A wide-ranging conversation throughout the' universe of Charles Yu, featuring: race in America; using humour as a compass; the roles we play; the early years coping with rejection and the benefits of having low expectations when starting out; television’s writing room etiquette and servicing a story; the editorial process; what he learnt from Wong Kar-wai; the tiny surgical cuts that lift a manuscript; and the challenges of adapting your own novel.
Charles Yu writes playful and inventive novels and short stories, often with a kind of sly irreverence. There’s warmth and wisdom at their heart, he’s very funny. Charles has written two collection of stories, Third Class Superhero and Sorry Please Thank You and the novels How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe and his latest Interior Chinatown that won the National Book Award and Le Prix Médicis Étranger. Charles has also received the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 Award, been nominated for two Writers Guild of America awards for his work on the television series Westworld, and has written for shows on FX, AMC, Facebook Watch, and Adult Swim. He’s also written for The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine,The Atlantic and Wired.