TITLE: Yellowface
AUTHOR: Rebecca F Kuang
GENRE: Fiction
Publisher: Harper Collins (The Borough Press)
Cost: Rs 299

Yellowface has been on everyone’s to-read lists across the globe. One of the reasons, apart from its title and cover, has got to be the immediately intriguing inciting incident of the novel. Athena Liu’s manuscript is taken by June Hayward the night Liu dies. It is then edited and published by Hayward under her new moniker, Juniper Song. It turns out the book doesn’t just do well; in fact, it blows up. Hayward receives critical and commercial acclaim but soon enough, she also begins to receive bitter criticism, suspicion, and hatred. What will Hayward do?

Through the novel, Rebecca F Kuang gives us a deep insight into some of the nitty-gritties of the publishing industry, thought processes behind bestselling lists and representation inclusions, and the possible hierarchies that sometimes exist within publishing houses. Her clever use of the tool of embedded correspondences between the editor and Hayward, who is the narrator, through their emails makes this fascinating for us as readers.