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Shawna Yang Ryan

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Shawna Yang Ryan
BornSacramento, California
Occupationauthor, novelist, short story writer, professor
NationalityUS (Taiwanese American)
Alma materUC Berkeley (B.A.)
UC Davis (M.A.)
Genrenovel, literary fiction, historical ficiton
Notable worksWater Ghosts (2009)
Green Island (2016)
Notable awardsUC Davis Maurice Prize, 2006
Elliot Cades Emerging Writer Award from The Hawai'i Literary Arts Council, 2015
Website
http://www.shawnayangryan.com
Shawna Yang Ryan
Chinese楊小娜
Transcriptions

Shawna Yang Ryan is a Taiwanese American novelist, short story writer and creative writing professor, who has published the novels Water Ghosts (2009) (Penguin Press) and Green Island (2016) (Knopf).[1] She currently teaches in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa.[2]

Background

Ryan was born in Sacramento, California, and was the mixed-race or Hapa child of parents who met during the Vietnam War: her mother was born in Taiwan and the daughter of Chinese immigrants who fled the mainland in 1949 with Chiang Kai-shek, and her Caucasian father was born in Berlin, Germany and grew up all around Europe and America, eventually meeting her mother while stationed in Taiwan.[3][4]

Ryan graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, where she received her Bachelor's degree, and also received an Masters of Arts (M.A.) degree in Creative Writing from the University of California, Davis.[5][6] Ryan was also a former Fulbright Scholar in Taiwan during 2002.[5][7] She currently lives in Honolulu, Hawaii and teaches in the Creative Writing Program at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa.[7]

Work

Novels

Water Ghosts

Ryan's debut novel was Water Ghosts, initially published in 2007 by a small press in Berkeley known as El Leon Literary Arts under the title Locke 1928.[6] In 2008, about half a year after the novel was initially released, a blog called Shelf Awareness gave the book a positive review, which a literary agent read and contacted Ryan about, eventually signing her and selling the book to Penguin Press.[2] Ryan says in an interview that she "had tried for years to get an agent, and to have one email [her] out of the seeming blue one day was one of the biggest shocks of [her] life".[2][5] In 2009, the novel was published by Penguin Books as Water Ghosts.[8] The novel ended up becoming a San Francisco Chronicle Bestseller, the 2006 winner of the UC Davis Maurice Prize, a finalist for the 2008 Northern California Book Award, and long-listed for the 2010 Asian American Literary Award.[9] Booklist also called the novel "accomplished and affecting," while The Boston Globe stated that Ryan was "a writer to watch."[2]

Then novel is about a Chinese bachelor town in central California in the 1920s, inspired by the real-life town of Locke, California.[6] The main character, Richard Fong, has not seen his wife (who lives in China), for over ten years.[2] He also runs a casino called Lucky Fortune has practically given up on the idea of seeing her, deciding to start an affair with a white prostitute who works in the town at Poppy See's Brothel.[2] However, one day his wife appears and he is forced to reconcile his past in China and his present in America.[2]

Green Island

Ryan's second novel, Green Island, was published in 2016 by Knopf (Alfred A. Knopf).[10] To write the novel, Ryan performed extensive research while traveling Taiwan and reviewing older archive material in print and online, stating in an interview with The New York Times: "I often thought of my research as similar to unraveling a sweater — I’d tug at one thread, and a whole sleeve would come undone — one interviewee would introduce me to another, who’d introduce me to another, and so on. I lived in Taipei for a few years and traveled all over the island. I watched films and found old home movies and commercials in the archives and on YouTube. I bought music, vintage picture books and travelogues. I sifted and sifted until I felt I had a handle on the material world I was trying to depict."[11] The book received positive reviews from Booklist (starred review) ("[An] engrossing epic...[a]bsorbing and affecting, this powerful tale explores the bond between a father and daughter, the compromises they are forced to make, and the prices they pay in their quest for freedom") and Kirkus Reviews ("Epic...The narrative works movingly on many different levels but especially on the personal and the political").[12]

