Author Night with Lisa See

The South Pasadena Public Library and the Friends of the South Pasadena Public Library will partner with the South Pasadena Chinese American Club to present national bestselling author Lisa See on October 20, 2011 at 7:00 p.m. The event will be showcased in the Community Room and also feature a fine jazz group, Wind & Wire. The free program is also supported by the Helix Foundation and Poets & Writers, Inc. with financial support from the James Irvine Foundation. Special thanks to Studio Spectrum, Inc. who will be filming the program for later broadcast on Channel 19 (Time Warner) and Channel 99 (AT&T U-Verse).

Lisa See’s latest Dreams of Joy sat high atop the fiction bestseller lists all summer. She is also the author of many other bestsellers including her nonfiction family history On Gold Mountain: The One Hundred Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family, and the novel Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, was recently released as a major motion picture.

Lisa See was born in Paris, France and grew up in Los Angeles surrounded by her Chinese-American family. See published her first book On Gold Mountain in 1995, an account of her father’s side of the family as it moved from China to Southern California. The book was followed up with three ‘Red Princess’ mystery novels set in China: Flower Net (1997), The Interior (1999), and Dragon Bones (2003). Her fourth novel was the acclaimed bestseller Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (2005), the story of two young women in 19th Century China who communicate through a secret written language.  Her Peony in Love (2007) focuses on the lives of Chinese women in the 17th Century while Shanghai Girls (2009) chronicles the lives of two sisters who come to Los Angeles in arranged marriages. The sequel, Dreams of Joy was released in May.

Lisa, the daughter of novelist Carolyn See, graduated from Loyola Marymount University in 1979. She is active in the cultural affairs of the Los Angeles Chinese-American community and has donated her personal papers to UCLA. On Gold Mountain was adapted for the Los Angeles Opera in 2000. Among Lisa’s awards and recognitions are the Organization of Chinese American Women’s 2001 award as National Woman of the Year and the 2003 History Makers Award presented by the Chinese American Museum. See also serves as a Los Angeles City Commissioner.

The Library Community Room is 1115 El Centro Street. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. No tickets or reservations are necessary and refreshments will be provided.