Kao Kalia Yang: Award-winning memoirist and advocate for social change
Kao Kalia Yang is a Hmong-American writer, filmmaker and teacher. Her work spans multiple audiences and genres, and is recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Chautauqua Prize and Kirkus Best Books, among others. Yang was born in the refugee camps of Thailand; her family had escaped the genocide of the Secret War in Laos. Her first book, “The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir,” chronicles the family’s move to the United States when Yang was 6 years old. The first Hmong-authored book to gain national distribution, it earned two Minnesota Book Awards and was a PEN America Literary Award finalist. Yang’s other memoirs are “The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father” (2016), “Somewhere in the Unknown World: A Collective Refugee Memoir (2021)” and “Where Rivers Part: A Story of My Mother’s Life” (2024). She also has written several children’s books and co-edited the ground-breaking essay collection, “What God is Honored Here?: Writings on Miscarriage and Infant Loss By and For Women of Color” (2019). Her work has been supported by the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the McKnight Foundation and the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans. Yang also is an in-demand speaker who advocates for social change and awareness. She and her husband live in Minneapolis and have twin sons. This event is co-sponsored by the Cultural Affairs Program and the English, Foreign Languages and English as a Second Language Department. Yang’s talk will be held in the BTC Auditorium, and include a Q&A and a book signing. (Books will be available for purchase.) Reservations requested at www.hvcc.edu/culture.
Event Links
Website: https://go.evvnt.com/2896155-0
