Jean Kwok

Jean Kwok is a contemporary Chinese American writer and the award-winning, bestselling author of two novels: Girl in Translation and Mambo in Chinatown. Kwok's family immigrated to the United States from Hong Kong when she was only five years old. She spent much of her childhood working in a clothing factory located in Chinatown, close to Brooklyn, NY. Kwok is an accomplished scholar who attended Harvard University. Since her family was not well off, Kwok had to work up to four jobs at a time in order to put herself through college. While at Harvard, Kwok learned that she loved to dance and worked as a professional ballroom dancer for three years after graduation. This experience helped form the basis of her second novel, Mambo in Chinatown. Kwok then decided to go back to school to pursue her MFA in fiction at Columbia University. Kwok currently lives in the Netherlands with her husband, their two sons, and their cats. Kwok can speak English, Cantonese, and Dutch fluently, which can be seen in the Dutch VPRO documentary filmed about her, released in 2012. 2Biography When Jean was five years old, her family decided to immigrate to Brooklyn, New Yor