The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father

Winner of the 2017 Minnesota Book Award in Creative Nonfiction

Finalist for the Chautauqua Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the PEN USA Literary Center Award, and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize

In the Hmong tradition, the song poet recounts the story of his people, their history and tragedies, joys and losses. He keeps the past alive, invokes the spirits and the homeland, and records courtships, births, weddings, and wishes.

Following her award-winning memoir The Latehomecomer, Kao Kalia Yang now retells the life of her father, Bee Yang, the song poet–a Hmong refugee in Minnesota, driven from the mountains of Laos by America’s Secret War. Bee sings the life of his people through the war-torn jungle and a Thai refugee camp. The songs fall away in the cold, bitter world of a St. Paul housing project and on the factory floor, until, with the death of Bee’s mother, they leave him for good. But before they do, Bee, with his poetry, has burnished a life of poverty for his children, polishing their grim reality so that they might shine.

Author: Kao Kalia Yang
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Picador USA
Published: 05/09/2017
Pages: 288
Weight: 0.57lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.10w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9781250131881
Language: English