Interior Chinatown cover art

Interior Chinatown

A Novel (National Book Award Winner)

 Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Interior Chinatown

By: Charles Yu
Narrated by: Joel de la Fuente
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £7.99

Buy Now for £7.99

LIMITED TIME OFFER | £0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Premium Plus auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Terms apply.

About this listen

 2020 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER

"One of the funniest books of the year ... a delicious, ambitious Hollywood satire." —The Washington Post

From the infinitely inventive author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe comes a deeply personal novel about race, pop culture, immigration, assimilation, and escaping the roles we are forced to play.

Willis Wu doesn’t perceive himself as a protagonist even in his own life: He’s merely Generic Asian man. Sometimes he gets to be Background Oriental Making a Weird Face or even Disgraced Son, but he is always relegated to a prop. Yet every day he leaves his tiny room in a Chinatown SRO and enters the Golden Palace restaurant, where Black and White, a procedural cop show, is in perpetual production. He’s a bit player here, too, but he dreams of being Kung Fu Guy—the most respected role that anyone who looks like him can attain. At least that’s what he has been told, time and time again. Except by one person, his mother. Who says to him: Be more.

Playful but heartfelt, a send-up of Hollywood tropes and Asian stereotypes, Interior Chinatown is Charles Yu’s most moving, daring, and masterly novel yet.

"Fresh and beautiful ... Interior Chinatown represents yet another stellar destination in the journey of a sui generis author of seemingly limitless skill and ambition.” —The New York Times Book Review Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction United States World Literature China Heartfelt Witty China Town

Listeners also enjoyed...

 The Complete Jaipur Trilogy cover art
A Nail Through The Heart cover art
Shopgirl cover art
A Dead Djinn in Cairo cover art
The Apple Orchard cover art
With a Voice that Is Often Still Confused but Is Becoming Ever Louder and Clearer cover art
Lay Your Sleeping Head cover art
Invisible Man cover art
Flawless cover art
Master of None cover art
Your House Will Pay cover art
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court cover art
Kindred cover art
The Personal Librarian cover art
All stars
Most relevant
Great book. Really clever. Made me laugh out loud but was serious and political at the same time. So original. I enjoyed it very much,

great book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
One moment you’re chuckling, the next the author kicks your nuts with the harsh realities of racism and being an immigrant in the US. Not a fan of the script format so I’m curious if this translates well on TV. Yes, there is a TV adaptation.

A hilarious take on racism

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I'm a big fan of films and thought that the screenplay-like title/strui might offer something interesting and novel. It doesn't. This was neither funny nor insightful enough to make it recommendable. There isn't really a story. Instead, it's an abstraction of someone's life trying to make it as an actor mixed with some personal stuff that isn't deep enough to make you care.

generic Asian literature

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.