C. Y. Lee (author)

C.Y. Lee is a Chinese American author perhaps best known for his best selling 1957 novel ''The Flower Drum Song'', which inspired the Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, II musical ''Flower Drum Song''.

Biography

Born in 1917 in Hunan province, China, Lee belonged to a family of distinguished scholars. He earned a bachelor's degree from Xi'nan University, then, in 1943, emigrated to the United States, where he earned an MFA in playwriting from Yale University in 1947. He was a contributor to Radio Free Asia. Lee was a journalist working for two Chinatown, San Francisco, California newspapers, ''Chinese World'' and ''Young China'' when he penned his landmark tale of generational and cross-cultural conflict in the early 1950s. He lived in San Francisco's Chinatown to turn his short story into a novel. It was he who suggested going to Forbidden City to watch Asians sing and dance, with Jack Soo quitting his job as emcee to perform in the Broadway production.

Flower Drum Song

Lee's bestselling 1957 novel ''The Flower Drum Song'' was adapted as a Rodgers and Hammerstein that opened in 1958. The original production was the first Broadway show to feature Asian American players. The 1961 film jump-started the careers of the first generation of Asian American actors, including Nancy Kwan, James Shigeta, and Jack Soo. On October 2, 2001, the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles premiered David Henry Hwang's adaptation of Rodgers and Hammerstein's ''Flower Drum Song'' to glowing reviews, in the first production that literally was an all-Asian cast of actors and voices. Its initial run was extended, and after several months, the production moved to Broadway.

Some observers felt that Lee's novel perpetuated stereotypes of Asians. The novel was a New York Times bestseller, but quickly went out of print. The first ethnic studies programs in the late 1960s did not accept Lee's playful vision of mixing Chinese and American traditions. For many years the book was rejected by young Asian Americans as being "too white face" or "Uncle Tom". Lee was a Chinese immigrant and wrote of the society as he saw it at that time, perhaps an example of the very generation gap portrayed in the musical. While mainstream America had fueled Lee's initial success, the new Asian American movement's consciousness-raising had all but buried Lee's evocation of the Chinese experience in America. Largely in conjunction with the 2002 Broadway revival of the musical, the novel was made available again as a reprint.

Lee, still living, was interviewed on the 2006 DVD release of the movie, and worked with Hwang in the rewriting of the musical.

Works by C. Y. Lee

* ''The Flower Drum Song'' . Lee's novel about generational conflict within an Asian American family over an arranged marriage in San Francisco's Chinatown
** adapted into a musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein in 1958.
* ''Lover's Point''
* ''The Sawbwa and His Secretary''
* ''Madame Goldenflower''
* ''Cripple Mah and the New Order''
* ''The Vrigin Market''
* ''The Land of the Golden Mountain''
* ''The Days of the Tong Wars''
* ''China Saga''
* ''The Second Son of Heaven''
* ''Gate of Rage''

Sources

* ''The Chronology of American Literature'', edited by Daniel S. Burt. Copyright ? 2004 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.