published by Sceptre in 2019. It is about Mina and Oscar, newly-weds who have moved from New York to London in hopes that a change of scenery and new friends will help Mina recover from a major depressive episode. The novel was selected by The Paris Review as a "Staff Pick" for being "an exquisite rendering of love, sadness, and misunderstanding."[17] Starling Days was positively reviewed by Eithne Farry in the Sunday Express,[18] and The Spectactor described it as "a convincing novel about depression which manages, miraculously, not to be in itself depressing."[19] In The Guardian, Molly McCloskey criticized the novel's writing, particularly its unconvincing use of a feminist viewpoint, while also noting that Starling Days contained "indications that Buchanan is a better writer than this work would suggest" and concluding that the book "offers consolation" to readers.[20] The book was shortlisted for the 2019 Costa Book Awards in the Novel category.[21]

Other work

Buchanan is the editor of Go Home!, an 2018 anthology from Feminist Press in collaboration with Asian American Writers' Workshop that collects stories from Asian-American writers who "complicate and expand the idea of home".[22] She has also published fiction in literary magazines such as Granta, Tinhouse, and TriQuarterly. Her non-fiction and essays have appeared in The Guardian, The Atlantic, Guernica, The Paris Review, and The Rumpus, among other publications.[23]

Buchanan was a 2016 Margins Fellow at the Asian American Writers' Workshop and a 2018 Kundiman Fellow.[24][25]

Personal life

Buchanan identifies as a Japanese-British-Chinese-American, and has said "I’ve always had my hyphens, so it's hard for me to imagine how I'd write if I was only one thing."[5] She lives and writes in the U.K.[26]

Works

  • Harmless Like You (UK: Sceptre, 2016; US: W. W. Norton & Company, 2017) ISBN 9781473638327 (UK) ISBN 9781324000747 (US)
  • (Editor) Go Home! (Feminist Press, 2018) ISBN 9781936932016
  • Starling Days (Sceptre, 2019) ISBN 9781473638372

References

  1. ^ Buchanan, Rowan Hisayo. "Weird things make my grownup life feel real". Instagram.
  2. ^ Buchanan, Rowan Hisayo (2016-09-08). "Rowan Hisayo Buchanan: 'Pain shape-shifts down the generations'". The Guardian (Interview). Interviewed by Ilana Masad. Retrieved 2018-10-06.
  3. ^ Buchanan, Rowan Hisayo. "Rowan Hisayo Buchanan". Columbia University. Retrieved 2018-12-04.
  4. ^ Russell, Steve (2016-10-08). "My brother and I grew up eating macaroni and cheese... with chopsticks". Ipswich Star. Retrieved 2018-10-06.
  5. ^ a b Buchanan, Rowan Hisayo. "Rowan Hisayo Buchanan: About the Author" (Interview). Foyles. Retrieved 2018-05-27.
  6. ^ "Buchanan novel to Sceptre after 'fierce' six-way auction". www.thebookseller.com. Retrieved 2018-12-04.
  7. ^ O'Nolan, Conor. "Fiction: Harmless Like You by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan". Irish Independent. Retrieved 2018-12-04.
  8. ^ Buchanan, Rowan Hisayo (2018-04-19). "DEAR READER: A Q&A with Rowan Hisayo Buchanan". Tin House (Interview). Interviewed by Tin House Staff. Retrieved 2018-12-04.
  9. ^ Rhodes, Emily (2017-07-07). "Harmless Like You by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan review – a startling debut". the Guardian. Retrieved 2018-12-04.
  10. ^ "Previous winners of the Betty Trask Prize and Awards". Society of Authors. Retrieved 2018-10-06.
  11. ^ "Best First Novel Award". Authors' Club. Retrieved 2018-12-03.
  12. ^ "Harmless Like You by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan". The Desmond Elliott Prize. Retrieved 2018-12-04.
  13. ^ "11 New Books We Recommend This Week". Retrieved 2018-12-04.
  14. ^ "New in Paperback: 'Sticky Fingers,' 'Lea'". Retrieved 2018-12-04.
  15. ^ Buchanan, Rowan Hisayo (2017-02-25). "'Harmless Like You' Is A Story Of How Hurts Are Inherited". NPR (Interview). Interviewed by Scott Simon. Retrieved 2018-10-06.
  16. ^ Masad, Ilana (2017-02-28). "The Color of Art: On Rowan Hisayo Buchanan's Debut". Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved 2018-10-06.
  17. ^ Quong, Spencer (2019-05-24). "Staff Picks: Satire, Suzi Wu, and Starling Days". The Paris Review. Retrieved 2019-08-02.
  18. ^ Farry, Eithne (2019-07-21). "A Tangled Web". Books. Sunday Express. p. 55.
  19. ^ "A novel about depression that doesn't depress: Starling Days, by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, reviewed". The Spectator. 2019-07-06. Retrieved 2019-08-02.
  20. ^ McCloskey, Molly (2019-07-12). "Starling Days by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan review – a tale of struggle and survival". The Guardian. Retrieved 2019-07-23.
  21. ^ Flood, Alison (2019-11-26). "Debut author of Queenie caps success with Costa prize shortlisting". The Guardian. Retrieved 2019-12-04.
  22. ^ "Go Home!". Publishers Weekly. 2018-01-29. Retrieved 2018-10-06.
  23. ^ Buchanan, Rowan Hisayo (2013-05-02). "Writing". Rowan Hisayo Buchanan. Retrieved 2018-12-04.
  24. ^ "15 Kundiman Fellows Featured At LitHub!". Kundiman Foundation. Retrieved 2018-12-04.
  25. ^ "Meet AAWW's 2015 Margins Fellows!". Asian American Writers' Workshop. Retrieved 2018-05-27.
  26. ^ Buchanan, Rowan Hisayo (2018-04-19). "DEAR READER: A Q&A with Rowan Hisayo Buchanan". Tin House (Interview). Interviewed by Tin House Staff. Retrieved 2018-05-27.
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