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 books have been chosen by Read with Jenna, CBS New York, Book of the Month, LibraryReads, Indie Next, Goodreads Choice Awards, Belletrist, Discover Great New Writers, and as a Good Morning America Buzz Pick. Most of her work is in development for film and television.

She 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 twelve contemporary authors asked by the Agatha Christie estate to write an original, authorized Miss Marple story for Marple: Twelve New Mysteries.

She immigrated from Hong Kong to Brooklyn when she was five and worked in a Chinatown clothing factory for much of her childhood. She received her bachelor's degree from Harvard and completed an MFA in fiction at Columbia University, working as a professional ballroom dancer in between degrees.

She reviews for the New York Times Book Review and has served as fiction judge for International Thriller Writers, Tucson Festival of Books, Ragdale, and San Miguel Writers Conference. Her work has been published in more than twenty countries and is taught in schools across the world. She lives in the New York area.