May 13, 2003

Iris Chang

One benefit of working in a bookstore is getting to meet writers. At the store I work at when authors are in the area (usually they'll be speaking at competing bookstore that night) they'll come in briefly to sign whatever stock is available. Those that usually come in are fiction writers promoting their latest novel or mystery. Not my cup of tea. However, today, Pulitzer Prize winner, Iris Chang, came in to sign copies of her new book, The Chinese in America. Chang won her Pulitzer for her last book, The Rape of Nanking.

Since I've talked up Gulag (here and here), you might think I'd want to read Rape. I'm not so sure. While knowing as a child about that horrible event, when she went to a conference on it, she got sick from seeing pictures of the atrocities. I asked her how the reasearch for her latest book differed from Rape. She told me that the research and writing about Nanking made her physicially ill, and she had to recuperate after finishing the book. If a writing project made me sick, that would be a sign to stop, but she perservered.

Booknotes Transcript of Iris Chang