Kim Fu
{{Short description|Canadian writer}}
{{Infobox writer
| name = Kim Fu
| birth_name =
| image = Kim Fu - EMWF 2018 - DanH-0460 (cropped).jpg
| alt = Kim Fu at the Eden Mills Writers' Festival in 2018
| caption = Fu at the Eden Mills Writers' Festival in 2018
| birth_date = 1987
| birth_place = Vancouver, British Columbia
| occupation = novelist
| period = 2010s-present
| nationality = Canadian
| notableworks = For Today I Am a Boy
| spouse =
| website = {{URL|https://kim-fu.com/}}
}}
Kim Fu (born 1987) is a Canadian-born writer, living in Seattle, Washington. Born in Vancouver, British Columbia to immigrant parents from Hong Kong,"Gender a 'universal' tale; Author explores struggles of transgender character in first novel". Vancouver Sun, January 18, 2014. Fu studied creative writing at the University of British Columbia.
Writing
Her first novel For Today I Am a Boy was released in 2014. The book follows a Chinese Canadian transgender girl's realization of her identity through her adolescence adulthood.{{Cite web |title=For Today I Am a Boy |url=http://www.harvardreview.org/book-review/for-today-i-am-a-boy/ |access-date=2024-07-26 |website=Harvard Review |language=en-US}} It went on to win the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award.{{cite web| url=https://www.cbc.ca/books/kim-fu-on-why-she-envies-teenage-poets-1.4050177| title=Kim Fu on why she envies teenage poets| first=Jane| last=Van Koeverden| date=March 31, 2017| website=cbc.ca}} It was also a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice and long-listed for CBC's Canada Reads. Writing for the Harvard Review, A. Naomi Jackson said that it was "refreshing to read a novel that illustrates the harrowing choices transgender people face alongside hope."
Fu's debut poetry collection How Festive the Ambulance received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, which called it a "playful, lyrical, and cutting, debut poetry collection" with a "dizzying display of styles and scope."{{Cite web |date= |title=How Festive the Ambulance by Kim Fu |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/9780889713215 |access-date=2024-07-26 |website=www.publishersweekly.com}} It was also a 2017 National Magazine Awards Silver Medal winner and a Best Canadian Poetry 2016 selection. Spenser Smith, for Prairie Fire, wrote that it was a "sombre, engrossing read" and, regarding Fu's writing: "her bluntness holds a level of complexity and metaphor that makes each reread of a poem very rewarding."{{Cite web |last=prfire |date=2017-09-21 |title=How Festive the Ambulance by Kim Fu – Prairie Fire: a Canadian Magazine of New Writing |url=https://www.prairiefire.ca/festive-ambulance-kim-fu/ |access-date=2024-07-26 |website=Prairie Fire |language=en-US}}
Her second novel, The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore, which follows the lives of young girls on a camping trip, was published in 2018.{{Cite web |date=2018-02-01 |title=Seattle author Kim Fu talks about her haunting second novel, 'The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore' |url=https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/books/seattle-author-kim-fu-talks-about-her-haunting-second-novel-the-lost-girls-of-camp-forevermore/ |access-date=2024-07-26 |website=The Seattle Times |language=en-US}} Reviewing it for The New York Times, Lisa Ko said the book was "multilayered exploration of how class and culture inform the girls’ actions and alliances during the trip, and how the trip then affects their relationships and choices in adulthood."{{Cite news |last=Ko |first=Lisa |date=2018-03-30 |title=After a Camping Trip, Five Girls' Lives Are No Longer the Same |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/30/books/review/kim-fu-lost-girls-of-camp-forevermore.html |access-date=2024-07-26 |work=The New York Times |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}} In Shondaland, Nicole Chung interviewed Fu regarding her second novel, in which she said, of the novel's linked-story structure: "I think a lot of it was that I knew these characters were not easy-to-like people. They’re not the kind of characters you immediately understand and root for. So for each one, we needed to sit with them for a long time in order to know who they were."{{Cite web |date=2018-02-13 |title=Kim Fu's Lost Girls |url=https://www.shondaland.com/inspire/books/a16768412/kim-fu-lost-girls-camp-forevermore/ |access-date=2024-07-26 |website=Shondaland |language=en-US}}
Her short story collection Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century was published in 2022.[https://www.cbc.ca/books/66-works-of-canadian-fiction-to-watch-for-in-spring-2022-1.6283875 "66 works of Canadian fiction to watch for in spring 2022"]. CBC Books, January 11, 2022. Gabino Iglesias, writing for NPR, stated that it was "a wildly imaginative collection in which elements of science fiction, fantasy, and even crime fiction blend together."{{Cite web |last=Iglesias |first=Gabino |date=February 2, 2022 |title=Sci-fi, fantasy, crime fiction blend in 'Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century' |url=https://www.npr.org/2022/02/02/1077546817/si-fi-fantasy-and-crime-fiction-blend-in-lesser-known-monsters-of-the-21st-centu |access-date=July 26, 2024 |website=NPR}} Melissa Darcey Hall, writing for The Adroit Journal, compared Fu's take on horror to that of Carmen Maria Machado and Mariana Enríquez, stating that "one of Fu’s greatest strengths is her ability to turn horror on its head, focusing less on the terror the modern-day monsters incite, but what they reveal about ourselves."{{Cite web |last=Hall |first=Melissa Darcey |date=2022-05-05 |title=A Review of Kim Fu's Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century - The Adroit Journal |url=https://theadroitjournal.org/2022/05/05/a-review-of-kim-fus-lesser-known-monsters-of-the-21st-century/ |access-date=2024-07-26 |language=en-US}}
Fu's writing has appeared in Granta, The Atlantic, The New York Times, Hazlitt, and The Times Literary Supplement.{{Cite web |date=2022-01-20 |title=Issue Forty: Kim Fu - The Adroit Journal |url=https://theadroitjournal.org/issue-forty-kim-fu/ |access-date=2024-07-31 |language=en-US}} She has received residency fellowships from the Ucross Foundation, Berton House, Wildacres, and the Wallace Stegner Grant for the Arts.
Published works
References
{{reflist}}
External links
- {{official site|https://kim-fu.com/}}
{{authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fu, Kim}}
Category:Canadian women novelists
Category:Novelists from Vancouver
Category:University of British Columbia alumni
Category:21st-century Canadian novelists
Category:21st-century Canadian poets
Category:Canadian writers of Asian descent
Category:Canadian people of Hong Kong descent
Category:21st-century Canadian women writers
Category:21st-century Canadian essayists
Category:Canadian women essayists
{{Canada-poet-stub}}