Water Mirror Echo: Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America [Hardcover]

Named one of the 10 Best Books of the Year byPublishers Weekly

Named a Best of the Year by NPR,Vogue,Kirkus Reviews, Alta Journal

"This book is as celebratory as it is incisive, as it is, at times, heartbreaking. A massive achievement." — Hanif Abdurraqib, National Book Award-winning author ofThere’s Always This YearandA Little Devil in America

A cultural biography, both sweeping and intimate, of the legend Bruce Lee, set against the extraordinary, untold story of the rise of Asian America—from the author of the award-winning classicCan’t Stop Won’t Stopand one of the finest culture observers of our era.

More than a half-century after his passing, Bruce Lee is as towering a figure to people around the world as ever. On his path to becoming a global icon, he popularized martial arts in the West, became a bridge to people and cultures from the East, and just as he was set to conquer Hollywood once and for all, he died of cerebral edema at age thirty-two. It’s no wonder that Bruce Lee’s legend has only bloomed in the decades since. Yet, in so many ways, the legend has eclipsed the man.

Forgotten is the stark reality of the baby boy born in segregated San Francisco, who spent his youth in war-ravaged, fight-crazy Hong Kong. Forgotten is the curious teenager who found his way back to America, where he embraced West Coast counterculture and meshed it with the Asian worldviews and philosophies that reared him. Forgotten is the man whose very presence broke barriers and helped shape the idea of what being an Asian in America is, at the very dawn of Asian America.

Water Mirror Echo—a title inspired by Bruce Lee’s own way of moving, being and responding to the world—is a page-turning and powerful reminder. At the helm is Jeff Chang, the award-winning author ofCan’t Stop lcq