Лоуренс Йеп: Американский писатель китайского происхождения.

American writer (born 1948)

Laurence Michael Yep (; born June 14, 1948) is an American writer. He is known for his children's books, having won the Newbery Honor twice for his Golden Mountain series. In 2005, he received the biennial Laura Ingalls Wilder Medal for his career contribution to American children's literature.

Yep was born in San Francisco, California, in Chinatown to Thomas (Gim Lew) Yep and Franche Lee Yep. His father was a first generation American born in China who had moved to San Francisco as a boy and grown up with an Irish friend in his neighborhood. His mother was a second generation Chinese American, was born in Ohio and raised in West Virginia where her family ran a Chinese laundry. After struggling through the Great Depression, Yep's family moved to a multicultural but predominantly African American neighborhood. Yep grew up working in the family grocery store, where he recalls learning early on "how to observe and listen to people, how to relate to others. It was good training for a writer." Yep was named by his older brother Thomas, who had just been studying the biography of Saint Lawrence for school. He spent his early childhood commuting from his neighborhood to a Catholic school in Chinatown for Chinese children, where he was often made fun of by the mostly bilingual students for only knowing how to speak English. His decision to become a writer did not come until he entered college at Marquette University. There he became friends with a literary magazine editor, Joanne Ryder. She introduced him to children's literature and later encouraged him to write a book for children while she was working at Harper & Row. The result was his first science fiction novel for teens entitled Sweetwater, published by Harper & Row in 1973. After two years at Marquette, Yep transferred to UC Santa Cruz where he earned a BA in 1970. He later earned a PhD in English at the State University of New York at Buffalo.

Growing up, Yep often felt torn between mainstream American culture and his Chinese roots, a theme he has often written about. A great deal of his work involves characters feeling alienated or not fitting into their environment, something Yep has said he struggled with since childhood: "I was too American to fit into Chinatown, and too Chinese to fit in anywhere else." During his writing career, Yep also taught creative writing and Asian American studies at the University of California at Berkeley and UC Santa Barbara. In March 2019, Paramount Pictures announced an animated film adaptation of the book with a script by Magee and a release date of February 2, 2024.

Yep married the writer Joanne Ryder in 1984. They live in Pacific Grove, California.