Chinese American novelist Jean Kwok is internationally known for her bestselling novels “Girl in Translation,” “Mambo in Chinatown” and “Searching for Sylvia Lee.”
But this year, Kwok has made a name for herself in another way — as a high-profile defender of freedom of speech amid a national wave of book bans by conservative school boards.
Kwok’s 2011 debut novel “Girl in Translation” recently became the target of a proposed school book ban in Pennsylvania. In April, she traveled from the Netherlands to challenge a proposed ban at a school district board meeting in Central Bucks County, Pa. “Girl in Translation” was a New York Times bestseller and has since been published in 17 countries.
“Do I seem like a person who writes pornography?” Kwok asked the board at the district meeting, adding that books “are one of the most powerful tools we can give to our children,” providing insight into the lives of others and allowing children to observe mistakes without having to make them.
Maria Shriver, Jenna Bush Hager and Jean Kwok talk about Kwok’s books on “Read with Jenna” on an NBC news program.
(NBCUniversal via Getty Images)
Kwok’s latest novel, “The Leftover Woman,” was released Tuesday. This week she’s in San Diego for book events in La Jolla and Carlsbad.
“Leftover Woman” is the story of young mother Jasmine Wang, who has fled a controlling husband in her native China to New York City to find the daughter who was taken from her at birth, as the result of the country’s former one-child policy. Meanwhile, at the other end of the socio-economic spectrum is New York publishing executive Rebecca Whitney who is juggling a high-profile career, a husband, their beloved adopted Chinese daughter and the child’s nanny.
The term “leftover woman” refers to a Chinese state media campaign that strongly encourages single professional, educated women to get married and have children before they’re 27 years old or they will become society’s unwanted leftovers.
Whether Kwok wil talk about book bans during her “Leftover Woman” tour visits in San Diego is uncertain, but what is clear is that censorship is a subject Kwok feels deeply passionate about.
Author Jean Kwok.
(Courtesy photo)
After writing “Girl in Translation,” about a girl who immigrates to America with her mother from Hong Kong and spends nights working in a Brooklyn sweatshop, Kwok said she heard from “people of all races” that the book had provided courage to work hard “and keep going in the most difficult of times.”
But it has also become a target. Booklooks, a website that has been linked to the Moms for Liberty group and lists “objectionable content” in school library books, says “Girl in Translation” contains “sexual activities; sexual nudity; mild/infrequent profanity; alcohol and drug use by minors; and abortion commentary.”
Numerous challenges received by the Central Bucks County school board — which provided records to The Philadelphia Inquirer in response to a Right to Know request — cited Booklooks, listing the same passages quoted on the website. In most of the 61 cases before the school board, challengers — whose names were redacted by the district — indicated they hadn’t read the book in question.
That was the case with the”Girl in Translation” challenge, which listed passages that also appear on Booklooks. Kwok said her book depicts “some pot smoking,” kissing, and one sexual encounter — “also, really not an explicit encounter.”
“I’m a fade-to-black kind of author,” she said. “I can’t even watch R-rated movies.”
She also noted that a character considers abortion but “incidentally does not go through with” it. The challenge filed with Central Bucks called it “disturbing” that the book presented abortion as an option.
Kwok said that, as a mother, she understands parents’ desire to protect children. But her two sons were assigned her book in school and read it.
Parenting is “a beautiful and tragic thing, when we do it correctly,” she said. “Our children grow up and they leave us.”
Books, she said, can help prepare them to enter the world.
“Please don’t remove my book from school libraries,” Kwok said. “Please don’t remove any of our books.”
Ultimately, the Central Bucks County school board opted not to ban Kwok’s “Girl in Translation.”
In an autobiography on Kwok’s website, she wrote that “Girl in Translation” was based on the true story of her family’s immigration from Hong Kong to New York when she was 5 years old.
To make ends meet, her older family members worked in a Chinatown sweatshop and lived in a rat-infested apartment with no heat. After learning English she became passionate about education and her new language and she won multiple scholarships and attended an elite public school for the gifted. After interning at several laboratories in high school, she attended Harvard University as a physics major. But eventually she followed her heart and changed her major to English. To cover her tuition and living expenses at Harvard, she juggled four jobs washing dishes, cleaning rooms, reading to the blind and teaching English.
After graduating from Harvard, she spent three years as a professional ballroom dance instructor for the Fred Astaire East Side Studio in New York City and she also performed in dance shows and competitions. That experience became the basis for her second book “Mambo in Chinatown.” After winning the Top Female Professional award at the Fred Astaire National Dance Championships, she retired from dancing to attend Columbia University in New York to earn her master’s degree in fiction writing.
After finishing her master’s degree, she moved to the Netherlands where she learned Dutch and taught English at Leiden University and the Technical University of Delft. She also worked as a Dutch-English translator until she finished “Girl in Translation.” After that was accepted by a publisher, she was finally able to quit working and focus on writing full time.
Today, Kwok divides her time between Europe and the United States. Her novels “The Leftover Woman” and “Mambo in Chinatown” have recently been optioned for a potential streaming series by Fifth Season, the producer of the Apple TV+ series “Severance.”
“The Leftover Woman” by Jean Kwok.
(Courtesy)
“The Leftover Woman” by Jean Kwok (William Morrow, 2023; 288 pages)
Adventures By the Book presents a Chinese Dinner Adventure with Jean Kwok
When: 6 p.m. Thursday
Where: Mandarin House Chinese restaurant, 6765 La Jolla Blvd., La Jolla
Tickets: $50 (or $75 with hardcover copy of the book)
Online: adventuresbythebook.com/jean-kwok-10-19-23
Carlsbad City Library presents Jean Kwok
When: 2:30 p.m. Friday
Where: Carlsbad City Library, 1775 Dove Lane, Carlsbad
Admission: Free
Online: library.carlsbadca.gov/Home/Components/Calendar/Event/6664/17770
Hanna writes for The Philadelphia Inquirer