Spring Break
Author Shares Personal Struggles Over Cultural Identity
Katherin Hannafin
Issue date: 3/25/08 Section: Focus
Brian Leung, assistant professor at the University of Louisville and award-winning writer of fiction, shared personal struggles with cultural identity and tied them to themes in his newest novel, "Lost Men," at the slAAM! book reading Tuesday.
"I am not unaware of how I look," Leung began. "When I accepted the award for [his previous novel] in New York I said, 'I know what you're thinking. Who's that white guy, and where's the Chinese guy that wrote the book? I have had to spend a large part of my life struggling with and defending my cultural identity because of my appearance."
Leung's father is from mainland China and escaped in 1949 when he met Leung's Caucasian mother. They raised Leung in San Diego, Calif. where he got a taste of a diverse community.
"Lost Men" is the story of a father, Xin, and a son, Westen, each confronting his past. After young Westen's caucasian mother tragically dies in a car accident, his Chinese father gives him up to his white relatives and becomes estranged for more than 20 years. Through a letter, Westen is invited by his father to travel with him to China.
So it is that two strangers - a father and a son - travel halfway around the world to a land that is native for one and completely foreign for the other. As they tour the country, they reveal themselves slowly and awkwardly: Westen's history of failed relationships and his conflicted cultural identity and Xin's regret at abandoning his son. Secrecy and solutions create lifelong changes for the father and son and the hope of forming a relationship is born.
"I had an idea for the novel for a long time but couldn't figure out how to tell the story," Leung said. "Then I went to China with my father and figured out the container for it. Although the characters in the story are fictional, the cities and certain themes of the story are autobiographical elements."
Leung read three segments of the novel with different themes for each. He spoke of how he borrowed the convention of writing style from Chinese literature but purposefully didn't reflect either extreme of Chinese or Western literature because he preferred to merge the two, as a symbolic reflection of himself.
"I am not unaware of how I look," Leung began. "When I accepted the award for [his previous novel] in New York I said, 'I know what you're thinking. Who's that white guy, and where's the Chinese guy that wrote the book? I have had to spend a large part of my life struggling with and defending my cultural identity because of my appearance."
Leung's father is from mainland China and escaped in 1949 when he met Leung's Caucasian mother. They raised Leung in San Diego, Calif. where he got a taste of a diverse community.
"Lost Men" is the story of a father, Xin, and a son, Westen, each confronting his past. After young Westen's caucasian mother tragically dies in a car accident, his Chinese father gives him up to his white relatives and becomes estranged for more than 20 years. Through a letter, Westen is invited by his father to travel with him to China.
So it is that two strangers - a father and a son - travel halfway around the world to a land that is native for one and completely foreign for the other. As they tour the country, they reveal themselves slowly and awkwardly: Westen's history of failed relationships and his conflicted cultural identity and Xin's regret at abandoning his son. Secrecy and solutions create lifelong changes for the father and son and the hope of forming a relationship is born.
"I had an idea for the novel for a long time but couldn't figure out how to tell the story," Leung said. "Then I went to China with my father and figured out the container for it. Although the characters in the story are fictional, the cities and certain themes of the story are autobiographical elements."
Leung read three segments of the novel with different themes for each. He spoke of how he borrowed the convention of writing style from Chinese literature but purposefully didn't reflect either extreme of Chinese or Western literature because he preferred to merge the two, as a symbolic reflection of himself.
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