Author Shares Personal Struggles Over Cultural Identity

By: Katherin Hannafin

Posted: 3/25/08

Brian Leung, assistant professor at the University of Louisville and award-winning writer of fiction, shared personal struggles with cultural identity and tied them to themes in his newest novel, "Lost Men," at the slAAM! book reading Tuesday.

"I am not unaware of how I look," Leung began. "When I accepted the award for [his previous novel] in New York I said, 'I know what you're thinking. Who's that white guy, and where's the Chinese guy that wrote the book? I have had to spend a large part of my life struggling with and defending my cultural identity because of my appearance."

Leung's father is from mainland China and escaped in 1949 when he met Leung's Caucasian mother. They raised Leung in San Diego, Calif. where he got a taste of a diverse community.

"Lost Men" is the story of a father, Xin, and a son, Westen, each confronting his past. After young Westen's caucasian mother tragically dies in a car accident, his Chinese father gives him up to his white relatives and becomes estranged for more than 20 years. Through a letter, Westen is invited by his father to travel with him to China.

So it is that two strangers - a father and a son - travel halfway around the world to a land that is native for one and completely foreign for the other. As they tour the country, they reveal themselves slowly and awkwardly: Westen's history of failed relationships and his conflicted cultural identity and Xin's regret at abandoning his son. Secrecy and solutions create lifelong changes for the father and son and the hope of forming a relationship is born.

"I had an idea for the novel for a long time but couldn't figure out how to tell the story," Leung said. "Then I went to China with my father and figured out the container for it. Although the characters in the story are fictional, the cities and certain themes of the story are autobiographical elements."

Leung read three segments of the novel with different themes for each. He spoke of how he borrowed the convention of writing style from Chinese literature but purposefully didn't reflect either extreme of Chinese or Western literature because he preferred to merge the two, as a symbolic reflection of himself.

Leung caught himself at one point when he was explaining Westen's character and said, "isn't it awful how I have to specify that he's 'half-Chinese' as opposed to 'half-white?' Because 'white' is the norm, it's a shame."

Most of the readings were about Westen's struggle with how to respond to the unexpected letter from his father, requesting him to come to China. The audience also got a glimpse of what it was like for Westen to be immersed in a "perfect White world" and then reluctantly face his father who hasn't been there for him for the past two decades.

The readings seemed to enthrall the attendees of the talk, many of whom followed along with their own copies of "Lost Men," while interested shoppers stopped and listened in on the moving literary novel for a while. Leung blushed after realizing a somewhat vulgar quote had just clearly bellowed through out the Co-op and humorously apologized to the rest of the bookstore with the microphone.

The talk ended with a traditional question and answer segment where the floor was opened to the audience. Leung answered questions about cultural individuality and our abilities to reshape any instilled identities by acknowledging what has been socially infused in us, and what we actually want to identify with.

"I enjoyed the book and the talk a lot because I got a better understanding of how hard it is to live with two cultural identities," said Yvonne Tam, 4th-semester sociology major and member of the slAAm! Book Club."

Leung is currently researching for another novel for the "Rock Springs Massacre," a massacre of Chinese minors taking white jobs in Wyoming.

Contact Katherine Hannafin at Katherine.Hannafin@UConn.edu.