Lies and Weddings

Kwan was born in Singapore to a family of Chinese descent; he subsequently moved to the United States with his family when he was a teenager. Kwan worked in design and was inspired to begin writing about his memories of Singapore as a way to explore complexities around class, wealth, and cultural identity. Kwan’s first novel, Crazy Rich Asians, was published in 2013 and attracted significant attention for its combination of satire, social critique, and nuanced explorations of the stereotypes and racism encountered by many individuals of Asian heritage. In 2018, Kwan was named one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2018. The 2018 film adaptation of Crazy Rich Asians was the first ever all-Asian romantic comedy made by a major Hollywood studio. Through his fiction and the film adaptations, Kwan has contributed to raising the visibility of narratives centered on the experience of Asian and Asian American characters.

Through his first trilogy and his two stand-alone novels (one of which is Lies and Weddings), Kwan focuses primarily on developing Asian characters and sometimes draws on his own experiences as an Asian immigrant. For example, the protagonist of Crazy Rich Asians is a Chinese American woman, and the protagonist of Lies and Weddings is an Anglo Chinese woman. Kwan has also garnered praise for his ability to depict female characters in a positive and nuanced light. His fiction tends to blend social satire and critiques of class-based inequities with the voyeuristic pleasure of getting a glimpse into the lives of the fabulously wealthy. Likewise, Lies and Weddings examines the exploitation of fragile ecosystems in regions like Hawaii, the lack of housing and income inequality in cities like Los Angeles, and the widespread racism in societies with significant histories of colonialism.