40 AAPI authors who made the USA TODAY bestseller list, including Jenny Han, Sanjay Gupta and Ali Wong
Books from Asian American Pacific Islander writers have always found a home on USA TODAY's Best-Selling Books list. From memoirs and fiction to romances and humor, their works are as diverse and dynamic as the authors themselves. AAPI authors represent an important part of the ever-expanding and evolving American literary canon.
We've curated a sampling of 40 AAPI authors who have appeared on our bestseller list. Authors range from debut to stalwarts and write in a variety of genres. While they are not the only AAPI authors who have made our list, we hope this list leads readers to explore more of the wellspring of books and literature by Asian American and Pacific Islanders.
AAPI pride: Asian and Pacific Islander heritage helps lift America to what it must be
More: What kids should be reading for AAPI Heritage Month and why representation matters
40 USA TODAY bestselling AAPI authors, in alphabetical order:
Mary Lynn Bracht: The author's first novel, "White Chrysanthemum," follows two sisters in Korea who are separated by WWII and debuted on the bestsellers list in 2019. In a 2018 interview, Bracht shared the novel's long road to creation. "When I heard about the ‘comfort women’ (women who were forced into sexual slavery), I was at a point when I was already researching Korean history. Probably over 12 years passed before I decided I would put this somewhere. I wrote a short story, which became my master's thesis, which became my novel."
Frances Cha: The author grew up in the U.S., Hong Kong and South Korea and now divides her time between New York City and Seoul. Her debut novel, 2020's "If I Had Your Face," about four young women in Seoul who try to make their way in a world defined by impossible standards of beauty, made our bestseller list in 2021.
More: The books that got us through 2020: USA TODAY entertainment experts share their favorite reads
David Chang: The chef, restaurateur and television personality released his bestselling memoir, "Eat a Peach," co-written with Gabe Ulla, in 2020. Chang first found fame for his Momofuku Noodle Bar, which opened in New York City in 2004. He soon racked up accolades for his talents as a chef, which led him to win six James Beard Awards. Chang also published the bestselling cookbook "Momofuku: A Cookbook" with Peter Meehan.
Ted Chiang: The award-winning science fiction writer has written mostly short stories and novellas. Two of his short story collections, "Stories of Your Life and Others" and "Exhalation: Stories," have appeared on our bestsellers list. The short story "Story of Your Life" was the inspiration for the 2016 film "Arrival" starring Amy Adams.
Kiran Desai: The Indian-born author relocated to the U.S. as a teen with her writer mother, Anita Desai. Her first novel, "Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard," garnered good reviews but it was her second novel, The Booker Prize-winning "The Inheritance of Loss," that made our bestseller list.
Jen Frederick: The prolific romance author first hit the bestseller list with her novel "Unspoken." A Korean adoptee living in the Midwest, Frederick also writes under the pseudonym Erin Watt, where she has also hit the bestseller list with multiple titles. Her latest, 2021's "Heart and Seoul," follows a Korean adoptee who travels to Korea in search of her roots and finds love.
Sanjay Gupta: The neurosurgeon, reporter and writer first hit the bestseller list in 2007 with his book "Chasing Life: New Discoveries in the Search for Immortality to Help You Age Less Today." He returned in 2012 with novel "Monday Mornings" and in 2021 with "Keep Sharp: Build a Better Brain at Any Age."
Jenny Han: The young adult author first debuted on the bestseller list in 2011 with "We'll Always Have Summer." But she became a household name with her "All the Boys" trilogy ("To All the Boys I've Loved Before," "P.S. I Still Love You" and "Always and Forever, Lara Jean"), which she also executive-produced as a series for Netflix. In addition to her young adult novels, Han has also written two middle-grade chapter books: "Shug" and "Clara Lee and the Apple Pie Dream."
Kamala Harris: The vice president is also a USA TODAY bestselling author with two books on our list. The first, "The Truths We Hold: An American Journey," explores her life as the daughter of immigrants. Her parents emigrated from India and Jamaica and raised Harris and her sister Maya in California. Her second bestseller, "Superheroes Are Everywhere," is a children's book that tells kids heroes can be found anywhere and they too can be one.
Meena Harris: A lawyer, entrepreneur and author, Harris is also the niece of Vice President Kamala Harris. She hit our list recently with two children's books: "Kamala and Maya's Big Idea," inspired by a true story of sisters Kamala and Maya Harris as children working with their community to effect change; and "Ambitious Girl," about a young girl who sees the challenges faced by women when she sees a strong woman labeled as "too assertive" and "too ambitious."
