 First edition cover | |
| Author | Lisa Ko |
|---|---|
| Audio read by | Emily Woo Zeller |
| Genre | |
| Publisher | Algonquin Books |
Publication date | 2017 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type |
|
| Pages | 338 (first edition) |
| Awards |
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| ISBN | 978-1-61620-688-8 |
| LC Class | PS3611.O135 L43 |
| Website | http://lisa-ko.com/theleavers |
The Leavers is Lisa Ko's first novel, published on May 2, 2017.
Ko’s novel was inspired by a 2009 New York Times article 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]
Gish Jen is a contemporary American writer and speaker.
Barbara Ellen Kingsolver is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist, essayist, and poet. Her widely known works include The Poisonwood Bible, the tale of a missionary family in the Congo, and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, a nonfiction account of her family's attempts to eat locally. In 2023, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for the novel Demon Copperhead. Her work often focuses on topics such as social justice, biodiversity, and the interaction between humans and their communities and environments.
Netherland (2008) is a novel by Joseph O'Neill. It concerns the life of a Dutchman living in New York in the wake of the September 11 attacks who takes up cricket and starts playing at the Staten Island Cricket Club.
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.
The Lazarus Project is a 2008 novel by Bosnian fiction writer and journalist Aleksandar Hemon. It features the true story of the death of Lazarus Averbuch, a teenaged Jewish immigrant to Chicago who was shot and killed by a police officer in 1908. It was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award, as well as, the winner of the inaugural Jan Michalski Prize for Literature in 2010.
Leanne Shapton in Mississauga, Ontario is a Canadian artist and graphic novelist, now living in New York City. Her second work, Important Artifacts and Personal Property From the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion and Jewelry, was optioned for a film slated to star Brad Pitt and Natalie Portman. The novel, which takes the form of an auction catalog, uses photographs and accompanying captions to chronicle the romance and subsequent breakup of a couple via the relationship's significant possessions or "artifacts".
Brooklyn is a 2009 novel by Irish author Colm Tóibín. It won the 2009 Costa Novel Award, was shortlisted for the 2011 International Dublin Literary Award and was longlisted for the 2009 Man Booker Prize. In 2012, The Observer named it as one of "The 10 best historical novels".
The Buddha in the Attic is a 2011 novel written by American author Julie Otsuka about Japanese picture brides immigrating to America in the early 1900s. It is Otsuka's second novel. The novel was published in the United States in August 2011 by the publishing house Knopf Publishing Group.
How to Be Both is a 2014 novel by Scottish author Ali Smith, first published by Hamish Hamilton. It was shortlisted for the 2014 Man Booker Prize and the 2015 Folio Prize. It won the 2014 Goldsmiths Prize, the Novel Award in the 2014 Costa Book Awards and the 2015 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction.
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Kim Fu is a Canadian-born writer, living in Seattle, Washington. Born in Vancouver, British Columbia to immigrant parents from Hong Kong, Fu studied creative writing at the University of British Columbia.
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Open City is a 2011 novel by Nigerian-American writer Teju Cole. The novel is primarily set in New York City, and concerns a Nigerian immigrant, Julius, who has recently broken up with his girlfriend. The novel received praise for its prose and depiction of New York.
Lisa Ko is an American writer. Her debut novel, The Leavers, won the 2016 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction and was a finalist for the 2017 National Book Award for Fiction. She has written for The New York Times'.
Flights is a 2007 fragmentary novel by the Polish author Olga Tokarczuk. The book was translated into English by Jennifer Croft. The original Polish title refers to runaways, a sect of Old Believers, who believe that being in constant motion is a trick to avoid evil.
Unsheltered is a 2018 novel by Barbara Kingsolver published by HarperCollins. It follows two families living in the same house at two separate time periods in Vineland, New Jersey. The novel alternates between the 21st century and the 19th century, using the last words of one chapter as the title of the next one. One family lived in the house in the 1800s and the other family resides in the house in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.
Asymmetry is the first novel by American author Lisa Halliday, published in February 2018 by Simon & Schuster. The novel has received critical acclaim with The New Yorker calling it "a literary phenomenon" and The New York Times including it in the list of "15 remarkable books by women that are shaping the way we read and write fiction in the 21st century." Barack Obama included the book in his list of best books from 2018. The cover of the first edition locates the novel on Manhattan's Upper West Side by displaying the distinctive turret of 271 West End Avenue at 72nd Street.
Lost Children Archive is a 2019 novel by writer Valeria Luiselli. Luiselli was in part inspired by the ongoing American policy of separating children from their parents at the Mexico–United States border. The novel is the first book Luiselli wrote in English.
The Vagrants is the first novel by Yiyun Li. It was published in 2009, following her award-winning 2005 short story collection A Thousand Years of Good Prayers.
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 and the book received critical attention and was an instant New York Times best seller.