Graphic novelist to be given honorary doctorate at Cal State East Bay

HAYWARD, Calif. (BCN/KTVU) - Award-winning graphic novelist Gene Luen Yang will be given an honorary doctorate and give an address at Cal State East Bay's commencement ceremony at 5 p.m. Sunday at Pioneer Stadium.

Yang is the fifth National Ambassador for Young People's Literature for the Library of Congress and was chosen for a 2016 Mac Arthur Foundation "genius" grant.

Yang was born in Alameda and raised in the South Bay and began drawing comic books in the fifth grade.

"Decades later, a teacher at Bishop O'Dowd high school, Yang took a leap of faith -- fulfilling his dream of becoming a full time writer of comic books and graphic novels," Cal State East Bay said in a release.

"His first graphic novel was a National Book Award finalist, as well as the winner of the Printz Award and an Eisner Award.

His two-volume graphic novel Boxers & Saints won the L.A. Times Book Prize and was a National Book Award Finalist.

For two years he has written New Superman for DC Comics to "explore the overlap between an American icon - Superman - and modern Chinese culture."

"According to DC, his current project, Superman Smashes the Klan will tell the story of an American Chinese girl who moves to Metropolis to find herself and her family's ethnicity targeted by the Ku Klux Klan," Cal State East Bay said.