A STEEP AND SAVAGE PATH

Water Mirror Echo is a remarkable story of a man the traditions and communities that created him and the new worlds he made possible. Like Bruce Lee himself Jeff Chang is blessed with the vision to see things we do not yet see thinking and writing with a restless chasm-crossing almost prophetic ambition. - Hua Hsu Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Stay True: A MemoirThis book is as celebratory as it is incisive as it is at times heartbreaking. A massive achievement. - Hanif Abdurraqib National Book Award-winning author of There’s Always This Year and A Little Devil in AmericaA 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 classic Can’t Stop Won’t Stop and 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 of Can’t Stop Won’t Stop whose writing on culture politics the arts and music have made him one of the most acclaimed and distinctive voices of our time. In his hands Bruce Lee’s story brims with authenticity.Now based on in-depth interviews with Lee’s closest intimates thousands of newly available personal documents and featuring dozens of gorgeous photographs from the family’s archive Chang achieves the nearly impossible. He reveals the man behind the enduring iconography and stirringly shows Lee’s growing fame ushering in something that’s turned out to be even more enduring: the creation of Asian America.