BEST AUTHOR BEST : JANICE Y. K. LEE

 

'' That you could collaborate with others and go out for boba tea and work together to create was quite revelatory,'' says the author of '' The Expatriates, '' which Nicole Kidman has produced [ and stars in ] for Amazon this month.

.-  What books are on your night stand?

'' Everything / Nothing / Someone '' by Alice Carriere, '' Everything's Fine '' by Cecilia Rabess, '' The Drama of the Gifted Child '' by Alice Miller, '' Small Things Like These'' by Claire Keegan. '' Severance '' by Ling Ma, '' The Future '' by Naomi Alderman.

.-  What's the last great book you read?

'' The Bee Sting '' by Paul Murray. Read this enormous, brilliantly absorbing tome in two days.

.-  What books are you embarrassed to admit you've never read?

So, so many. '' Middlemarch,'' '' Crime and Punishment,'' '' Ulysses. '' Some day!

.-  In an interview early in your career, you advised aspiring writers to '' read about all the great books that got rejected. as a way to gain confidence. Which ones did that for you?

I loved ''Prep'' by Curtis Sittenfeld so much because it perfectly encapsulated a certain experience of boarding school.

When I read that it had initially been rejected by 14 publishers., it strangely gave me hope. I realized that if a book that could have a problem getting published, all writers might as well just do our thing and let it all hang out. It was very freezing.

.-  Who writes well about the expatriate experience?

Lawrence Osborne does a very good, louche take on being English expatriate in Asian locales. Tom Rachman's '' The Imperfectionists '' really captured what I imagine to be young expatriate life in Europe.

.-  What was it like writing an episode of '' Expats,'' the series based on your novel?

It was a great experience, mostly because of the people involved. Nicole Kidman is an extraordinary actor of course, and her imprimatur moves things along magically.

Lulu Wang, the creator, showrunner and director, assembled all-female writers room [ it is somewhat a theme of my life that I have only worked with women] and I found a newly human way to be a writer.

I'm so used to wrestling with my process alone. The idea that you could collaborate with others and go out for boba tea and work together to create was quite revelatory.

However, it is absolutely mandatory that you are willing to give creative control. I told Lulu that her beautiful show and my novel are like cousins : definitely related but wholly different beings.

The World Students Society thanks The New York Times.