The L.A. Times reports on last night’s National Book Awards in New York, where Gene Yang’s American Born Chinese was beat out by M.T. Anderson’s “The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 1: The Pox Party.” Although you couldn’t tell that from the Times article, which focused heavily on Yang’s nomination:
The award for young people’s literature went to M.T. Anderson for “The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Vol. 1: The Pox Party,” the tale of a slave in revolutionary Boston, published by Candlewick Press. In accepting, Anderson praised the nominating panel for including for the first time in the National Book Awards’ 57-year history a work of graphic fiction, Oakland comic artist Gene Luen Yang’s “American Born Chinese.”
“I am just really glad we are leading the charge,” he said of the nomination of a story told through its artwork as much as its words.
Speaking before the awards ceremony, Yang described his nomination as a step forward for all graphic artists. “It is a recognition of work done over the last 10 years,” he said.
“Art Spiegelman once made a promise that comics could be literature,” he said. “I think this shows we’re getting there.”
For Yang, literature is a night job. He teaches computer science at a high school in Oakland, comes home for “family time” between 6 and 9 p.m. — his wife teaches fourth grade — then finally sits down to his art.
“How much I do depends on the night,” he said. “I’ve gone all the way till 1. But sometimes I’m too tired after an hour.”
His nominated work, “American Born Chinese,” is about a Chinese American boy who moves from San Francisco’s Chinatown to the suburbs.
The Beat has a picture, and Mark Siegel reports on the event at the First Second blog.
