Ruthanne Lum McCua Notable Asi count just the suffering. There's so much joy, too. Just McCunn wrote her first book, An Illustrated History of the never, ever give up. That's the key to success." Chinese in America, for her students in a junior high school in where she was working as a bilingual teacher. Although McCarthy is not currently taking any new She had discovered that virtually no books existed about roles, she is determined to continue acting. "At my age," Chinese Americans, much less Chinese American history. she told Hong, "family is the most important thing in my life—my very supportive husband and two children. But By the time An Rlustrated History was published in 1979, acting is what makes my soul soar, so I'll have to keep McCunn had left her decade-long career as librarian and doing it." For now, McCarthy is looking forward to "taking teacher to become a full-time writer. Her work since then it easy for awhile, enjoying just being Mrs. CuUibert." She has steadily added to the growing library of Asian Ameri- added with a hint of mischief in her voice, "Now I finally can literature. She has written three novels, a children's have the luxury of just sitting back and thinking about tale, a book of proverbs, and a compilation of personal what I want to be when I grow up." histories of Chinese Americans. Her books have won awards, including the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation and the Outstanding Aca- Sources: demic Book from Choice magazine. She is also a recipient of the Distinguished Achievement Award from the National Women's Political Caucus. Gardclla, Kay. '"Stir of 'Manzanar' Film Gives Japanese Chinese Beginnings ViewofUS," JV«u York Daily News, March 5, 1976, p. 98. Rose, Lloyd. "'The Wash': Delicate Cycle," Post., Ruthanne Lum McCunn was bom February 21, 1946, in March 17, 1994, pp. Dl, D5. San Francisco's Chinatown. Her father was a merchant marine of Scottish American descent, and her Chinese Other mother was from . While visiting the United States as a tourist, McCunn's mother married the merchant McCarthy, Nobu, telephone i iew with Terry Hong, marine. In 1947 when the infant McCunn was a year old, May 28, 1994. the family relocated to Hong Kong. Though McCunn's father was at sea for much of her childhood, she grew up in —Sketch by Terry Hong the midst of her mother's extended family that included her mother, an aunt, uncle, cousins, and a great aunt. McCunn's first and only language until she was five was . She lived in a Chinese neighborhood where she attended Chinese school. Although she was very blonde as a child, McCunn recalled, "It was no big dea! looking different as long as I was going to the Chinese Ruthanne Lum McCunn school." However, when McCunn was six years old, her (1946-) father returned from sea and, concerned that his child could not speak English, placed her in a British school. Writer, teacher "Once I started going to English school, I was no longer part of the Chinese neighborhood. To the Chinese neigh- borhood children, I was the white devil foreigner and at During the early years of her life, Ruthanne Lum McCunn was known as Roxey Drysdale. Born to a Scottish she told Hong., In an attempt to express the confusion American father and a Chinese mother, McCunn's fea- and isolation she felt being trapped between two worlds, tures are not recognizably Asian. But growing up in Hong McCunn started writing at the age of seven in a diary that Kong surrounded by her mother's extended family and her father had given her. living the majority of her adult life in California, At age sixteen, one year after her father's death, McCunn's identity today is completely Asian American. McCunn returned to the United States. A college educa- That synthesized identity is reflected in her name: Lum is tion in Hong Kong would have been very expensive, if her mother's maiden name—"When I started to write, I even possible, and in America, McCunn had heard thai felt it was important to have the Lum in there. Everything college was much more accessible and that one could I write comes from that source"—while McCunn is her work to support her education. She was also eager to see married name. "It's really because of both my mother and more of the world than Hong Kong's at times claustropho- my husband that I am able to do the work that I do," she bic 240 square miles. told Terry Hong in an interview. "I'm able to write about Chinese America because of my mother, and I'm also able Encouraged by her mother, McCunn first arrived in to write because it was my husband who encouraged me to Boise, Idaho, where her sister had already settled with go for it." their father's relatives. "Because I left when I was only a Ruthanne Luni McCui

