Rowan Hisayo Buchanan

{{Infobox writer

| name = Rowan Hisayo Buchanan

| honorific_suffix = FRSL

| birth_name =

| birth_date = {{birth date and age|df=y|1989|06|02}}{{cite web|url=https://www.instagram.com/p/ww00EDPJIV/ |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/iarchive/s/instagram/ww00EDPJIV |archive-date=2021-12-26 |url-access=registration|work=Instagram|title=Weird things make my grownup life feel real.|author=Buchanan, Rowan Hisayo}}{{cbignore}}

| birth_place = Westminster, London, England

| death_date =

| death_place =

| occupation = Writer

| nationality = British
American

| genre = {{flatlist|

| period =

| subject =

| movement =

| notableworks = Harmless Like You, Starling Days

| spouse =

| education = {{ubl|Columbia University (BA)|University of Wisconsin–Madison (MFA)}}

| children = 1

| awards =

| signature = Rowan Hisayo Buchanan signature (cropped).jpg

| website = {{url|rowanhisayo.com}}

}}

Rowan Hisayo Buchanan FRSL (born 2 June 1989) is a British and American writer. Her novels include Harmless Like You, which received a Betty Trask Award and the 2017 Author's Club Best First Novel Award, and Starling Days. She is the editor of Go Home!, an anthology of stories by Asian American writers. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2023.{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jul/12/royal-society-of-literature-aims-to-broaden-representation-as-it-announces-62-new-fellows|title=Royal Society of Literature aims to broaden representation as it announces 62 new fellows|first=Ella|last=Creamer|newspaper=The Guardian|date=12 July 2023}}

Early life and education

Buchanan was born in central London{{Cite web|url=https://lithub.com/sheltering-rowan-hisayo-buchanan-on-relationship-dynamics-and-mental-health/|title= Sheltering: Rowan Hisayo Buchanan on Relationship Dynamics and Mental Health|website=LitHub|date=13 April 2020|accessdate=9 April 2024}} to a half-Chinese, half-Japanese American mother and a British father, and grew up between London and New York.{{cite interview|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/sep/08/rowan-hisayo-buchanan-interview-harmless-like-you-debut-novel|title=Rowan Hisayo Buchanan: ‘Pain shape-shifts down the generations’|last=Buchanan|first=Rowan Hisayo|interviewer=Ilana Masad|work=The Guardian|date=2016-09-08|access-date=2018-10-06}} She earned her B.A. from Columbia University, where she was a Core Scholar.{{Cite web|url=http://www.college.columbia.edu/core/scholars/scholar/2955|first=Rowan Hisayo|last=Buchanan|title=Rowan Hisayo Buchanan|publisher=Columbia University|access-date=2018-12-04}}{{Cite web|title=Students and Faculty Embrace Classic Readings, Modern Technology {{!}} Columbia College Today|url=https://www.college.columbia.edu/cct/archive/spring13/features1|access-date=2021-10-09|website=www.college.columbia.edu}} She lived in Tokyo, Japan, while working as an intern for a management consulting firm, then earned her M.F.A. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.{{cite news|url=http://www.ipswichstar.co.uk/home/my-brother-and-i-grew-up-eating-macaroni-and-cheese-with-chopsticks-1-4728441|title=My brother and I grew up eating macaroni and cheese... with chopsticks|first=Steve|last=Russell|work=Ipswich Star|date=2016-10-08|access-date=2018-10-06}}{{Cite interview|url=http://www.foyles.co.uk/Author-Rowan-Hisayo-Buchanan|last=Buchanan|first=Rowan Hisayo|title=Rowan Hisayo Buchanan: About the Author|publisher=Foyles|language=en-GB|access-date=2018-05-27}}

