Poetry was my dirty little secret when I was a fiction writer at Iowa, and then fiction became my dirty little secret… — Jenny Zhang Dirty Copy Share Image
“[…] until we were living hour to hour, minute to minute, and even then, I still believed in my father, who insisted… — Jenny Zhang Looking forward Copy Share Image
Whenever I passed by a Chinese restaurant in a car, I'd joke to my friends, 'Oh yeah, my uncle owns that place.' — Jenny Zhang Car Copy Share Image
Chinese people of my parents' generation who lived through the Cultural Revolution knew so much of death at such a young age,… — Jenny Zhang Age Copy Share Image
Early in my life, without any supporting evidence, I fretted over what I believed was my fate: accidentally becoming an international pop… — Jenny Zhang Diary Copy Share Image
As you get older, you realize you're only the protagonist in your own story and a blip in someone else's life. — Jenny Zhang Life Copy Share Image
Even when I speak English to my parents, I'll say an English word differently to my Chinese parents and friends than I… — Jenny Zhang Feels right Copy Share Image
Sometimes I worry that people who read my fiction think that I am making some kind of thesis statement. — Jenny Zhang I am Copy Share Image
“Why did my mother, a grown woman, get to talk like all her hopes and dreams had been shat on, kicked, and… — Jenny Zhang Achievement Copy Share Image
I hadn't ever worked with an 'editor' until I was 26 - although that could be partly chalked up to the MFA… — Jenny Zhang Audience Copy Share Image
Karaoke was my family's happy secret. In those early years in America, like many immigrants, my parents struggled with poverty and loneliness,… — Jenny Zhang Family Copy Share Image
White people have always slipped in and out of the experiences of people of color and been praised extravagantly for it. — Jenny Zhang Always Copy Share Image
“Didn't it bother him that he was teaching his students poetry when he was certain it wouldn't make a difference in how… — Jenny Zhang Poetry Copy Share Image
Shanghai, the city where I was born and spent my first four and a half years. It's not necessarily the most pleasant… — Jenny Zhang Born Copy Share Image
“They were a sign of patronage, a sign of having so much money that it had to be squandered on objects with… — Jenny Zhang Art Copy Share Image
'Alphabet' by the late Danish poet Inger Christensen. It's a book-length abecedarian poem. It's an activist text but also a portal to… — Jenny Zhang Alphabet Copy Share Image
I like to keep a book underneath the pillow that I'm not sleeping on so I can reach over and grab it… — Jenny Zhang Always Copy Share Image
“From that point on, I would refer to him as "your uncle" and he would mostly refer to me as "your aunt"… — Jenny Zhang Aunt Copy Share Image
There's so much of our behavior that kind of curdles and hardens as we get into adulthood, and it becomes so much… — Jenny Zhang Adulthood Copy Share Image
It's very Western to idealize a kind of love that does not come with any expectations, that still permits both the giver… — Jenny Zhang Come Copy Share Image
For a decade, Emma-Lee Moss has been steadily making weird, moody, melancholic music under the moniker 'Emmy the Great' that has been… — Jenny Zhang Great Copy Share Image
Michael Derrick Hudson is not the first person to slip into the identity of a person of color to give himself some… — Jenny Zhang First person Copy Share Image