every level, from elementary to graduate school. But even though I enjoy it, I've found that I can't write and teach at the same time. To be a good teacher is a very creative endeavor and that saps all my creativity. At this time, at this place, I prefer writing," she told Hong. McCunn 's first book, An Illustrated History of the Chin in America,rca, wass publishepused inn 19799, ,i t t haass bee eenn useused llege text. She finds it very alarming that so many of her readers are older students since the book was written for schoolchildren at a fifuVgrade reading level. Her second book, Thousand Pieces of Gold was published in 1981. McCunn believes it is the first biographical novel of a Chinese American pioneer woman. The story con- cerns Lalu Nathoy, who was shipped to the United States as a slave and became , a well-loved pioneer woman of Warrens, Idaho. The novel, McGinn's best-sell- ing work to date, was the basis a 1991 film made by inde- pendent filmmakers Nancy Kelly and Kcnji Yamamoto. McCunn was unhappy with the celluloid translation. She told Hong, "It was very different. The character names and the title were the same, but everything else was different." The next book McCunn wrote was a children's story, Pie- Biter, published in 1983, about a young boy named Hoi whose legend is somewhat akin to that of Paul Bunyan or John Henry. "I came across the story while I was doing research for Thousand Pieces. It seemed so astonishing that there were no Chinese American folktales in print. There year old, coming back was like coming to America for the were Chinese tales, but none that were truly Chinese first lime. I had very much an immigrant mentality. And I American. It was way past time that we had a Chinese spoke English with a British accent," she told Hong. American tale," she said. Pie-Biter -won the American Book Unhappy in an area with only one Chinese family, Award from the Before Columbus Foundation in 1984. McGinn left Idaho for the San Francisco Bay area where she lived with a friend of her mother's in Walnut Creek. McCunn followed the tale with another biographical For two years, she attended Diablo Valley Junior College, novel, Sole Survivor, in 1985. The novel was based on the working odd jobs from janitor to short-order cook. She true story of Poon Lim, a Chinese sailor who miraculously then transferred to the University of California at Berke- survived 133 days adrift in the Atlantic Ocean after his ley, marrying Donald McCunn at the end of her junior ship was sunk during World War II. The book won Best year. The couple moved briefly to Austin, Texas, where Book in the Nonfiction Adventure category from the McCunn finished her undergraduate degree in English at Southwest Booksellers Association. the University of Texas at Austin in 1968. McCunn earned In 1988, McCunn published Chinese American Portraits: her teaching credentials from the University of California Personal Histories 1828-1988. "I had, over the years, come at San Francisco when the couple returned to San Fran- across a number of interesting stories while doing cisco the following year. research and I wondered what I should do with all this material," she recalled. "When I wrote Thousand Pwces, I Career Changes wanted to dispel stereotypes of the passive Asian woman. When I wrote Survivor, I wanted to dispel the misconcep- McCunn first worked as a librarian and then as a teacher tion that Asians do not value life. So with Portraits, I in a Santa Barbara elementary school before the couple wanted to bring together many sujries like that, to show settled for good in San Francisco in 1974 where McCunn that stories like Polly's and Poon's were notjust an excep- was an English and bilingual teacher in the public school tion here and there. I wanted to show the many Chinese system. For four years, she continued to teach until she Americans in history who have not been acknowledged made the decision to write full-time. With the exception and I wanted to show the great diversity of Chinese Amer- of a few terms of teaching creative writing and Asian ica." In 1990, the book received the Outstanding Aca- demic Book award from Choice magazine. American literature at the University of California at Santa Cruz and the , McCunn has In 1991, McCunn published a collection entitled Chinese remained a full-time writer. "I loved teaching. I loved it at Proverbs, "These proverbs were something that I have been Ajai Singh "Sonny" Mehta collecting over the years out of a personal interest, so when a publisher approached me to put a collection