Kao Kalia Yang is a Hmong American teacher, speaker, and writer. Her work crosses audiences
and genres. She is the award-winning author of the memoirs, The Latehomecomer, The Song
Poet, Somewhere in the Unknown World, and Where Rivers Part. Yang co-edited the
groundbreaking book, What God is Honored Here?: Writings on Miscarriage and Infant Loss By
and For Native Women and Women of Color. She is a librettist for The Song Poet Opera
(commissioned by Minnesota Opera). Her children’s books, A Map into the World, The Most
Beautiful Thing, The Shared Room, Yang Warriors, From the Tops of the Trees, The Rock in My
Throat, and Caged center Hmong children and families who live in our world, who dream, hurt,
and hope in it. Yang’s middle grade debut fiction, The Diamond Explorer, contends with the
narratives we are given and the ones we give.
Yang’s work has been recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Book
Critics Circle Award, the Chautauqua Prize, the PEN USA literary awards, the Dayton’s Literary
Peace Prize, as Notable Books by the American Library Association, Kirkus Best Books of the
Year, Bank Street College of Education’s Best Children’s Books of the Year, the Heartland
Bookseller’s Award, the Carter G. Woodson Award, and garnered seven Minnesota Book
Awards. She’s Star Tribune’s 2024 Artist of the Year. Yang holds an honorary doctorate of
humane letters from Carleton College. She is a McKnight, Soros, and Guggenheim fellow.