Wayson Choy

Photo: the Bukowski Agency

It began as a short story, and then it grew. In 2010, Wayson Choy's debut novel, The Jade Peony (Douglas & McIntyre 1995), was nominated for the CBC program Canada Reads. Set in Vancouver's Chinatown, the saga of the Chen family won the Vancouver City Book Award and was co-winner of Ontario's Trillium Award with a book by Margaret Atwood.

After spending 26 weeks on the bestseller list of the Globe and Mail, it was published in the U.S., Germany and also Australia, where is was a bestseller.

A sequel, All that Matters, (2004) won the Trillium, and was shortlisted for the Giller and longlisted in 2006 for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

Wayson Choy can also write non-ficton. His memoir, called Paper Shadows: a Chinatown Childhood, came out in 1999, won the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction and was short-listed for the Governor General's Award and other prizes.