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Anonn's avatar

Frankly the disparity in the treatment of Yellowface (and TOBG) vs what's-his-face is not super complicated. He is advocating for diversity of thought, they are advocating for diversity of skin color only. Also, he is calling out woke white people, who actually exist in the publishing space, they are calling out racist white people, who don't. Their "parody" is attacking imaginary people who don't exist in order to advocate for more of the same, his is attacking the real people that do exist in order to argue for a fundamental change to the system.

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Juju Lee's avatar

I good way of finding out home many copies a book has sold is to see how many reviews they got on Goodreads. The Other Black Girl did not do well and I don't thing Zakiya Dalila Harris will be getting another book deal. Yellowface is a modest hit, but it is not as popular as Babel and The Poppy War trilogy. R. F. Kuang's flame seems to have brunt too bright and too fast. I listened to some reviews of Yellowface on YouTube and they all came to the same conclusion: R. F. Kuang is extremely intelligent, highly educated and has an astonishing work ethic. She has also been isolated in silos of White dominated privilege her entire life and lacks the experience, insight and maturity to write immersive fiction. She's passionate and didactic, struggles with nuance and humility - all the usual flaws of ambitious and talented youth. She's only 27 and Harris is 31. I hope they both grow as writers and people, and are able to gift the world with good, honest writing in the future.

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