Gene Luen Yang
| Gene Luen Yang | |
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Yang at 2014 National Book Festival
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| Native name | Traditional: 楊謹倫, Simplified: 杨谨伦 |
| Born | August 9, 1973 |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | University of California, Berkeley |
| Genre | graphic novels |
| Notable awards | MacArthur Fellow |
| Website | |
| geneyang |
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Gene Luen Yang (Chinese Traditional: 楊謹倫, Simplified: 杨谨伦, Pinyin: Yáng Jǐnlún; born August 9, 1973) is an Asian-American cartoonist. He is a frequent lecturer on the subjects of graphic novels and comics, at comic book conventions and universities, schools, and libraries. In addition, he was the Director of Information Services and taught computer science at Bishop O'Dowd High School in Oakland, California. In 2012, Yang joined the faculty at Hamline University, as a part of the Low-Residency Master of Fine Arts in Writing for Children and Young Adults (MFAC) program. In 2016, the U.S. Library of Congress named him Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. That year he became the third graphic novelist, alongside Lauren Redniss, to receive the MacArthur Fellowship.
Yang believes he was born in either Alameda or Fremont, California. He is the child of an electrical engineer from Taiwan and a programmer who grew up in Hong Kong and Taiwan, both of whom emigrated to the United States. They met at the San Jose State University Library during graduate school. His parents instilled in him a strong work ethic and reinforced their Asian culture. In a speech at Penn State, where he spoke as a part of a Graphic Novel Speaker Series, Yang recalled that both of his parents always told him stories during his childhood.
Yang was a part of a small Asian-American minority in his elementary school. He grew up wanting to be an animator for Disney. In third grade, he did a biographical report on Walt Disney, which is where he says his obsession started. This changed in fifth grade when his mother took him to their local bookstore where she bought him his first comic book, issue 57 of the Superman series DC Comics Presents, a book she agreed to buy because Yang's first choice, Marvel Two-In-One issue 99, featured the characters Thing and Rom on the cover, which she thought looked too frightening.
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