Lan Samantha Chang (張嵐;

pinyin Hanyu Pinyin (), often shortened to just pinyin, is the official romanization system for Standard Mandarin Chinese in China, and to some extent, in Singapore and Malaysia. It is often used to teach Mandarin, normally written in Chinese for ...

: Zhāng Lán) is an American writer of novels and

short stories A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest t ...

Life

Lan Samantha Chang was born in

Appleton, Wisconsin Appleton ( mez, Ahkōnemeh) is a city in Outagamie, Calumet, and Winnebago counties in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. One of the Fox Cities, it is situated on the Fox River, southwest of Green Bay and north of Milwaukee. Appleton is the c ...

, and attended

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

, 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 The Iowa Writers' Workshop, at the University of Iowa, is a celebrated graduate-level creative writing program in the United States. The writer Lan Samantha Chang is its director. Graduates earn a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in Creative Wri ...

and was a Wallace E. Stegner Fellow in Fiction at Stanford. She is the Elizabeth M. Stanley Professor in the Arts at the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is org ...

and the Director of the

. She is the first woman, and the first Asian American, to hold that position.

Work

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 ''The New York Times Book Review'' (''NYTBR'') is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times'' in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely rea ...

'' called it "Elegant.… A delicately calculated balance sheet of the losses and gains of immigrants whose lives are stretched between two radically different cultures." ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'' called it "A work of gorgeous, enduring prose." Her first novel, ''Inheritance'' (2004), is about a family torn apart by the Japanese invasion during World War II. ''

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

'' said: "The story…is foreign in its historical sweep and social detail but universal in its emotional truth." 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 ''Booklist'' is a publication of the American Library Association that provides critical reviews of books and audiovisual materials for all ages. ''Booklist''s primary audience consists of libraries, educators, and booksellers. The magazine is av ...

'' 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." Chang's fourth book and third novel, ''The Family Chao,'' was published by the W. W. Norton & Company. Barack Obama chose ''The Family Chao'' for his 2022 summer reading list. ''The Family Chao'' was a ''Jeopardy!'' clue on October 6, 2022. Chang has received fellowships from MacDowell, the

American Library in Paris The American Library in Paris is the largest English-language lending library on the European mainland. It operates as an independent, non-profit cultural association in France incorporated under the laws of Delaware. Library members have access t ...

, the Guggenheim Foundation, the

Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University—also known as the Harvard Radcliffe Institute—is a part of Harvard University that fosters interdisciplinary research across the humanities, sciences, social sciences, arts, a ...

, and the

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...

Directorship

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. In 2019, she received the Michael J. Brody Award and the Regents' Award for Excellence from the University of Iowa.

Awards and distinctions

* 1993 : Wallace E. Stegner Fellow,

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

* 1998 :

Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award The Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award was an award given annually to beginning women writers. Established in 1995 by American author Rona Jaffe, the Foundation offers grants to writers of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. The award wa ...

* 1998 :

, Creative Writing Fellowship in Prose * 1999 : Silver Medal for Fiction, California Book Award * 1999 : Finalist, Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, Los Angeles Times Book Awards * 1999 : Alfred Hodder Fellow,

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

* 2000 : Radcliffe Fellow,

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

* 2005 :

PEN Open Book Award PEN/Open Book (known as the Beyond Margins Award through 2009) is a program intended to foster racial and ethnic diversity within the literary and publishing communities, and works to establish access for diverse literary groups to the publishing i ...

* 2008 : John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship * 2015 :

Visiting Fellowship * 2016 : Doctor of Humane Letters,

Lawrence University Lawrence University is a private liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Appleton, Wisconsin. Founded in 1847, its first classes were held on November 12, 1849. Lawrence was the second college in the U.S. to be founded as a coeducation ...

* 2021 : Berlin Prize Fellow,

American Academy in Berlin The American Academy in Berlin is a private, independent, nonpartisan research and cultural institution in Berlin dedicated to sustaining and enhancing the long-term intellectual, cultural, and political ties between the United States and Germany ...

Bibliography

Books * ''Hunger: A Novella and Stories'' ( 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: A Novel'' ( W. W. Norton & Company, 2022) Stories * "Pipa’s Story",

The Atlantic Monthly ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

, August, 1993 ''

The Best American Short Stories The Best American Short Stories yearly anthology is a part of ''The Best American Series'' published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Since 1915, the BASS anthology has striven to contain the best short stories by some of the best-known writers in con ...

'' 1994 * "New House",

The Greensboro Review ''The Greensboro Review'', founded in 1966, is one of the nation's oldest literary magazines, based at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in Greensboro, North Carolina. It publishes fiction and poetry on a semi-annual basis. Work f ...

57 (1994–95); Fish Stories: Collective I Honorable Mention for Fiction, Greensboro Review Literary Awards Distinguished Story of 1995, ''

'' * "The Eve of the Spirit Festival",

Prairie Schooner ''Prairie Schooner'' is a literary magazine published quarterly at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln with the cooperation of UNL's English Department and the University of Nebraska Press. It is based in Lincoln, Nebraska and was first publish ...

69:1 (1995) Prairie Schooner Readers' Choice Award for Fiction ''

'' 1996 * "A Dream of Western Music", Stanford Today 1:1 (1996) Distinguished Story of 1997, ''

'' * "San", ''Story'' 44:1 (1996) Distinguished Story of 1997, ''

'' Special Mention,

Pushcart Prize The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize published by Pushcart Press that honors the best "poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot" published in the small presses over the previous year. Magazine and small book press editors are ...

, 1998 * "A Genealogy of Longing", ''Story'' 47:4 (1999) Distinguished Story of 2000, ''

'' * "The Cottage", Freeman's,

Grove Atlantic Grove Atlantic, Inc. is an American independent publisher, based in New York City. Formerly styled "Grove/Atlantic, Inc.", it was created in 1993 by the merger of Grove Press and Atlantic Monthly Press. As of 2018 Grove Atlantic calls itself "A ...

, (2018) Distinguished Story of 2018, ''

'' Selected Nonfiction * "Pass the Turkey. And the Stir-Fry,"

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

, November 26, 1998 * "And Iowa Now",

, January 3, 2008 * "Volvos from Florida",

, March 7, 2009 * "Writers, Protect Your Inner Life,"

Lit Hub Literary Hub is a daily literary website that launched in 2015 by Grove Atlantic president and publisher Morgan Entrekin, American Society of Magazine Editors Hall of Fame editor Terry McDonell, and Electric Literature founder Andy Hunter. Cont ...

, August 7, 2017

Critical studies

*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.

References

External links

Short biography and interview
(archived 2003) {{DEFAULTSORT:Chang, Lan Samantha 1965 births Living people American writers of Chinese descent Harvard Kennedy School alumni Iowa Writers' Workshop alumni Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award winners Stanford University alumni University of Iowa alumni University of Iowa faculty Writers from Appleton, Wisconsin Yale College alumni