Wendy Law-Yone
| Wendy Law-Yone | |
|---|---|
| Born | April 1, 1947 [1] Mandalay, Burma |
| Occupation | writer |
| Nationality | United States |
| Spouse | John Randall |
| Children | Jocelyn Seagrave, Sean Seagrave, Chad O'Connor, Bess O'Connor |
| Relatives | Edward Law-Yone (father) |
Wendy Law-Yone (Burmese pronunciation: [lɔ́ jòʊɴ]; born 1947) is the critically acclaimed Burmese-born American author of A Daughter's Memoir of Burma (Columbia University Press, 2014), Golden Parasol (Chatto & Windus, 2013), The Road to Wanting (Chatto & Windus, 2010), Irrawaddy Tango (Knopf, 1994), and The Coffin Tree (Knopf, 1983).
Biography
The daughter of notable Burmese newspaper publisher, editor and politician Edward Michael Law-Yone,[2] Law-Yone was born in Mandalay but grew up in Rangoon.[3] Her background is diverse, with one grandfather a merchant from Yunnan and another a colonial officer from Great Britain.[4] Law-Yone states that she is "half Burman, a quarter Chinese and a quarter English".[5]
Law-Yone has indicated that her father's imprisonment under the military regime limited her options in the country. She was barred from university, but not allowed to leave the country.[5] In 1967, an attempt to escape to Thailand failed and she was imprisoned, but managed to leave Burma as a stateless person.[5] She relocated to the United States in 1973, attending Eckerd College for comparative literature and modern languages before receiving a Carnegie Fellowship and settling in Washington, D.C. for thirty years.[2] In 1987, she was the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Award for Creative Writing.[6] In 2002, she received a David T.K. Wong Creative Writing Fellowship from the University of East Anglia.[7] Her novel The Road to Wanting was long-listed for the Orange Prize 2011.[8] In 2015, she was Dürrenmatt guest professor at University Bern, Switzerland.[9]
Law-Yone cites as a strong influence on her writing career her father's love of language, noting that his work as the founder of Burmese English-language newspaper The Nation was a daily factor in her childhood.[10]
Selected bibliography
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- The Coffin Tree (1983)
- Irrawaddy Tango (1993)
- The Road to Wanting (2010)
- Golden Parasol: A Daughter's Memoir of Burma (2013)
Further reading
- Law-Yone, Wendy. (2010-04-03) "My Father's Burmese Newspaper, The Rangoon Nation",The Guardian.
- Law-Yone, Wendy. (2003-08-25) "The Outsider", Time Magazine.
Notes
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- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Yoo and Ho, 283
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- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ http://arts.endow.gov/pub/NEA
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Retrieved 22 March 2011.
- ↑ (in German) Retrieved 22 March 2016.
- ↑ Yoo and Ho, 286.
Sources
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- 1947 births
- Academics of the University of East Anglia
- American people of English descent
- American journalists of Chinese descent
- American writers of Chinese descent
- American women writers
- Burmese emigrants to the United States
- Burmese journalists
- Burmese people of Chinese descent
- Burmese people of English descent
- Burmese women writers
- Living people
- People from Mandalay
- People from Yangon
