Laurence Yep | |
|---|---|
| Native name | 叶祥添 / 葉祥添 |
| Born | (1948-06-14)June 14, 1948 (age 77) San Francisco, California, US |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Education | B.A., PhD, English literature |
| Alma mater | Marquette University UC-Santa Cruz SUNY-Buffalo |
| Genre | Children's literature,historical fiction,speculative fiction,autobiography |
| Notable awards | Newbery Honor Book 1975, 1994 Boston Globe–Horn Book Award 1977 Phoenix Award 1995 Children's Literature Legacy Award 2005 |
| Spouse | Joanne Ryder (m. 1984) |
Laurence Michael Yep (simplified Chinese:叶祥添;traditional Chinese:葉祥添;pinyin:Yè Xiángtiān;Jyutping:Jip6 Coeng4 Tim1; born June 14, 1948) is an American writer. He is known for hischildren's books, having won theNewbery Honor twice for hisGolden Mountain series. In 2005, he received theChildren's Literature Legacy Award for his career contribution to American children's literature.
Yep was born inSan Francisco, California, inChinatown to Thomas (Gim Lew) Yep and Franche Lee Yep. His father was a first-generation American born in China who had moved to San Francisco as a boy. His mother was a second-generationChinese American, was born inOhio and raised inWest Virginia where her family ran aChinese laundry. After struggling through theGreat Depression, Yep's family moved to a multicultural but predominantlyAfrican American neighborhood.[1] Yep grew up working in the family grocery store, where he recalls learning early on "how to observe and listen to people, how to relate to others. It was good training for a writer."
Yep was named by his older brother Thomas, who had just been studying the biography of Saint Lawrence for school. He spent his early childhood commuting from his neighborhood to a Catholic school in Chinatown for Chinese children, where he was often made fun of by the mostly bilingual students for only knowing how to speak English.[1][2]
Not until high school when Yep attended a less segregated Catholic school did he confront white American culture in person, having grown up among Black and Chinese kids. Although he had always been interested in science, atSt. Ignatius College Preparatory, he also became interested in literature and creative writing. Yep published his first story in ascience fiction magazine at the age of 18 while still inhigh school. His English teacher, aJesuit priest, motivated him to submit his story to magazines until it got published if he wanted to get an A grade. This experience inspired Yep to first consider what a career in writing might be like, even though he had always been fascinated with machines and wanted to become a chemist.
Yep graduated fromSt. Ignatius College Preparatory in 1966.[3]
His decision to become a writer did not come until he entered college atMarquette University.[4] There he became friends with aliterary magazine editor, Joanne Ryder, whom he eventually married. She introduced him tochildren's literature and later encouraged him to write a book for children while she was working atHarper & Row. The result was his first science fiction novel for teens entitledSweetwater, published by Harper & Row in 1973. After two years at Marquette, Yep transferred toUC Santa Cruz where he earned a BA in 1970. He later earned aPhD inEnglish at theState University of New York at Buffalo.[5]
Growing up, Yep often felt torn between mainstream American culture and his Chinese roots, a theme he has often written about. A great deal of his work involves characters feeling alienated or not fitting into their environment, something Yep has said he struggled with since childhood: "I was too American to fit intoChinatown, and too Chinese to fit in anywhere else."[6]
During his writing career, Yep also taughtcreative writing andAsian-American studies at theUniversity of California, Berkeley andUC Santa Barbara.[5]
Yep's most notable collection of works is theGolden Mountain Chronicles, documenting the fictional Young family from 1849 inChina to 1995 in America. Two of the series areNewbery Honor Books, or runners-up for the annualNewbery Medal:Dragonwings (Harper & Row, 1975) andDragon's Gate (HarperCollins, 1993).Dragonwings won thePhoenix Award from theChildren's Literature Association in 1995, recognizing the best children's book published twenty years earlier that did not win a major award.[7] It won theCarter G. Woodson Book Award in 1976,[8] and has beenadapted as a play under its original title. Another of the Chronicles,Child of the Owl won theBoston Globe-Horn Book Award for children's fiction in 1977. (The Rainbow People, Yep's collection of short stories based on Chinese folktales and legends, was a Horn Book runner-up in 1989.)[citation needed]
Yep wrote two other notable series,Chinatown Mysteries andDragon (1982 to 1992). The latter is an adaptation ofChinese mythology as four fantasy novels.
In 2005 the professional children's librarians awarded Yep theChildren's Literature Legacy Award, which recognizes anauthor orillustrator whose books, published in the United States, have made "a substantial and lasting contribution to literature for children".[9] The committee noted that "Yep explores the dilemma of the cultural outsider" with "attention to the complexity and conflict within and across cultures" and it cited four works in particular:Dragonwings,The Rainbow People,The Khan's Daughter, and the autobiographicalThe Lost Garden.[10]
A live-action/CGI TV movie ofThe Tiger's Apprentice, adapted byDavid Magee, was being developed byCartoon Network until it was cancelled afterCartoon Network stopped developing live-action projects.[11] In March 2019,Paramount Pictures announced ananimated film adaptation of the book with a script by Magee and a release date of February 2, 2024.
[12] January 27, 2024 was Tiger's Apprentice world premiere in Los Angeles. Paramount Plus released Tiger's Apprentice on its streaming platform February 2, 2024.
Yep married the writer Joanne Ryder in 1984.[5] They live inMonterey County .[13]
As of 2011 there are ten published chronicles spanning 1835 to the present. Here they are ordered by the fictional history and the year of the narrative follows the title; none of the titles includes a date.
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