The literary figure of the Monkey King, or Sun Wukong, has his roots in the legends of the Chinese Chu Kingdom, which existed from 700-223 B.C.E. He’s best known, however, for his role in the 16th-century classic Chinese novel
Journey to the West by Wu Cheng’en. Yang elaborates on the Monkey King’s story for
American Born Chinese, but the basics remain the same: the Monkey King is born from a stone; learns the arts of combat, transformation, and immortality; and crowns himself “Great Sage Equal to Heaven.” The Buddha traps him under a mountain when he rebels against Heaven and, 500 years later, the Monkey King helps the novel’s main character, Tang Sanzang, journey west to retrieve sūtras (Buddhist sacred texts) from Central Asia and India. Yang has written a number of other graphic novels that explore similar themes or topics to
American Born Chinese, such as
The Eternal Smile with Derek Kirk Kim and
Boxers and
Saints, a two-volume work that tells the story of the anti-imperialist Boxer Rebellion in China. Other novels that deal with the Chinese immigrant experience include
Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok and Amy Tan’s
The Joy Luck Club. Graphic novels that deal with similar issues of identity, fitting in, and stereotypes include
El Deafo by Cece Bell,
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, and George Takei’s graphic memoir
They Called us Enemy, which tells of his experience as a child in a Japanese internment camp.