Karen Yamashita

Karen Tei Yamashita is a Japanese-American author born in Oakland, California, in 1951. She teaches literature and creative writing at UC Santa Cruz. Her published work includes nine-plus books from Coffee House Press, spanning novels, short stories, and memoir, with I Hotel a National Book Award finalist. Her novels often blend magical realism, satire, and polyvocal storytelling. She received the National Book Foundation's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2021 and was inducted into the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2024.