 First edition cover | |
| Author | Lisa Ko |
|---|---|
| Audio read by | Emily Woo Zeller |
| Genre | |
| Publisher | Algonquin Books |
Publication date | May 2, 2017 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type |
|
| Pages | 338 pp. (hardcover 1st ed) |
| Awards |
|
| ISBN | 9781616206888 |
| OCLC | 953599445 |
| LC Class | PS3611.O135 L43 2017 |
| Website | http://lisa-ko.com/theleavers |
The Leavers is Lisa Ko's first novel published on May 2, 2017, by Algonquin Books.
Ko's novel was inspired by a 2009 article in The New York Times describing an undocumented immigrant from Fuzhou, China, who was arrested at a Greyhound station in Florida on her way to a new job and spent a year and a half in detention. [3]
Told in four parts, the novel begins as Deming Guo's mother Polly suddenly disappears from the family's New York City apartment without warning. Deming is placed into foster care, ultimately to be adopted by a suburban couple, Kay and Peter. Five hours away from the city in Ridgeburough, Deming Guo becomes Daniel Wilkinson. Deming/Daniel searches for a sense of connection, belonging, and identity in a new home with a new family.
Part II introduces Polly's story.
According to Book Marks, the book received "positive" reviews based on fourteen critic reviews with five being "rave" and four being "positive" and five being "mixed". [4] On Bookmarks July/August 2017 issue, a magazine that aggregates critic reviews of books, the book received a 
(3.5 out of 5) based on critic reviews. [5]
Writing for The New York Times, Gish Jen praised the novel for taking the headline-news of immigration and "remind[ing] us that beyond [that] lie messy, brave, extraordinary, ordinary lives." [6] At the same time, Jen felt the prose was overly expository and that some conservative plot points mark "this book as one that takes risks but then hedges its bets." [6]
Reviewing the novel for The Guardian , Arifa Akbar felt, "The Leavers ... themes of displacement and deportation carry deep and desperately urgent resonances far beyond America, and fiction. Ko movingly captures Polly and Deming's liminal presence in the immigrant community, on the margins of society in overcrowded apartments, in nail parlours and factories, who are always there yet invisible to the rest of us." [7]
The Leavers received the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction and a nomination for National Book Award for Fiction. [8]
| Year | Award | Category | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction | — | Won | [9] |
| 2017 | Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature | Adult Fiction | Won | [10] |
| Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award | Fiction | Shortlisted | [11] | |
| National Book Award | Fiction | Shortlisted | [12] | |
| 2018 | Aspen Words Literary Prize | — | Longlisted | [13] |
| New York City Book Awards Hornblower Award for First Book | — | Won | [14] | |
| PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel | — | Shortlisted | [15] | |
| 2019 | International Dublin Literary Award | — | Longlisted | [16] |
Gish Jen is a contemporary American writer and speaker.
The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is awarded annually by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation to the authors of the year's best works of fiction by living Americans, Green Card holders or permanent residents. The winner receives US$15,000 and each of four runners-up receives US$5000. Judges read citations for each of the finalists' works at the presentation ceremony in Washington, D.C.. The organization claims it to be "the largest peer-juried award in the country." The award was first given in 1981.
The PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Fiction is awarded annually to a full-length novel or book of short stories by an American author who has not previously published a full-length book of fiction. The award is named after Ernest Hemingway and funded by the Hemingway family and the Ernest Hemingway Foundation/Society. It is administered by PEN America. Mary Welsh Hemingway, a member of PEN, founded the award in 1976 both to honor the memory of her husband and to recognize distinguished first books of fiction.
Laura Lippman is an American journalist and author of over 20 detective fiction novels. Her novels have won multiple awards, including an Agatha Award, seven Anthony Awards, two Barry Awards, an Edgar Award, a Gumshoe Award, a Macavity Award, a Nero Award, two Shamus Awards, and two Strand Critics Award.
