Li-Young Lee

Li-Young Lee is an American poet born on August 19, 1957, in Jakarta, Indonesia, to Chinese political exiles. His family fled anti-Chinese sentiment in 1959, traveling through Hong Kong, Macau, and Japan before settling in the United States in 1964, where his father became a Presbyterian minister. He is best known for his poetry collections exploring family, memory, exile, and spirituality, with major awards including the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award for Rose, the Lamont Poetry Selection for The City in Which I Love You, and the 2024 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize.