American · b. 1976
Charles Yu won the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction with "Interior Chinatown," a novel formatted as a screenplay about an Asian American actor trapped in bit parts. The American author uses metafictional techniques—scripts, stage directions, genre parody—to illuminate real constraints on representation and identity. Yu's earlier work includes science fiction; his National Book Award winner proved that formal experimentation could reach broad audiences when it illuminates overlooked experience.