Career

= Novels =

Buchanan's debut novel, Harmless Like You, was published in the U.K. by Sceptre in 2016 and in the U.S. by W. W. Norton in 2017. The novel follows the overlapping stories of Yuki Oyama, a Japanese-American girl in 1960's New York who fights to become an artist, and her estranged son Jay, who in 2016 must travel to Berlin to confront a mother who abandoned their family when he was two. There was a "fierce" six-way bidding war among publishers for the manuscript,{{Cite web|url=https://www.thebookseller.com/news/buchana-novel-to-sceptre-after-fierce-six-way-auction-318282|title=Buchanan novel to Sceptre after 'fierce' six-way auction |website=The Bookseller|language=en|access-date=2018-12-04}} and Harmless Like You was praised by Lorrie Moore and Alexander Chee.{{Cite news|url=https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/books/book-reviews/fiction-harmless-like-you-by-rowan-hisayo-buchanan-34998811.html|title=Fiction: Harmless Like You by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan|first=Conor|last=O'Nolan|work=Irish Independent|access-date=2018-12-04|language=en}}{{Cite interview|url=https://tinhouse.com/dear-reader-a-qa-with-rowan-hisayo-buchanan/|title=DEAR READER: A Q&A with Rowan Hisayo Buchanan|date=2018-04-19|work=Tin House|first=Rowan Hisayo|last=Buchanan|interviewer=Tin House Staff|access-date=2018-12-04|language=en-US}}

The Guardian called Harmless Like You a "startling debut" in England.{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jul/07/harmless-like-you-rowan-hisayo-buchanan|title=Harmless Like You by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan review – a startling debut|last=Rhodes|first=Emily|date=2017-07-07|work=The Guardian|language=en|access-date=2018-12-04}} The book won a Betty Trask Award and the Author's Club Best First Novel Award.{{cite web|url=http://www.societyofauthors.org/Prizes/Fiction/Betty-Trask/Past-winners|title=Previous winners of the Betty Trask Prize and Awards|website=Society of Authors|access-date=2018-10-06}}{{cite web|url=http://www.authorsclub.co.uk/?page_id=360|title=Best First Novel Award|website=Authors' Club|access-date=2018-12-03}} The novel was also shortlisted for the Desmond Elliot Prize, but did not win.{{Cite web|url=http://www.desmondelliottprize.org.uk/the-2017-prize/the-2017-longlist/harmless-like-rowan-hisayo-buchanan/|title=Harmless Like You by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan|publisher=The Desmond Elliott Prize|access-date=2018-12-04|language=en-US}} In America, The New York Times Book Review placed the hardback and paperback releases of the novel in its "Editor's Choice" section.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/16/books/review/11-new-books-we-recommend-this-week.html|title=11 New Books We Recommend This Week|work=The New York Times |date=16 March 2017 |access-date=2018-12-04|language=en}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/21/books/review/new-paperbacks.html|title=New in Paperback: 'Sticky Fingers,' 'Lea'|work=The New York Times |date=21 September 2018 |access-date=2018-12-04|language=en |last1=Khatib |first1=Joumana }} National Public Radio selected Harmless Like You as a Great Read and noted that the novel was "highly anticipated".{{cite interview|last=Buchanan|first=Rowan Hisayo|interviewer=Scott Simon|title='Harmless Like You' Is A Story Of How Hurts Are Inherited|url=https://www.npr.org/2017/02/25/517181362/harmless-like-you-is-a-story-of-how-hurts-are-inherited|access-date=2018-10-06|work=NPR|date=2017-02-25}} Ilana Masad wrote in the Los Angeles Review of Books that "there is no doubt about how good an artist she is, for this book demonstrates that she is an excellent one".{{cite web|url=https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-color-of-art-on-rowan-hisayo-buchanans-debut/|title=The Color of Art: On Rowan Hisayo Buchanan's Debut|last=Masad|first=Ilana|date=2017-02-28|work=Los Angeles Review of Books|access-date=2018-10-06}}

Buchanan's second novel, Starling Days, was published by Sceptre in 2019. It is about Mina and Oscar, newly-weds who have moved from New York to London in hopes that a change of scenery and new friends will help Mina recover from a major depressive episode. The novel was selected by The Paris Review as a "Staff Pick" for being "an exquisite rendering of love, sadness, and misunderstanding."{{Cite web|url=https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/05/24/staff-picks-satire-suzi-wu-and-starling-days/|title=Staff Picks: Satire, Suzi Wu, and Starling Days|last=Quong|first=Spencer|date=2019-05-24|website=The Paris Review|language=en|access-date=2019-08-02}} Starling Days was positively reviewed by Eithne Farry in the Sunday Express,{{Cite news|title=A Tangled Web|last=Farry|first=Eithne|date=2019-07-21|work=Sunday Express|department=Books|page=55}} and The Spectator described it as "a convincing novel about depression which manages, miraculously, not to be in itself depressing."{{Cite web|url=https://www.spectator.co.uk/2019/07/a-novel-about-depression-that-doesnt-depress-starling-days-by-rowan-hisayo-buchanan-reviewed/|title=A novel about depression that doesn't depress: Starling Days, by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan, reviewed|date=2019-07-06|website=The Spectator|last=Peake-Tomkinson|first=Alex|language=en-US|access-date=2019-08-02}} In The Guardian, Molly McCloskey criticized the novel's writing, particularly its unconvincing use of a feminist viewpoint, while also noting that Starling Days contained "indications that Buchanan is a better writer than this work would suggest" and concluding that the book "offers consolation" to readers.{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jul/12/starling-days-by-rowan-hisayo-buchanan-review|title=Starling Days by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan review – a tale of struggle and survival|last=McCloskey|first=Molly|date=2019-07-12|work=The Guardian|access-date=2019-07-23|author-link=Molly McCloskey}} The book was shortlisted for the 2019 Costa Book Award for Novel.{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/nov/26/debut-author-of-queenie-caps-success-with-costa-prize-shortlisting|title=Debut author of Queenie caps success with Costa prize shortlisting|work=The Guardian|first=Alison|last=Flood|date=2019-11-26|access-date=2019-12-04}}

