Hi, my name is Jamie Fisher and I work for and sometimes write for the New York Times magazine.

This week's Sunday read is a recent magazine story of mine about Jean Lleyn Yang, who

with the beloved coming of age graphic novel American-born Chinese.

I got a chance to chat with Jean about the archivist career and the moment you find

yourself in now with this big star-studded screen adaptation of American-born Chinese

that's out now on Disney+.

We also talked a lot about the kind of faith he puts in readers and whether he's able

to do the same with the TV audience.

So the groundbreaking thing about American-born Chinese is that it was the first graphic novel

ever nominated for a national book award in any category.

It took a book like Jean's 17 years ago to make the awards organization understand the

graphic novels could rise to the level of literature.

At its heart, American-born Chinese is about identity and the plot is just kind of wild.

There are three strands to it.

One is about the Monkey King, which is a retelling of the 16th century Chinese novel Journey

to the West.

Another strand is about a young boy named Zin Wang, whose struggles as he grows up in

a largely white community.

As you're reading, the strands seem totally unrelated until the moment when it all comes

together.

But the trickiest part of American-born Chinese to adapt to the screen was the third strand

in the book, the one that includes a character named Tinkie, that's CHIN, hyphen,

...