The Orwell Prize is a British prize for political writing. The Prize is awarded by The Orwell Foundation, an independent charity governed by a board of trustees. Four prizes are awarded each year: one each for a fiction and non-fiction book on politics, one for journalism and one for "Exposing Britain's Social Evils" ; between 2009 and 2012, a fifth prize was awarded for blogging. In each case, the winner is the short-listed entry which comes closest to George Orwell's own ambition to "make political writing into an art".
The PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, formerly known as the Bellwether Prize for Fiction, is a biennial award given by the PEN America and Barbara Kingsolver to a U.S. citizen for a previously unpublished work of fiction that address issues of social justice. The prize was established by noted author Barbara Kingsolver, and is funded by her. Winning authors receive a $25,000 award and a publishing contract, from which they receive royalties.
Yiyun Li is a Chinese-born writer and professor in the United States. Her short stories and novels have won several awards, including the PEN/Hemingway Award and Guardian First Book Award for A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, the 2020 PEN/Jean Stein Book Award for Where Reasons End, and the 2023 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for The Book of Goose. Her short story collection Wednesday's Child was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. She is an editor of the Brooklyn-based literary magazine A Public Space.
The PEN/Bernard and Ann Malamud Award honors "excellence in the art of the short story". It is awarded annually by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation. The selection committee is composed of PEN/Faulkner directors. The award was first given in 1988.
The Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best First Novel was established in 1946.
The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction is a British literary award founded in 2010. At £25,000, it is one of the largest literary awards in the UK. The award was created by the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch, whose ancestors were closely linked to Scottish author Sir Walter Scott, who is generally considered the originator of historical fiction with the novel Waverley in 1814.
The National Book Award for Fiction is one of five annual National Book Awards, which recognize outstanding literary work by United States citizens. Since 1987, the awards have been administered and presented by the National Book Foundation, but they are awards "by writers to writers." The panelists are five "writers who are known to be doing great work in their genre or field."
The National Book Award for Nonfiction is one of five US annual National Book Awards, which are given by the National Book Foundation to recognize outstanding literary work by US citizens. They are awards "by writers to writers". The panelists are five "writers who are known to be doing great work in their genre or field".
The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize is an annual award presented by the Center for Fiction, a non-profit organization in New York City, for the best debut novel. From 2006 to 2011, it was called the John Sargent, Sr. First Novel Prize in honor of John Turner Sargent, Sr.. From 2011 to 2014, it was known as the Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize, named for Center for Fiction board member Nancy Dunnan and her journalist father Ray W. Flaherty.
Kwame Alexander is an American writer of poetry and children's fiction.
A Constellation of Vital Phenomena is a novel written by Anthony Marra, published May 7, 2013 by Random House. The book was a New York Times best seller and received positive critical reviews. The work has also been referenced in academic journals, including War, Literature & the Arts and The Lancet.
Exit West is a 2017 novel by Pakistani author Mohsin Hamid. It is Hamid's fourth novel. The main themes of the novel are emigration and refugee problems. The novel, which can be considered fantasy or speculative fiction, is about a young couple, Saeed and Nadia, who live in an unnamed city undergoing civil war and finally have to flee, using a system of magical doors that lead to different locations around the globe.
Lisa Ko is an American writer. Her debut novel, The Leavers, was a national bestseller, won the 2016 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction and was a finalist for the 2017 National Book Award for Fiction. Her short fiction has been published in Best American Short Stories and McSweeney's and her essays in The New York Times and The Believer. Ko's second novel, Memory Piece, was published in 2024.
The Death of Vivek Oji is a 2020 fiction novel by Nigerian author Akwaeke Emezi. It was published on 4 August 2020 by Riverhead books, it narrates the life of Vivek Oji until his death. It is Emezi's second adult novel after Freshwater. The book received critical attention and was an instant New York Times best seller.
Nora Webster is a historical novel by Colm Tóibín, published October 7, 2014 by Scribner. The story is set in Enniscorthy, County Wexford, Ireland, and in Brooklyn, New York in the middle of the 20th century.