The world of literature is often dominated by male authors and their classical works, but that’s starting to change, as demonstrated by the success of Chloe Gong, the 21-year-old author of the 2021 Harper audiobook smash, These Violent Delights, a YA retelling of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Gong recently sat down with io9 to discuss her views on adapting Shakespeare’s iconic canon for a modern audience.
Gong began by discussing her own literary journey and how it led her to project of reimagining a classic. Growing up in the United States, Gong never felt a great connection to Shakespeare’s works and describes her first encounter with Romeo and Juliet in high school as a low point in her education. However, after immersing herself in the works of female writers and discovering the reworks of Shakespeare’s works, she began to find inspiration in the idea of adapting the canon in new and exciting ways.
When explaining her creative process, Gong emphasized that she does her best to respect the original work while bringing a unique spin to the material. She described her work on These Violent Delights as a kind of “translation”, using the same language and structure that Shakespeare used, but making the words her own. Moreover, her background in Chinese literature and culture comes into play as she weaves elements of both eastern and western culture into her work.
Speaking to her readers, Gong encouraged them to look beyond the surface of any work and dig into its context and history. Reading a work in its original language can be particularly interesting for those who may not be familiar with the region it was written in.
A great admirer of Shakespeare’s works, Gong also believes that the canon should be celebrated rather than “maintained in a glass case”; each generation of readers and readers should remix his stories in order to bring them to life in a contemporary context.
At the heart of her work, Gong wants her readers to open their eyes to the “power and beauty” the canon has to offer and hopes to encourage them to embrace new possibilities for adaptation and retelling.
