This is a nice, down to earth interview/article with “American Born Chinese” creator, Gene Luen Yang online right now. If you missed it, “ABC” has been nominated for the National Book Award in the Young People’s Literature category, and it has a few people in the writing world in a tizzy, as well as noted comic book insane person, John Byrne. Seems that there a few people who still think comics aren’t literature and can’t possibly be good enough to deserve this honor, the fools. This article ignores all that nonsense, focusing on the upside of Yang’s recent experiences.

“ABC,” his fifth book, is a labor of love that took five years to complete.

The 240-page novel is a coming-of-age story about Jin Wang, who moves from San Francisco’s Chinatown to a suburb. The novel creatively incorporates the story of the Monkey King from the Chinese classic “Journey to the West,” as well as a third character, “Chin-Kee,” who epitomizes all the Chinese stereotypes Yang could think of.

Although his other books have Asian-American protagonists, this is his first that is overtly about the Asian-American experience.

Growing up in Saratoga, Yang says he saw firsthand the growth of Asian Ameri-cans in the South Bay, where he and his other Asian-American friends felt the brunt of a racial backlash. Some of the barbs hurled at the fictional Jin were lifted straight from Yang’s childhood.

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