Chinese-American author supports boycotting Israel

Anti-Israel novelist’s new book includes minor Israeli character, prompting online backlash

Rebecca ‘R. F.’ Kuang is accused of ‘normalizing Israel,’ following leak of excerpt from ‘Taipei Story’ in which an unnamed musician is identified as Israeli; some cancel preorders

JTA — A bestselling author is facing a flurry of anger from fans after advance copies of her upcoming novel identified a character as Israeli — a move that her critics say advances “normalization” of a country they oppose.

Rebecca “R. F.” Kuang, the Chinese-American author of the 2023 satirical novel “Yellowface” and “The Poppy War” trilogy, is set to publish her seventh novel, “Taipei Story,” in September. The advance version, an excerpt of which was leaked on social media on Sunday, includes a short scene involving an Israeli musician.

The musician, a successful pianist whose performance ignites a near-religious fervor for a character in the story, is not named, and the text identifies him as “a dour-faced man who did not so much as crack a smile as we applauded.”

That was enough to trigger some readers and potential readers who said Kuang was whitewashing Israel in the wake of the war with Hamas in Gaza — even though she supports the movement to boycott Israel.

“RF kuang had 190+ countries to choose from to write about a character’s nationality and she still chose to write about the one who’s actively committing gen0cide against Palestinians for years,” user alltoowellreads wrote on X, in one representative comment that has been shared nearly 1,000 times that used an online version of the word “genocide” meant to evade censors.

Others railed against the excerpt on Threads, where there is a thriving community of people discussing books. Some readers said they even canceled their preorders of the book.

Kuang and her publicists did not respond to requests for comment, and she has disabled comments on her recent Instagram posts, where she has not addressed the criticism.

The backlash to Kuang’s inclusion of the Israeli character reflects a trend in the literary world, in which even minor mentions of Israel or Israelis are enough to land authors on boycott lists.

The trend predates the most recent war in Gaza: Casey McQuiston, the author of the 2019 romance novel “Red, White, and Royal Blue,” initially included a scene where the US president jokes that an ambassador “said something idiotic about Israel, and now I have to call Netanyahu and personally apologize.” In 2021, McQuiston said they would remove the reference to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in future printings of the book.

But the trend has intensified after the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack that sparked the Gaza war thrust Israel into the center stage of cultural conversations. An online list titled “Is your fav author a Zionist???” that went viral in 2024 urged boycotts against authors for whom the crowd-sourced answer was yes.

Some authors landed on the list without ever commenting publicly about Israel or Gaza. Gabrielle Zevin, for example, was included in part because her 2024 hit novel about Jewish video game designers, “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow,” received backlash for its inclusion of an Israeli character even though he was presented unfavorably. (Zevin also drew criticism for having spoken at a Hadassah event in February 2023.)

Kuang’s silence on the dustup has left some readers to speculate about why she chose to identify the pianist as Israeli in “Taipei Story,” a work of literary fiction about a young Chinese-American woman on an intensive summer language program in Taiwan.

Kuang, whose work largely deals with the Asian diaspora from an anti-colonial perspective, has historically supported the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel. In December, she withdrew from an appearance at a literature festival in Dubai, citing a call from the BDS movement.

That record had led some of her fans to argue that the Israeli character may have been included to subtly critique Israel. Others speculated without evidence that Kuang could have been paid to mention Israel in the book, while others simply expressed bafflement or anger at her choice to mention a state they believe is a colonial enterprise.

“Making your books sm about colonization but normalizing israel is insane to me idk im very disappointed,” wrote one X user who garnered 1 million views with the sentiment. (“Sm” is internet shorthand for “so much.”)

For Jews who have been keeping a close eye on trends in publishing since October 7, the response to the Kuang excerpt has been worrying, even if its ultimate impact remains unclear. Meg Keene, a writer who argues that data shows a sidelining of Jewish content in new book deals, summarized the brouhaha with a deflated tweet: “This is where we are now.”

Even some Jews who do not identify as Zionists say they see something worrying in the backlash to the Kuang excerpt.

“The people canceling a preorder over [a] single mention of an Israeli pianist being booked at a concert hall in R.F. Kuang’s new book lack so much f–king nuance. There’s literally no mention of Zionism yet y’all can’t seem to differentiate,” wrote a Jewish threads user who goes by Axis of Anarchy.

After experiencing some blowback, she followed up: “Also stop with this ‘y’all’ business about normalizing Israel. This is exactly the problem and I have been very vocal on calling Zionists out on their s–t so goodness forbid, I point out when y’all are taking your s–t too far.”

Though Kuang has closed most of her recent Instagram posts to comments, her readers continue to comment on older ones that are still open, asking the author about her choice to include an Israeli character.

Some books bloggers argue that the immediate call to boycott Kuang’s latest book is akin to censorship — and distracting from literary analysis.

“Reactionary outrage like this only acts as a form of censorship, because it discourages analysis,” wrote a user who goes by emily.isliterate, accompanying a widely viewed video on the episode. “From what I can read, I think Kuang (in very few words) manages to criticize the way people treat musicians from certain places over others (namely colonizer states). Maybe people stopped reading after the word Israel or they simply can’t garner subtext and theme, but either way, I think the entire situation is troublesome.”

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.