[110] Kao Kalia Yang, author of Somewhere in the Unknown World

“Each individual lives a full life. Each individual has their stores of joys and their treasure troves of beauty to offer to the world. This is my team of superheroes in 2020. They are the reason I’m not afraid of looking at tomorrow. Because no matter what happens tomorrow, I still get to share this city and this world with these individuals.” – Kao Kalia Yang

Kao Kalia Yang is an award-winning Hmong-American writer. She is a graduate of Carleton College and Columbia University. Yang is the author of the memoirs The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir and The Song Poet. Yang is also the author of the children’s books, A Map Into the World, The Shared Room, and The Most Beautiful Thing. She co-edited the ground-breaking collection What God is Honored Here?: Writings on Miscarriage and Infant Loss By and For Indigenous Women and Women of Color. Her newest title is Somewhere in the Unknown World, a collective memoir of refugee experiences. Yang’s literary nonfiction work has been recognized by the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Chautauqua Prize, the PEN USA literary awards, the Dayton’s Literary Peace Prize, and garnered three Minnesota Book awards. Her children’s books have been listed as an American Library Association Notable Book, a Zolotow Honor, a Kirkus Best Book of the Year, a finalist for the Midwest Independent Bookseller’s Award, and winner of a Minnesota Book Award in Children’s Literature. Kao Kalia Yang is a recipient of the International Institute of Minnesota’s Olga Zoltai Award for her community leadership and service to New Americans and the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts’ 2019 Sally Award for Social Impact.

Connect with Kalia on her website.

Kalia’s book recommendation: After the Last Border by Jessica Goudeau (listen to our podcast episode with Jessica here)

Shop all our authors’ books and book recommendations on our Bookshop.org page!

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Our December book of the month is Kindred by Octavia Butler.

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Renee Powers

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Renee Powers founded Feminist Book Club in 2018 to provide a space for intersectional feminists to learn, grow, and connect. When not reading or running the biz, you can find her drinking coffee and trying unsuccessfully to teach her retired racing greyhound how to fetch. Favorite genres: feminist thrillers, contemporary literary fiction, short stories, and anything that might be described as "irreverent"