About this item
Highlights
- One Hmong family's harrowing escape from war in Laos to the uncertainty of a new home as refugees in Minnesota.
- About the Author: Kao Kalia Yang is a teacher, public speaker, and writer.
- 312 Pages
- Biography + Autobiography, Personal Memoirs
Description
About the Book
One Hmong family's harrowing escape from war in Laos to the uncertainty of a new home as refugees in Minnesota.Book Synopsis
One Hmong family's harrowing escape from war in Laos to the uncertainty of a new home as refugees in Minnesota.Review Quotes
Minnesota Book Award winner & Readers Choice Award recipient
Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award winner
An NEA Big Read selection
Midwest Booksellers Association Midwest Connections pick
"This is the best account of the Hmong experience I've ever read--powerful, heartbreaking, and unforgettable." --Anne Fadiman, author of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
"Packed with the stuff of life." --Entertainment Weekly
"Yang tells her family's story with grace; she narrates their struggles, beautifully weaving in Hmong folklore and culture." --Publishers Weekly, starred review
"Inspiring. . . . Yang has performed an important service in bringing readers the stories of a people whose history has beenshamefully neglected." --Kirkus
"A tale as poetic as it is informative." --City Pages
"A natural storyteller. Yang chronicles her family's journey and draws the reader into the Hmong culture." --Library Journal, starred review
"[The Latehomecomer] is the love story of [Yang's] parents, a gripping tale of adventure and escape, a history lesson of the Hmong people dating to their years in China, a tribute to Yang's beloved grandmother and a window into Hmong funeral customs. . . . Thanks to Yang, the grandmother will not be forgotten. And neither will this book." --Star Tribune
"[Yang] tells her family's story with outstanding beauty and lyricism." --St. Paul Pioneer Press
"A remarkable achievement for a young woman who, as an immigrant child, struggled painfully with the English language. But it's also a fitting milestone for a would-be reformer who believes that words can help to make a better world." --Christian Science Monitor
"Determined to tell the story of both her family and her people, Yang intimately chronicles the immigrant experience from the Hmong perspective, providing a long-overdue contribution to the history and literature of ethnic America." --Booklist
"This memoir is the first of its kind to correctly chronicle the lives of [the] Hmong." --International Examiner
"An ode to the thousands of Hmong families in our metro. . . . This is among the most important Minnesota books." --Metro Magazine
"Intimate. . . . [The Latehomecomer] is a picture of one family's struggle, but it is also a chronicle of Yang's own search for identity." --Rochester Post-Bulletin
"There have been many historical accounts and collections of oral histories of the Hmong people . . . but few if any accounts have combined the historical detail, storytelling skills, and tremendous emotional impact of Yang's new memoir." --MultiCultural Review
"Yang invites us inside the Hmong diaspora in a way few other writers have dared. . . . More than a memoir, more than a history, The Latehomecomer is a persuasive argument for the power of love." --Minneapolis Observer Quarterly
"Splendorous. . . . Yang goes where few history books dare to . . . and (like Maxine Hong Kingston before her) she forces the reader to question memory, power, and authority in America." --Feminist Review
"Yang
About the Author
Kao Kalia Yang is a teacher, public speaker, and writer. Yang is the author of the award-winning book, The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir (Coffee House Press, 2008) and the book, The Song Poet (Metropolitan Books, 2016). She is a graduate of Carleton College and Columbia University's School of the Arts. Kao Kalia lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota with her family.