The novel tells the story of a Taiwanese family known as the Tsais, who survive the February 28 Incident of 1947 and are forced to live through the tumultuous decades that follow as Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang (or Nationalist Party), begins its martial law rule of the island.[13] The 228 incident marks the start of a massacre overseen by Kuomintang soldiers from mainland China, where 10,000 to 30,000 Taiwanese citizens were murdered due to protesting the rule of the KMT.[2] For over five decades prior to the KMT’s arrival, Taiwan thrived as an industrialized country bolstered by an efficient Japanese infrastructure — whereas China was poorer, and comprised mostly farmers — therefore, leading to a conflicting clash of cultures. After the Japanese surrendered during the aftermath of WWII, the KMT took control of the island in 1945.[2] Furthermore, after losing the Chinese Civil War to the Communists in 1949, the rest of the KMT escaped from the mainland to Taiwan en masse, thereby establishing what is known today as the "Republic of China."[2]

Short Fiction

Ryan's short stories have appeared in ZYZZYVA ("The Abandoned Elders"),[14] Swill Magazine ("Failure to Commit"),[15][16] The Asian American Literary Review ("The End of February", a text piece accompanying an oil and canvas painting done by Sean Kim known as "Untitled", and "Marginalia"),[17] Kartika Review ("Driving Home"),[18] and The Berkeley Fiction Review ("Rime of The Sweaty Girl").[7][19] The short story entitled "Marginalia" that Ryan published in the Fall 2013 issue of The Asian American Literary Review was also nominated for a Pushcart Prize that year.[20]

Accolades

In 2015, Ryan received the Elliot Cades Emerging Writer Award from the Hawai'i Literary Arts Council.[2][21]

Bibliography

Novels

Short Stories

References

  1. ^ ShawnaYangRyan.com, Biography, http://www.shawnayangryan.com/biography.html
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Id.
  3. ^ Ho Chie Tsai, TaiwaneseAmerican.org, Interview with Author Shawna Yang Ryan on AuthorMagazine.com, http://www.taiwaneseamerican.org/2010/09/interview-with-author-shawna-yang-ryan-on-authormagazine-com/
  4. ^ Ho Chie Tsai, TaiwaneseAmerican.org, Shawna Yang Ryan Brings Water Ghosts, an Asian American Novel, to Life, http://www.taiwaneseamerican.org/2009/04/shawna-yang-ryan-brings-water-ghosts-an-asian-american-novel-to-life/
  5. ^ a b c Tsai, AuthorMagazine.com, supra n.3
  6. ^ a b c Tsai, Water Ghosts, supra n.4
  7. ^ a b c ShawnaYangRyan.com, Biography, supra n.1
  8. ^ Penguin Random House, Water Ghosts, http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/304342/water-ghosts-by-shawna-yang-ryan/
  9. ^ Shawna Yang Ryan Biography, Department of English at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, http://english.hawaii.edu/faculty/shawna-yang-ryan/
  10. ^ Penguin Random House, Green Island, http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/246332/green-island-by-shawna-yang-ryan/9781101874257/
  11. ^ Didi Kirsten Tatlow, New York Times, Q. and A.: Shawna Yang Ryan on the 1947 Incident That Shaped Taiwan’s Identity, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/23/world/asia/taiwan-shawna-yang-ryan-green-island.html
  12. ^ Penguin, Green Island, supra, n.15
  13. ^ Tatlow, supra n.22
  14. ^ Zyzzyva, Index of Published Works, http://www.zyzzyva.org/index-of-published-works/
  15. ^ Swill Magazine, Excerpt from "Failure to Commit" by Shawna Yang Ryan, http://www.swillmagazine.com/shawna6.html
  16. ^ Swill Magazine, Issue 6 TOC, http://www.swillmagazine.com/toc2.html
  17. ^ EBSCOHost, The End of February, http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/short-stories/84015698/end-february
  18. ^ Kartika Review, Issue No. 7 (Ryan's short story/piece is entitled "Driving Home"), http://issuu.com/kartikareview/docs/kartika_issue07
  19. ^ The Berkeley Fiction Review, Issue 19, http://berkeleyfictionreview.com/issue-19/
  20. ^ http://english.hawaii.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/2013_bibliography.pdf
  21. ^ Dept. of English, supra, n.15
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