Lan Samantha Chang

Lan Samantha Chang was born in Appleton, Wisconsin, and attended Yale University, where she earned her bachelor's degree in East Asian Studies. She worked briefly in publishing in New York City, before getting her MPA from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and was a Wallace E. Stegner Fellow in Fiction at Stanford.

Chang's first book is a novella and short stories, titled Hunger (1998). The stories are set in the US and China, and they explore home, family, and loss. The New York Times Book Review called it "Elegant.… A delicately calculated balance sheet of the losses and gains of immigrants whose lives are stretched between two radically different cultures."[3] The Washington Post called it "A work of gorgeous, enduring prose."[4] The collection won the California Book Awards' Silver Medal for Fiction and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Awards's Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction.

Her first novel, Inheritance (2004), is about a family torn apart by the Japanese invasion during World War II. The Boston Globe said: "The story…is foreign in its historical sweep and social detail but universal in its emotional truth." Publishers Weekly noted: "It is memory — rather than dramatic action — at which Chang excels; her prose is lovely."[5] The novel won a PEN Open Book Award in 2005.[6]

Chang's second novel, All Is Forgotten, Nothing is Lost (2011), follows two poets and their friendship as they explore the depths and costs of making art. The book received a starred review from Booklist and praise: "Among the many threads Chang elegantly pursues—the fraught relationships between mentors and students, the value of poetry, the price of ambition—it is her indelible portrait of the loneliness of artistic endeavor that will haunt readers the most in this exquisitely written novel about the poet’s lot." NPR wrote: "This relatively short novel begins small, but blossoms into a full and resonant story of the pains and perils, falsehoods and truths of trying to be an American artist, in this case poet, against all odds, psychological and social. In its own way, it is rather unforgettable."[7]

Chang's fourth book and third novel, The Family Chao, was published by the W. W. Norton & Company.[8] The Guardian praised it: "One of the many pleasures of The Family Chao is the way the novel dramatises the gap between how a family wants to be seen, and its messier inner realities."[9] The Star Tribune called it "A playful literary romp with a serious heart. Operatic and subversive."[10]

Barack Obama chose the novel for his 2022 summer reading list.[11] The book was a Jeopardy! clue on October 6, 2022. It won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Fiction in 2023.[12]

Chang has received fellowships from MacDowell, the American Library in Paris, the Guggenheim Foundation,[13] the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and the National Endowment for the Arts.[14]

As the sixth director of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, Chang has been fundamental to the increase of racial, cultural, and aesthetic diversity within the program, and has mentored a number of emerging writers.[15] In 2019, she received the Michael J. Brody Award[16] and the Regents' Award for Excellence from the University of Iowa.  

In a 2022 interview with Open Country Mag, she discussed what her 17 years at the helm means: "One thing that seemed really clear to me was that if we were to represent American literature then we had to bring in literature from all over the world. There is the possibility of creating the conversation not just in this country but around the world that brings in as many voices as possible, and that is a goal of mine with this program. I feel like what we’re doing is work in progress."[17]

About her work as the program director, Oprah Daily wrote: "Under Lan Samantha Chang’s mentorship, a new generation of writers has emerged."[18]

• 2023 : Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Fiction, for The Family Chao
• 2021 : Berlin Prize Fellow, American Academy in Berlin
• 2016 : Doctor of Humane Letters, Lawrence University
• 2015 : American Library in Paris Visiting Fellowship
• 2008 : Guggenheim Fellowship
• 2005 : PEN Open Book Award, for Inheritance
• 2000 : Radcliffe Fellow, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University
• 1999 : Alfred Hodder Fellow, Princeton University
• 1999 : Los Angeles Times Book Awards, Finalist, Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, for Hunger
• 1999 : California Book Awards, Silver Medal for Fiction, for Hunger
• 1998 : National Endowment for the Arts, Creative Writing Fellowship in Prose
• 1998 : Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award
• 1993 : Wallace E. Stegner Fellow, Stanford University

Books

• Hunger (W.W. Norton & Company, 1998)
• Inheritance: A Novel (W. W. Norton & Company, 2004)
• All Is Forgotten, Nothing Is Lost: A Novel (W. W. Norton & Company, 2010)
• The Family Chao (W. W. Norton & Company, 2022)

Stories

• "Pipa’s Story", The Atlantic Monthly, August, 1993 The Best American Short Stories 1994
• "New House", The Greensboro Review 57 (1994–95); Fish Stories: Collective I Honorable Mention for Fiction, Greensboro Review Literary Awards Distinguished Story of 1995, The Best American Short Stories
• "The Eve of the Spirit Festival", Prairie Schooner 69:1 (1995) Prairie Schooner Readers' Choice Award for Fiction The Best American Short Stories 1996
• "A Dream of Western Music", Stanford Today 1:1 (1996) Distinguished Story of 1997, The Best American Short Stories
• "San", Story 44:1 (1996) Distinguished Story of 1997, The Best American Short Stories Special Mention, Pushcart Prize, 1998
• "A Genealogy of Longing", Story 47:4 (1999) Distinguished Story of 2000, The Best American Short Stories
• "The Cottage", Freeman's, Grove Atlantic, (2018) Distinguished Story of 2018, The Best American Short Stories

Selected Nonfiction

• "Pass the Turkey. And the Stir-Fry,"[19] The New York Times, November 26, 1998
• "And Iowa Now",[20] The New York Times, January 3, 2008
• "Volvos from Florida",[21] The New York Times, March 7, 2009
• "Writers, Protect Your Inner Life,"[22] Lit Hub, August 7, 2017

• List of Asian American writers
• Yale Daily News
• Iowa Writers' Workshop
• Iowa Writers' Workshop Alumni

• Jonathan Freedman. "Transgressions of a Model Minority." Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, 2005 Summer; 23 (4): 69–97.
• Hetty Lanier Keaton. Feeding Hungry Ghosts: Food, Family, and Desire in Stories by Contemporary Chinese American Women. Dissertation Abstracts International, Section A: The Humanities and Social Sciences, 2002 July; 63 (1): 187–88. U of Tulsa, 2002.

• Short biography and interview (archived 2003)