By Yong Shu Hoong

Banana is not only a fruit. It is also listed in Wikipedia as an ethnic slur: an Asian residing in a Western country who is yellow on the outside and white on the inside.

The aforementioned word features prominently in British Chinese author PP Wong's novel, The Life of a Banana (2014), published in the UK by Legend Press and in South-east Asia by Monsoon Books. Longlisted for Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction 2015, it was described by The Guardian as "a moving and optimistic debut about orphaned siblings (Xing Li and older brother, Lai Ker) coping with a new strict home and racial bullying."

While Wong said that her novel is not autobiographical, she admitted that the racial prejudices and bullying depicted in the book were based on real-life experiences of people she had met in the British Chinese community.

So is the author herself a "banana"? In her favour, Wong hasn't lost touch with her cultural identity – she still speaks basic Mandarin and Cantonese. Born in Paddington, London, in 1982, she spent her childhood moving between London and Singapore, where she did part of her nursery school, Primary 1 and 2, as well as five months of junior college. After completing a degree in Anthropology and Law at the London School of Economics, she did a Postgraduate Diploma in Journalism.

Wong currently lives in Singapore, where her Singaporean parents also reside in, and is hoping to make it a more permanent home. Aside from working on her second novel, she is also a freelance writer and the editor-in-chief of www.bananawriters.com, which is a website for new East and South-east Asian writers.

1. What are you reading right now?
Dear Life by Alice Munro and An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro – I'm thoroughly enjoying both of them.

Munro is such a fine writer. I admire writers who do not waste a single word, and she is the real deal. In Dear Life, her stories are about normal, seemingly insignificant people with regular jobs. Yet, the rhythm of her words flow in such an easy way. It is a real joy to learn and read about her characters. She finds something special in the mundaneness of everyday life.

As for Ishiguro, I'm terrible fond of his characters and their quirky nuances. And his humour is very British. I always enjoy authors who are unassumingly humorous – in the sense you would not categorise their work as laugh-out-loud funny, but their perception of life makes you smile.

2. If you were a famous literary character in a novel, play, or poem, who would you be, and why?
I suppose it would be Anne from Anne of Green Gables. She was the underdog who no one expected anything from but surprised everyone when she hit Gilbert Blythe over the head with the slate.

3. What is the greatest misconception about you?
That I'm a terribly social creature. I'm actually always a couple of steps away from evolving into a hermit.

4. Name one living author and one dead author you identify with most, and tell us why.
I still feel that I'm learning a great deal as a writer and I have a long way to go. In that sense, I would not identify myself with any of the great authors in the world. Maybe ask me this question in 40 years' time. But some of the authors whose books I enjoy (in no specific order) are Arundhati Roy, George Orwell, Shin Kyung Sook, Jane Austen, Kazuo Ishiguro and Dr Seuss.

5. Do you believe in writer's block? If so, how do you overcome it?
Yes, Writer's Block is my bookish bespectacled mugger waiting round the corner to steal my words ready to strike at any time.

If you are stuck on a scene, I've found the best way to overcome it is to start working on a different scene, or lock yourself in a room and tell yourself that you cannot leave unless you write X number of words. It helps when you have drunk vast quantities of water before you've entered the room. Desperate measures are sometimes the most successful.

6. What qualities do you admire most in a writer?
Originality, humour and fearlessness.

7. What is one trait you deplore most in writing or writers?
Blandness.

8. Can you recite your favourite line from a literary work or a piece of advice from a writer?
"Be yourself. Life is a stage but you should always play yourself." It was a piece of advice from my literary agent before my novel was released.

9. Complete this sentence: Few people know this, but I...
Enjoy DIY projects and constructed the majority of the Ikea furniture in my home singlehandedly.

10. At the movies, if you have to pick a comedy, a tragedy, or an action thriller to watch, which will you go for, and why?
To be honest, I don't mind what genre the film is, provided that it has something new to say and good dialogue. I give films 15 minutes before I decide if I am going to dedicate two hours of my life to it. I hate wasting time on bad films.

11. What is your favourite word, and what is your least favourite one?
I don't have a specific favourite word. But at the moment my favourite words are: onomatopoeia, duplexity and liao. I don't really hate any words.

12. Write a short-short story in three lines that include the following three words: "fool", "wedding" and "cat".
She married the fool. He left her the day after their wedding. So, she shrugged her shoulders and married her cat instead.

13. What object is indispensable to you when you write?
Silence.

14. What is the best time of the day for writing?
Any time, as long as I've written enough to feel satisfied with my day's work.

15. If you had a last supper, which three literary figures, real or fictional, would you invite to the soiree, and why?
Arundhati Roy, with the sole intention of persuading her to write another novel. George Orwell, for stimulating, thoughtful conversation, and The Cat in The Hat for purely mischievous reasons.

16. The Life of a Banana deals with racial relations and conflicts – which presumably are at least partially drawn from your real-life experiences. As a published writer now, do you still grapple with or think about racial issues a lot?
In the UK, race is a topic that is talked about in the media continuously. Almost every other day there is a major newspaper article about race. There are countless experiences where I've faced racism. For example, if I pass a group of fairly drunk men on a Friday night there is a very high chance they will shout something racially motivated or a sexual racist slur at me. Also, I've met a number of people who presume I'm from China and that English is my second language. It doesn't happen all the time, but enough to remind you that you are an ethnic minority.

When I started the website Banana Writers, there were certain prejudices in the publishing industry against Asian writers, and they still exist today. In fact, a couple of days ago, I read a feature in The Guardian on how the publishing industry pigeonholes ethnic minority writers. I myself faced prejudice when one editor told my literary agent that they could not take on my novel because they had another Chinese author on their books. I started Banana Writers to give Asian writers the chance to tell their stories on their terms – and I'm overwhelmed by the number of talented Asian writers out there who have never been published.

In Singapore, where the majority of people are Chinese, I do not face the same challenges that I experience in the UK. That's not to say that there aren't prejudices of various kinds. For example, when I was viewing flats, I was shocked when a property agent said that some landlords specify that they don't want to rent out to Indian people. The agent was very matter of fact, as though it were something normal and acceptable. I ended up renting a place where at least 50 percent of my neighbours are from India. My Singaporean friend asked me if I was "bothered" by this. Why should it bother me? We're all human beings under the same sky.

17. What would you write on your own tombstone?
I'll let whoever I've left behind decide that.

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