01 Mar / Runaway: Diary of a Street Kid by Evelyn Lau [in What Do I Read Next? Multicultural Literature]
At 14, Evelyn Lau was an honors student, the dutiful daughter of a strict, traditional Chinese family. Lau’s parents cannot understand her obsession to become a writer; being published in literary magazines and winning awards only serves to anger her parents. Searching for freedom and determined that she will become a writer at any price, Lau flees her family, choosing a life of teenage prostitution, drug abuse, and homelessness over being creatively stifled. These pages are Lau’s frank, often brutal memoirs of her two years on the streets.
Since the publication of Runaway in Canada in 1990, Lau has won numerous literary awards. In 1992, she became the youngest poet ever to be nominated for the Governor General’s Award, Canada’s highest literary honor.
Review: “Asian American Titles,” What Do I Read Next? Multicultural Literature, Gale Research, 1997
Readers: Young Adult, Adult
Published: 1995