Yellowface

by R.F. Kuang

But now, I see, author efforts have nothing to do with a book’s success. Bestsellers are chosen. Nothing you do matters. You just get to enjoy the perks along the way.

Athena always thought that what she did was a gift. A distillation of trauma into something eternal. Give me your bruises and hurts, she told us, and I will return to you a diamond. Only she never cared that once the art was made, once the personal became spectacle, the pain was still there.