together, I thought 'Aha! This is why I've been collecting all these years.1" She told Hong, "It was just a fun thing to do." Ajai Singh "Sonny" Mehta Something New (1942- ) Book publisher Wooden Fish Songs is McCunn's latest book, due out in 1995 from Dutton. "My husband is printing out the final revision at this moment," she told Hong gleefully. Wooden Indian-born Sonny Mehta spends his days wrestling Fish Songs was the novel McCunn was researching years ago with pushy agents, desperate writers, and oversized egos, when she got side-tracked by Portraits. The title of the work but he takes it all in stride. He is the president and editor- comes from stories told in the Canton delta region of in-chief of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of . China, stories told from women's points of view about hus- He is also the president of the Knopf Publishing Group, bands and lovers in Gum San, die Chinese name for the which includes Knopf, , Schocken Books, gold mountains of far-away America. McCunn's novel is , and Random House Large Print Publish- the story of one Chinese American man, told by three dif- ing. Random House is the largest general trade book pub- ferent women: his mother in China, his European-Ameri- lisher in the United States and the English-speaking can mentor in Massachusetts, and the mentor's cook in world. Florida. The Chinese American man in question is based on a true figure who was one of McCunn's subjects in Por- Mehta became head of Alfred A. Knopf in 1987. His traits. In order to research the novel, McCunn traveled to division publishes the works of John Updike, John Hersey, Toisan, China, where the man was originally from, (hen to Andre Gide, and , among others. In recent North Adams, Mass ache setts, and DeLand, Florida. years Knopf has published the works of , VS. Naipaul, John le Carre, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, McCunn's latest project has returned her to the mid- , and Cormac McCarthy. Alfred A. Knopf 1800s. She is currently researching Chinese Americans writers have won more Nobel Prizes than those of any who served during the Civil War. "I have about twelve of other publisher. Its writers have also won Pulitzer Prizes and other literary awards. she told Hong. "It's been very difficult to research because all except two or three of the soldiers have Western sur- Ajai Singh Mehta was born in India in 1942, the son of a names although they were ethnically Chinese. . . . Several diplomat. He was educated at the Lawrence School in of them came over as children on ships and they took the Sanwar, India, and Cambridge University. He began his names of the ships' captains. I think the name-changing publishing career in London at Rupert Hart-Davis. After was just happenstance, not deliberate." founding Paladin Books, he became editorial director of Granada Paperbacks, where he oversaw the operations of For the foreseeable future, McCunn plans to continue the Panther, Mayflower, and Paladin book line. In 1972 he writing. "My writing grew out of a desire to teach and became publishing director of Pan Books and launched share, to do so nonott iin aa dogmaticdogmatic,, teachertteacherty wayway,, bubutt tto do the highly successful trade paperback line. fun way. Through my writing, I'v' e found that story- telling ly a way to pass on information." When Mehta joined Alfred A. Knopf in 1987, he headed the publishing house in a new direction. Knopf was So known for publishing critically acclaimed books that sold well, but not great, in book stores. Mehta decided to look Periodicals for more commercially viable projects.

Seto, May. "An Interview With Author Ruthanne Lum His first hits as publisher were American Psycho by Bret McCunn," Sampan, January 1982. Easton Ellis and Damage by Josephine Hart. Both novels Stein, Rudie. "Inside Look at Growing Up As an Out- were panned by critics but were commercial hits. Mehta sider," San Francisco Chronicle, 21 September 1983, p. 39. used his marketing genius to propel the books to the top Stix, Harriet. "Author Leads, Writes About a Double Life," of the New York Times best-seller list shortly after the Los Angeles Times, 25 September 1 983, Part VIII. books were released. With the success of Damage espe- cially, he proved to the skeptical publishing world that he Other could lake a book from nowhere and put it on the best- seller list. McCunn, Ruthanne Lum, telephone interview with Terry Hong, April 25, 1994. On a typical day Mehta gets up and reads manuscripts. He breaks only to change CDs—his musical tastes range —Sketch by Terry Hong from Beethoven and Mozart to Biber—-and watch cricket