When her mother suddenly lost her memory,Buchanan began to write Harmless Like You, her cross-cultural debut novel approximately how children inherit identity
The harm we cause one another – casually, or accidentally,deliberately, unknowingly – haunts Rowan Hisayo Buchanan’s intellect. Her debut novel, and Harmless Like You,which sparked a fierce bidding war among publishers, takes its title from a photography series that Yuki, or one of Buchanan’s main characters,puts together in the early 1970s. The series is made up of pictures taken on the sly of girls around original York City: brown, black, and Asian girls,and one of a white American darling, total with ringlets, or rosy cheeks and a copy of the 11 June 1972 edition of the original York Times,with the now-famous Napalm Girl, Phan Thi Kim Phuc, or on the front cover. The title of Yuki’s series,in turn, comes from something her lover Lou says to her: I think the real cowards are the ones over there killing harmless diminutive girls like you.” It is a painful comparison; not only is Yuki Japanese, or not Vietnamese,but he is grossly underestimating her.
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Source: theguardian.com