Lisa Ko was born to immigrant parents from China in 1977. She published her first novel The Leavers in 2016 after working on the novel for eight years. This novel was a best seller and won many, many awards, including being named novel of the year by the Los Angeles Times, Entertainment Weekly, and NPR. Lisa Ko was born in part of Queens, New York and struggled growing up being the first member of her family to grow up in the United States. Ko also struggled with being a person of color in the United States in being in the extreme minority where she grew up. These struggles are what lead her to the reading, and the writing of fictional novels. Ko then became frustrated and puzzled by the lack of Asian American representation and story telling told in fiction novels. She was curious why their was no fictional stories about immigration and the struggles and stories of immigrants so she set out to change that.
Lisa Ko’s main inspiration for the novel was an article she read in the New York Times about an immigrant mother who tried to bring her son to the United States as well. Her son was caught by immigration and taken away from his family. The son was eventually adopted by a family in Canada and departed from his mother in America permanently. This was startling and shocking to Lisa Ko so she started to do more research on stories like that. She found way too many examples of families and children being separated and adopted by other families in Canada and elsewhere after being caught illegally immigrating to the United States. This can clearly be seen through the characters of Holly who is smuggled into the United States and her son Demming, who become separated. This is where Lisa Ko’s main inspiration for her characters and novel came from. Lisa Ko’s novel is incredible in many ways. For one she spreads awareness on issues within America’s immigration system. She also writes an Asian American fiction novel which there are an extreme lack of. And lastly she tells a truly intriguing novel that allows the readers to experience many emotions
Memolo, Erika. “About the Author.” MOVING FICTIONS, 18 May 2020, https://sites.udel.edu/movingfictions/theleavers/about-the-author/.
Messer, Miwa. “Lisa Ko on Immigration and the Inspiration for ‘The Leavers.’” The Barnes & Noble Review, The Barnes & Noble Review, 21 July 2017, https://www.barnesandnoble.com/review/lisa-ko-immigration-inspiration-leavers.
Great context presentation! I did some research on immigrants when I was preparing for my DSI on refugees seeking asylum. It is appalling how little compassion the US shows for these humans, even if they came here illegally. Even though I read the struggles immigrants face when in detention camps it wasn’t until I read this single story and really seem like I felt a connection, or should I say the amount of empathy before was lacking. This is a system that needs attention.
To hear about how someone’s struggles served as a catalyst for their success is truly inspiring. Lisa Ko definitely put a lot of thought behind the emotions and issues of the characters in her story, which was an accurate depiction based on her research. Her struggles of being a minority also seemed to have helped create an authentic portrayal of the characters as well. Great presentation–this really helped to make the inspiration for writing the story make sense.
Thank you for your blog that providing the information about the book’s background. The novel was based on so many real stories about Lisa Ko, and with her own life experience and ideas, the book would be so realistic and attractive. The book just represents the true things that happens around us but we may not care about before, and some problems in the book are actually need to be solved.
I really liked the background you gave us about the author of the book! I did not know these different things such that this was her first novel and her background of where she grew up. I think this showed me more insight into why she wrote about what she did and it shows her passion. Gives you another insight into the book.
Wow, I had no idea that she worked on her novel for eight years! I agree that Ko does a fantastic job at being a storyteller and evoking strong emotions out of the reader. She really allows the reader to ride along her story as if the reader was living in the story themiself.