Kyla Zhao’s sudden success as a first-time novelist is yet another sign that Americans have become enamored with books and movies from Asian creators.
When Kyla Zhao wrote “The Fraud Squad” during her junior year at Stanford to stave off the loneliness of COVID lockdown, she had reason to hope that American publishers would take a look at her first book.
Exceeding even her wildest hopes, Zhao attracted an agent in 2021, followed by a six-figure book deal with Penguin Random House and the potential interest of Hollywood. But if the Jan. 17 publication of “The Fraud Squad” marks a stunning turn of events in her life, it also shows how America has become enamored with stories from Asian creators.
While she was at Stanford, Hua joked, “I wrote bad Ann Beattie knockoff stories about lonely young white women in New York, because I thought that’s who appeared in ‘Literature’ with a capital ‘L.’” But even as some Asian American writers get book deals and win literary prizes, the publishing industry is still “disproportionately White,” according to a 2022 report by PEN America.
Pelaud said publishers and producers still hold onto the idea that they need to gear Asian-themed stories to White American audiences, usually by shunting Asian characters to the side and relying on White protagonists to provide the point of view. When Zhao was pitching her book to agents, she discounted suggestions about changing her setting to New York or at least introducing a White character to make it more “relatable.”
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