Lisa See - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Lisa See is an American writer and novelist. Her Chinese-American family has had a great impact on her life and work. Her books include On Gold Mountain
On Gold Mountain
On Gold Mountain: The One-Hundred-Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family describes 100 years of author Lisa See’s family history, providing a complex portrait of her family’s hard work, suffering, failures and successes as they moved from China to the United States. Speaking of the Chinese...

: The One-Hundred-Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family (1995) and the novels Flower Net
Flower Net
Flower Net by Lisa See is the first of the Red Princess mysteries. The other two novels in the series are The Interior and Dragon Bones...

(1997), The Interior
The Interior (See)
The Interior is the second novel in Lisa See's Red Princess series. The first is Flower Net and the third is Dragon Bones. In The Interior Chinese MPS inspector Liu Hulan and David Stark, an American attorney who loves her and is the father of her unborn child, try to find out whether Miaoshan, the...

(1999), Dragon Bones
Dragon Bones (See)
Dragon Bones by Lisa See is the third of the Red Princess mysteries, preceded by Flower Net and The Interior. Once again the protagonists Inspector Liu Hulan and Attorney David Stark return—this time as husband and wife.-Plot summary:...

(2003), Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is a 2005 novel by Lisa See set in nineteenth century China. In her introduction to the novel, See writes that Lily, the narrator, was born in 1823 — "the third year of Emperor Daoguang's reign". The novel begins in 1903, when Lily is 80 years old...

(2005), Peony in Love
Peony in Love
Peony in Love is the fifth of Lisa See's novels. Her previous novel, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, and Peony in Love emphasize the difficulty 19th and 17th century Chinese women had in achieving freedom and identity in a society that was both male dominated and rigid in its gender...

(2007) and Shanghai Girls
Shanghai Girls
Shanghai Girls is a novel by Lisa See. In an important sense, it returns to the beginning of her major writing career. After publishing three murder mysteries largely set in China and then following them up with two in-depth studies of the struggles of Chinese women in the 19th and 17th centuries...

(2009), which made it to the 2010 New York Times bestseller list. Both Shanghai Girls and Snow Flower and the Secret Fan received honorable mentions from the Asian/Pacific American Awards for Literature

Asian/Pacific American Awards for Literature

The Asian/Pacific American Awards for Literature are a set of literary awards presented annually by the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association...

.

Flower Net, The Interior, and Dragon Bones make up the Red Princess mystery series. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and Peony in Love focus on the lives of Chinese women in the 19th and 17th centuries respectively.

Shanghai Girls
Shanghai Girls
Shanghai Girls is a novel by Lisa See. In an important sense, it returns to the beginning of her major writing career. After publishing three murder mysteries largely set in China and then following them up with two in-depth studies of the struggles of Chinese women in the 19th and 17th centuries...

(2009) chronicles the lives of two sisters who come to Los Angeles in arranged marriages and face, among other things, the pressures put on Chinese-Americans during the anti-Communist mania of the 1950s. See has completed a sequel titled Dreams of Joy
Dreams of Joy
Dreams of Joy is a 2011 novel by Lisa See. It debuted as #1 in the New York Times list of best selling fiction. In this book See completes the circle she began in Shanghai Girls. The former novel ends with the suicide of Pearl’s husband Sam and the shattering discovery by Joy that May is really...

, which was released May 31, 2011.

Writing under the pen name Monica Highland, See, her mother Carolyn See

Carolyn See

Carolyn See is the author of nine books, including the memoir, Dreaming: Hard Luck and Good Times in America, an advice book on writing, Making a Literary Life, and the novels There Will Never Be Another You and The Handyman....

, and John Espey, published three novels: Lotus Land (1983), 110 Shanghai Road (1986), and Greetings from Southern California (1988). She has written a personal essay ("The Funeral Banquet") for Half and Half.

See has donated her personal papers (1973–2001) to UCLA.

Biography

Lisa See was born in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

February 18, 1955, but has spent many years in Los Angeles

Los Ángeles

Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

, especially Los Angeles Chinatown. Her mother, Carolyn See

Carolyn See

, is also a writer and novelist. Her autobiography provides insight into her daughter's life. Lisa See graduated with a B.A. from Loyola Marymount University

Loyola Marymount University

Loyola Marymount University is a comprehensive co-educational private Roman Catholic university in the Jesuit and Marymount traditions located in Los Angeles, California, United States...

in 1979.

See was West Coast correspondent for Publishers Weekly
Publishers Weekly
Publishers Weekly, aka PW, is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers and literary agents...

(1983–1996); has written articles for Vogue, Self, and More; has written the libretto for the opera based on On Gold Mountain, and has helped develop the Family Discovery Gallery for the Autry Museum, which depicts 1930s Los Angeles from the perspective of her father as a seven-year-old boy. Her exhibition On Gold Mountain: A Chinese American Experience was featured in the Autry Museum of Western Heritage, and the Smithsonian. See is also a public speaker.

She has written for and led in many cultural events emphasizing the importance of Los Angeles and Chinatown. Among her awards and recognitions are the Organization of Chinese Americans

Organization of Chinese Americans

Founded in 1973, the Organization of Chinese Americans is a national organization dedicated to advancing the social, political, and economic well-being of Asian Pacific Americans in the United States...

Women's 2001 award as National Woman of the Year and the 2003 History Makers Award presented by the Chinese American Museum

Chinese American Museum

The Chinese American Museum is a museum located in Downtown Los Angeles as a part of the El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historic Monument. It is dedicated to the history and experience of Chinese Americans in the state of California, first such museum in Southern California...

. See serves as a Los Angeles City Commissioner.

External links

Lisa See on Her Life and Work

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