by Beth Staats
Quick Summary
Written by Kao Kalia Yang, The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir, is a chronicle of the author's family and a history of Hmong people. Yang recently won a Minnesota Book Award in Creative Non-Fiction / Memoir for her newest work, "The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father."
Written by Kao Kalia Yang, The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir, is a chronicle of the author's family and a history of Hmong people. From the jungles of Laos to years in a Thai refugee camp to their eventual immigration to the U.S., "The Latehomecomer" is powerful and heartbreaking. Yang immigrated with her family to the U.S. when she was just 6 years old. After her grandmothers death she was inspired to tell the story of the woman "whose spirit held them together through their imprisonment in Laos, their narrow escape into Thailand’s Ban Vinai Refugee Camp, where Yang was born, and their transition to life in America." Yang’s account is sincere and evidenced by the uplifting insight into human life. In addition to relating the struggles of her family and the Hmong people, she recounts life from the perspective of an intelligent, sensitive girl growing up first in the McDonough Housing Project, then a haunted rent-subsidized house, and finally their own home in St. Paul.
Yang recently won a Minnesota Book Award in Creative Non-Fiction / Memoir for her newest work, "The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father." See other Minnesota Book Award winners here.
