May-lee Chai: Difference between revisions

Her nonfiction books include the family memoir, The Girl from Purple Mountain, which was co-written with her father, the political scientist Winberg Chai. The book, which is narrated in alternating chapters by May-lee and her father, details her grandmother’s decision to be buried alone after helping her family to escape to America after the Sino-Japanese War and Chinese Civil War. The Girl from Purple Mountain was nominated for the National Book Award in nonfiction.  

Chai’s other memoir, Hapa Girl, was a 2008 Kiriyama Prize Notable Book and received an Honorable Mention from the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights. It explores violent reactions towards her mixed-race family in a small Midwestern town in the 1980s.  

Chai also published a short story and essay collection, Glamorous Asians; translated the 1934 autobiography of Chinese author, Ba Jin;  and and co-authored a book about changes in contemporary Chinese society, China A to Z.