Hanya Yanagihara
A Little Life is a novel by Hanya Yanagihara and one of her most notable works, written in English and recognized within American literary culture through the Kirkus Prize, which Yanagihara received during her career as a novelist.
Yanagihara was born on September 20, 1974, in Los Angeles and grew up in Hawaii. She was educated at Smith College before establishing herself across several overlapping professional roles: novelist, journalist, magazine writer, travel writer, and editor. Her notable works in fiction include The People in the Trees and To Paradise alongside A Little Life, all written in English and produced as part of her sustained work as an American novelist and writer.
Yanagihara continues to work as both an editor and a writer, maintaining a career that moves across fiction, journalism, travel writing, and magazine work. Her roles as editor and magazine writer have run concurrently with her output as a novelist, reflecting the range of forms in which she operates as a United States citizen working in the English language. The Kirkus Prize stands as a concrete award among the recognitions she has received in the course of that career.
Quotes by Hanya Yanagihara
Hanya Yanagihara's insights on:
The first thing many tourists see in Hawaii is concrete - a long dreary stretch of it through landscapes dominated by sad, cheap apartment buildings and almost entirely denuded of plant life.
Although both of us were raised on Oahu, in Honolulu, my mother has always had fond memories of Maui; this was, after all, where she and my father, then penniless yet oddly optimistic newlyweds, honeymooned in 1969.
Go to any Shinto temple in Japan and you'll see it: a simple stand from which hang hundreds of wooden postcard-size plaques with a colorful image on one side and, on the other, densely scribbled Japanese characters in black felt-tip pen, pleas to the gods for help or succor.
I do have the sense that, although there may be no one way to write a novel, there are many novelists who are in fact part of some sort of larger literary community, whether in the form of a writing group or an MFA program, to name two of the more common forms.
I don't believe in post-racial or post-gay or post-anything, but I do think within a certain group of friends, what matters less is the specificities of race and sexuality, and what matters more is the shared experience, shared language and shared cultural touch points.
I don't think that genius goes hand in hand with being socially inept or being a sociopath or being a misanthrope, but I do think that it is a mind that can think so differently - so beyond how one is supposed to think.
Be aware of who in your life is actually interested in hearing you discuss your writing, and who's just asking to be polite. Listening to writers talk about their work is often excruciatingly dull.
I live in Soho in lower New York; there's tons and tons of tourists right outside my door step, obviously. Most of them are European, and all of them have guidebooks. I never see anyone looking at a phone.
In novels, and American novels in particular, it's not just about redemption, it's about forward movement and healing oneself. Americans are very big on getting better.
I have never wanted a family. I don't believe in marriage, though I obviously believe it should be legal for everyone who wants to do it. But it is not something I believe in, nor do the characters in my book, nor do any of my friends.