Sarah Shun-lien Bynum (born February 14, 1972) [1] is a Chinese American writer. She previously taught writing and literature in the Graduate MFA Writing program at Otis College of Art and Design until 2015. [2] Bynum is a graduate of Brown University and the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. She lives in Los Angeles, California, with her husband and daughter. Her brother is musician Taylor Ho Bynum. [3]
Fairy tales are a common theme in many of her works. Bynum describes fairy tales by saying that "they always walk that line between wonder and darkness." [4] Madeleine is Sleeping was published by Harcourt in 2004, was a finalist for the National Book Award, and winner of the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize. Her short stories, including excerpts from her new novel, have appeared in The New Yorker , Tin House , Triquarterly, The Georgia Review, Alaska Quarterly Review , and in Best American Short Stories . [5] Her second novel, Ms. Hempel Chronicles, was published in September 2008 and was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award in 2009. [6]
In a 2009 book review of Ms. Hempel Chronicles published in the Sunday book review of The New York Times, Josh Emmons notes that Bynum's "prose remains nimble and entertaining, a model of quiet control well suited to its subject" and that the "deftness with which [Ms. Hempel] observes and describes her world and its inhabitants is so engaging that for all its circumspection and regrettable lacunae, “Ms. Hempel Chronicles” works as an account of how nostalgia — both for what was and might have been — can generate a thousand mercies." [7]
In 2010, Bynum was named one of The New Yorker's top "20 Under 40" fiction writers in which the editors note her works "offer idiosyncratic, voice-driven narratives." [8]
In 2017, she was featured in an interview in The New Yorker on surviving adolescence and social media. [9]
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