National Book Award winner and New York Times bestseller Malinda Lo delivers an inspiring memoiri n verse about losing her language, finding her voice, and honoring her ancestors.
In 1978 when Malinda Lo was three years old, she sat on her white American grandmother’s lap in a wheelchair as her father pushed them across the wooden bridge at the border between the People’s Republic of China and British-controlled Hong Kong. She does not remember the crossing that redefined her life; she has only been told the story.
Lo brilliantly weaves a nonlinear story of immigration and identity, connecting her childhood in small-town Colorado to her grandmother’s experiences in wartime China.
Incorporating free verse, found poetry, and lyric essay, Lo’s debut memoir excavates the tangled roots of her hybrid heritage, exposing the unspoken pain of migration and the long shadow of the American myth.
"Malinda Lo's Something Inside Me Knows is a lyric memoir about the many beginnings and endings in a life, about how knowing oneself means meeting the unknown bits and pieces of journeys beyond one's own. It is a work of art about the power of art to save us by asking and answering the questions the ordinary world cannot and will not. A beautifully honest book.”—Kao Kalia Yang, award winning author of The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir and Where Rivers Part: A Story of My Mother’s Life
"Something Inside Me Knows is an introspective journey that investigates history, family, circumstance, and self with both compassion and an unflinching eye. Malinda Lo deftly weaves together pieces of her family history, childhood, and past work, to create a rich tapestry of grief, strength, and hope. It reminds us that we can look to our ancestors for the courage to endure, we can feel the weight of their hopes and dreams for us, we can wrestle with the ways in which the world has tried to mold us against our will, but ultimately, we each get to decide who we are."—Mike Curato, Stonewall Award-winning author of Gaysians
National Book Award winner and New York Times bestseller Malinda Lo delivers an inspiring memoiri n verse about losing her language, finding her voice, and honoring her ancestors.
In 1978 when Malinda Lo was three years old, she sat on her white American grandmother’s lap in a wheelchair as her father pushed them across the wooden bridge at the border between the People’s Republic of China and British-controlled Hong Kong. She does not remember the crossing that redefined her life; she has only been told the story.
Lo brilliantly weaves a nonlinear story of immigration and identity, connecting her childhood in small-town Colorado to her grandmother’s experiences in wartime China.
Incorporating free verse, found poetry, and lyric essay, Lo’s debut memoir excavates the tangled roots of her hybrid heritage, exposing the unspoken pain of migration and the long shadow of the American myth.
Praise
"Malinda Lo's Something Inside Me Knows is a lyric memoir about the many beginnings and endings in a life, about how knowing oneself means meeting the unknown bits and pieces of journeys beyond one's own. It is a work of art about the power of art to save us by asking and answering the questions the ordinary world cannot and will not. A beautifully honest book.”—Kao Kalia Yang, award winning author of The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir and Where Rivers Part: A Story of My Mother’s Life
"Something Inside Me Knows is an introspective journey that investigates history, family, circumstance, and self with both compassion and an unflinching eye. Malinda Lo deftly weaves together pieces of her family history, childhood, and past work, to create a rich tapestry of grief, strength, and hope. It reminds us that we can look to our ancestors for the courage to endure, we can feel the weight of their hopes and dreams for us, we can wrestle with the ways in which the world has tried to mold us against our will, but ultimately, we each get to decide who we are."—Mike Curato, Stonewall Award-winning author of Gaysians
