Lois-Ann Yamanaka
| Lois-Ann Yamanaka | |
|---|---|
| Born |
September 7, 1961 Ho'olehua, Molokai, Hawaii |
| Occupation | writer |
| Notable works | Blu's Hanging, Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers |
| Website | |
| www |
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Lois-Ann Yamanaka (born September 7, 1961 in Hoʻolehua, Molokaʻi, Hawaiʻi) is an American poet and novelist from Hawaiʻi. Many of her literary works are written in Hawaiian Pidgin, and some of her writing has dealt with controversial ethnic issues. In particular, her works confront themes of Asian American families and the local culture of Hawaiʻi.
She was born September 7, 1961 in Ho’olehua, Molokai, Hawaii. Her parents, Harry and Jean Yamanaka, raised her and her four younger sisters in the sugarcane plantation town of Pahala.
Both parents were school teachers, though her father later became a taxidermist. Following in her parents footsteps, Lois-Ann followed a path into education: In 1983, she received a Bachelor’s Degree, and in 1987 her Master's Degree, both in Education at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
She then went on to become an English and Language Arts resource teacher. Inspired by her own students' honesty demonstrated within poetry assignments, she began writing on her own. She completed her first book, Saturday Night at the Pahala Theater, in 1993, which, was coined "'witty' and 'street-smart'" by Kiana Davenport in Women's Review of Books. The Novel, "composed of four verse novellas narrated by working-class Hawaiian teenagers...explore(d) such subjects as ethnic identity, sexual awakening, drug use, and abusive relationships." Lawrence Chua, of the Voice Literary Supplement, wrote, "Her poetry is enabled by its elegant structure as much as its indolent diction. Saturday Night is not a lonely specimen of street life but a bold push at the borders of meaning and memory." Saturday Night at the Pahala Theater received several awards including the Pushcart Prize for poetry and later, the fiction award given by the Association for Asian American Studies.
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