In 2022, Sceptre acquired the rights to publish Buchanan's third novel, titled The Sleepwatcher, which tells a story about adolescence and family from the perspective of a 16-year-old girl who is able to move around undetected while her body remains in bed.{{cite web|url=https://www.thebookseller.com/rights/sceptre-scoops-moving-portrait-of-adolescence-from-buchanan|title=Sceptre scoops 'moving portrait' of adolescence from Buchanan|website=The Bookseller|last=Fraser|first=Katie|date=2022-04-07|access-date=2022-09-23}}

= Other work =

Buchanan is the editor of Go Home!, a 2018 anthology from Feminist Press in collaboration with Asian American Writers' Workshop that collects stories from Asian-American writers who "complicate and expand the idea of home".{{cite web|url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-936932-01-6|title=Go Home!|website=Publishers Weekly|date=2018-01-29|access-date=2018-10-06}} She has also published fiction in literary magazines such as Granta, Tin House, and TriQuarterly. Her non-fiction and essays have appeared in The Guardian, The Atlantic, Guernica, The Paris Review, and The Rumpus, among other publications.{{Cite news|url=https://rowanhisayo.com/read-me/|title=Writing|date=2013-05-02|first=Rowan Hisayo|last=Buchanan|publisher=Rowan Hisayo Buchanan|access-date=2018-12-04|language=en-US}}

Buchanan was a 2016 Margins Fellow at the Asian American Writers' Workshop and a 2018 Kundiman Fellow.{{Cite web|url=http://www.kundiman.org/announcements/2018/10/10/byjymtqioohp4vk3ds7016qlp6bbnz|title=15 Kundiman Fellows Featured At LitHub!|date=11 October 2018 |publisher=Kundiman Foundation|access-date=2018-12-04|language=en-US}}{{Cite web|url=http://aaww.org/marginsfellows2015/|title=Meet AAWW's 2015 Margins Fellows!|website=Asian American Writers' Workshop|access-date=2018-05-27}}

Personal life

Buchanan identifies as a Japanese-British-Chinese-American, and has said "I’ve always had my hyphens, so it's hard for me to imagine how I'd write if I was only one thing." She lives and writes in the U.K.{{Cite interview|url=http://tinhouse.com/dear-reader-a-qa-with-rowan-hisayo-buchanan/|title=DEAR READER: A Q&A with Rowan Hisayo Buchanan|last=Buchanan|first=Rowan Hisayo|interviewer=Tin House Staff|date=2018-04-19|work=Tin House|access-date=2018-05-27|language=en-US}} Buchanan has a daughter with her partner.{{Cite web|url=https://theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/dec/28/a-christmas-that-changed-me-i-was-in-no-mood-to-celebrate-then-came-an-epiphany-on-hampstead-heath|title=A Christmas that changed me: I was in no mood to celebrate. Then came an epiphany on Hampstead Heath|journal=The Guardian|author=Rowan Hisayo Buchanan|date=28 December 2023|accessdate=22 July 2024}}

Works

= UK editions =

{{Cite book |last=H B |first=R |title=Harmless Like You |publisher=Sceptre |year=2016 |isbn=9781473638327 |edition=1st UK |author-mask=2}}
{{Cite book |last=H B |first=R |title=Starling Days |publisher=Sceptre |year=2019 |isbn=9781473638372 |edition=1st UK |author-mask=2}}