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Jean Kwok

Biography

Jean Kwok

Jean Kwok is the award-winning, New York Times and international bestselling author of THE LEFTOVER WOMAN, SEARCHING FOR SYLVIE LEE, GIRL IN TRANSLATION and MAMBO IN CHINATOWN. Her work has been published in 20 countries and taught in universities, colleges and high schools across the world.

An instant New York Times bestseller, SEARCHING FOR SYLVIE LEE was selected for the "Read with Jenna" Today Show Book Club and featured in The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, CNN, The New York Post, The Washington Post, O Magazine, People, Entertainment Weekly and more. Jean has been chosen for numerous honors including the American Library Association Alex Award, the Chinese American Librarians Association Best Book Award, an Orange New Writers title, and the Sunday Times Short Story Award international shortlist. She was one of 12 authors asked by the Agatha Christie estate to write an original, authorized Miss Marple story for MARPLE: Twelve New Mysteries.

She has appeared on "The Today Show" and "Good Morning America," and spoken at many schools and venues including Harvard University, Columbia University, Talks at Google and the Tucson Festival of Books. A television documentary was filmed about Jean and her work.

Jean immigrated from Hong Kong to Brooklyn when she was five and worked in a Chinatown clothing factory for much of her childhood while living in an unheated, roach-infested apartment. In between her undergraduate degree at Harvard and MFA in fiction at Columbia, she worked for three years as a professional ballroom dancer. Jean is trilingual, fluent in Dutch, Chinese and English, and studied Latin for seven years. She divides her time between the Netherlands and New York City.

Books by Jean Kwok

The Leftover Woman
by Jean Kwok - Domestic Thriller, Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

Jasmine Yang arrives in New York City from her rural Chinese village without money or family support, fleeing a controlling husband, on a desperate search for the daughter who was taken from her at birth --- another female casualty of China’s controversial One Child Policy. But with her husband on her trail, the clock is ticking, and she’s forced to make increasingly risky decisions if she ever hopes to be reunited with her daughter. Meanwhile, publishing executive Rebecca Whitney seems to have it all: a prestigious family name, a high-powered career, a handsome husband, and an adopted Chinese daughter she adores. But when an industry scandal threatens to jeopardize not only Rebecca’s job but also her marriage, this perfect world begins to crumble and her role in her own family is called into question.

Searching for Sylvie Lee
by Jean Kwok - Fiction

Sylvie, the beautiful, brilliant, successful older daughter of the Lee family, flies to the Netherlands for one final visit with her dying grandmother --- and then vanishes. Amy, the sheltered baby of the Lee family, is too young to remember a time when her parents were newly immigrated and too poor to keep Sylvie. Seven years older, Sylvie was raised by a distant relative in a faraway, foreign place and didn’t rejoin her family in America until age nine. Timid and shy, Amy has always looked up to her sister, the fierce and fearless protector who showered her with unconditional love. But what happened to Sylvie? Amy and her parents are distraught and desperate for answers.

Mambo in Chinatown
by Jean Kwok - Fiction

Twenty-two-year-old Charlie Wong grew up in New York’s Chinatown, the older daughter of a Beijing ballerina and a noodle maker. Now grown, she lives in the same tiny apartment with her widower father and 11-year-old sister. But when she lands a job as a receptionist at a ballroom dance studio, Charlie gains access to a world she hardly knew existed, and everything she once took to be certain turns upside down.

Girl in Translation
by Jean Kwok - Fiction