Lisa See

Author Lisa See earned critical praise for her depiction of Chinese life in both Asia and America in a series of bestselling books, including On Gold Mountain (1995), Flower Net (1997), Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (2005) and China Dolls (2014). Born February 18, 1955 in Paris, France, she was the great-granddaughter of Fong See, a Chinese immigrant and a major figure in the development of Los Angeles' Chinatown district. Though raised by her mother, author and educator Carolyn See, she spent a great deal of her childhood with her father's large family, which informed her interest in Chinese culture and history. After graduating from Loyola Marymount University in 1979, See initially resisted following in her mother's footsteps, but decided to pursue a career in writing in order to fund her desire to travel. She contributed to numerous publications, including Vogue, and served as the West Coast correspondent for Publisher's Weekly from 1983 to 1996. Her first forays into fiction writing also came during this period when she collaborated with her mother and author/scholar John Espey on a trio of mystery novels -- Lotus Land (1983), 110 Shanghai Road (1986) and Greetings from Southern California (1988) -- which they published under the collective pseudonym of "Monica Highland." In 1995, See wrote On Gold Mountain: The 100-Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family, which discussed the Chinese-American experience in the 20th century through the prism of her great-grandfather's journey from China to Los Angeles and his marriage to a Caucasian woman. A national bestseller, the book later served as the basis for an opera of the same name, with a libretto by See, in 2000. While researching On Gold Mountain, See developed a story that would inform her first novel under her own name, Flower Net (1997). The thriller, about the murder of two young men linked to major figures in U.S.-Chinese relations, introduced readers to Chinese investigator Liu Hulan and Assistant U.S. Attorney David Stark, former lovers who are reunited to solve the crimes. The book returned See to the bestseller list, and was briefly optioned for screen rights by Paramount Pictures. Two more Liu Hulan/David Stark novels followed, The Interior (2000) and Dragon Bones (2003), before See penned Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, a historical novel about two women united in a sisterly pact in 19th century China, which was adapted into a feature film by Wayne Wang in 2011. See would focus her next two novels on similar themes, the challenges faced by Chinese women in the country's male-dominated society in Peony in Love (2007) and in America during the late 19th and early-to-mid-20th century in Shanghai Girls (2009). A sequel to Shanghai Girls, Dreams of Joy, debuted at No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list in 2011. In 2014, See published her eighth novel, Shanghai Dolls, about Chinese entertainers in San Francisco during the late 1930s and '40s.