'No-No Boy': The Story of How a Novel Goes From 1,500 Copies Sold to 158,000 Copies In the early 1970s, Shawn Wong and group of young Asian American writers discovered the novel, "No-No Boy" by John Okada, in a used bookstore for fifty cents. Originally published in 1957, it had not sold out 15 years later. No one had read it and the author had died believing his novel was rejected and forgotten. Wong will share the rediscovery story of "No-No Boy" — how young Asian American writers urged a new audience to recognize the book’s importance and launched its journey from obscurity to canonical work in Asian American literature. Register Read coverage from the New York Times and the Seattle Times about the recent dispute surrounding the republication of "No-No Boy." |