Wayson Choy Literary Biography Essay Example
Wayson Choy Literary Biography Essay Example

Wayson Choy Literary Biography Essay Example

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  • Pages: 3 (575 words)
  • Published: October 3, 2017
  • Type: Paper
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Wayson Choy was born in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1939. As a Chinese-Canadian he grew up and lived in Chinatown. He attended Gladstone secondary school, and then went on to attend the University of British Columbia studying creative writing. He was the first writer of Chinese ancestry to study creative writing. He studied under Earle Birney.

He moved to Toronto, Ontario in 1962, he began teaching at Humber College in 1967 and ended in 2004. He currently continues to teach at the Humber School for Writers. He also was the president of the Cahoots Theater company of Toronto from 1992 to 2002. In 2005 he was named a member of the Order of Canada. His first novel the Jade Peony (1995), earned him two prestigious awards, the Trillium Book Award and the Vancouver Book award.

His second and last novel to da

...

te is “All that Matters” and is the sequel to the Jade Peony, it was nominated for the Giller Prize. His first memoir Paper Shadows: A Chinatown Childhood was written in 1999 and won the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction and was nominated for a Governor General's Award. His second memoir “Not Yet” is excepted out in 2009. Wayson Choy’s writing is skilled, humane, subtle, and ironic. He explores many very real issues, such as racism, politics, and violence, and presents it to his readers from a very raw understanding. Death, acceptance, maturity, and growth are all themes he explores in writing.

He also believes deeply in signs, and that is reflected in his writings. Quoted from his 1999 interview it describes what he does best. “He patiently unfolds the secrets of his past and searches

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for meaning in coincidence. ” His own life is a reflection of the novel “The Jade Peony”, although it is fiction. Like Jung-Sum Choy had to deal with discovering his own sexuality and realizing he’s gay. He also found out he was adopted, he didn’t know when he wrote the novel but said he always had a feeling.

He found out when he was 56 years old, and both his adopted parents had already passed away. He found this out from a phone call during an interview. Like Meiying his parents could not raise him and were involved in the Opera. He will never admit that these are real reflections of his life, he will state that all his novels are strictly fiction. He teaches us that we never do know exactly where we came from or who our parents truly are. He uses many different literary devices effectively.

He shows us the symbolism of change in the wind. The knitting needles are a metaphor for creating something, but also as violent foreshadowing to Meiyings abortion and suicide. In his short story Red petals on a faraway grave, he gives us the allusion of some ancient bureaucrat washing his hands clean. He uses all different archetypes to show us the realness of his characters. His themes are the reality of a time of war and depression. Sandra Martin noticed something interesting when she visited him.

“Hanging from a black string around his neck is a hand-carved alabaster pendant of an endless knot. ” He is wearing it because the knot seemed symbolic of his life. “When I look back at any point, the beginning and the end are

always there. ”

Bibliography:

  1. http://www.quillandquire. com/authors/profile. cfm? article_id=1418
  2. http://www. thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index. cfm? PgNm=TCE=A1ARTA0009879
  3.  http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Wayson_Choy
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