Meet Kamala Harris' family, from Doug Emhoff to Meena Harris
Helen Hoang: Both of Hoang's romance novels have appeared on our bestsellers list: 2018’s “The Kiss Quotient” and its 2019 sequel “The Bride Test.” It was her own diagnosis in 2016 with Autism Spectrum Disorder that inspired her to write her first romance, about a woman with Asperger's who, as a novice in dating, hires a male escort for "relationship practice." The third installment in the series, “The Heart Principle,” is due in August.
Mira Jacob: The author's debut novel, "The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing," which follows the Eapen family's journey from India in the 1970s to new lives in America in the 1990s, made the list back in 2016. Jacob's latest book is the memoir "Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations," which was shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award and, according to the author's website, is currently in development as a TV series.
Dwayne Johnson: Before he took Hollywood by storm, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson was a wrestling superstar who wrote the bestselling memoir "The Rock Says..." with Joe Layden in 2000. Johnson recounts his story as a third-generation wrestler from his boyhood through his meteoric rise as a wrestler.
Mindy Kaling: The actress, humorist and writer wrote two bestselling collections of essays: "Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)" and "Why Not Me?" Both books include her observations on life, romance, friendship and Hollywood.
Lisa Ko: The writer of short fiction, essays and nonfiction debuted on the bestseller list with her first novel, 2017's "The Leavers," which was also a National Book Award finalist. The novel follows Deming Guo, whose undocumented Chinese immigrant mother disappears after going to work; he is later adopted by a pair of white professors.
Kevin Kwan: The author's debut novel, "Crazy Rich Asians," had a run on the list twice, first in 2015 and then again in 2018, when the film adaptation of the romantic comedy hit theaters, bringing the novel's two follow-ups, "China Rich Girlfriend" and "Rich People Problems," along with it. The novel revolves around Rachel Chu, who discovers her boyfriend, Nicholas Young, comes from a wealthy family in Singapore. His latest, 2020's bestselling "Sex and Vanity," was purchased by Sony Pictures.
More: 'Crazy Rich Asians' movie boosts sales for books to 1.5 million copies
Min Jin Lee: Lee was born in Seoul and immigrated with her family to Queens at age 7. Her debut novel, "Free Food for Millionaires," garnered good reviews, but she was not a USA TODAY bestseller until "Pachinko." The novel follows Sunja who marries a minister after becoming pregnant by a wealthy and powerful man. It was both a National Book Award finalist and one of USA TODAY's top 10 books of 2017.
Jhumpa Lahiri: The daughter of Indian immigrants who emigrated to the U.K., Lahiri moved to the U.S. with her family when she was 3 and was raised in Rhode Island. Most of the author's notable works have been USA TODAY bestsellers, beginning with her Pulitzer Prize-winning debut collection of short stories, "Interpreter of Maladies." Other bestsellers include "The Namesake," "Unaccustomed Earth," "The Lowland" and this year's "Whereabouts," an English translation of a story she originally wrote and published in Italian.
More: Jhumpa Lahiri developed her voice for new novel 'Whereabouts' by first writing it in Italian
Adeline Yen Mah: After a childhood in China, Hong Kong and England, where she studied at the London Hospital Medical School, Mah settled and established a medical practice in California. Her first book, the 1997 memoir "Falling Leaves," landed on the bestseller list. Mah retired from medicine to write full time. In addition to "Watching the Tree" and "A Thousand Pieces of Gold," Mah has written a series of children's books.
Chanel Miller: The writer and artist made waves as Emily Doe when she wrote a 7,000-word impact statement about her 2015 sexual assault by Brock Turner. She put her name to the experience when she released 2019's "Know My Name." According to USA TODAY, Miller, whose Chinese name is Zhang Xiao Xia, "delivers a painstakingly detailed look at orthodoxies around gender we've failed to question, a society that still doesn't comprehend the impact of sexual violence and a culture that acquiesces to the outrageous notion women are responsible for their own safety."
More: Chanel Miller, survivor in Brock Turner rape case, speaks about assault in first interview
Fatima Farheen Mirza: The author's debut novel, "A Place for Us," hit the bestseller list in 2018. Readers follow the story of an Indian Muslim family in California on the eve of their eldest daughter's wedding. The novel was also the inaugural novel in Sarah Jessica Parker's imprint SJP for Hogarth. In an interview on the "Today" show, Mirza shared that "growing up I never saw a life like mine reflected in fiction and so to me to write this novel was a way to honor the place that I'd come from."
Siddhartha Mukherjee: The Indian American physician, who is also an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia and a cancer researcher, won the Pulitzer Prize for his bestselling nonfiction work, 2010's "The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer." It was later made into a documentary of the same name by Ken Burns. He followed "Emperor" with another USA TODAY bestseller, 2016's "The Gene: An Intimate History."
Aimee Nezhukumatathil: The daughter of a Filipina mother and South Indian father, the prize-winning poet and Guggenheim fellow published her nonfiction debut "World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks and Other Astonishment" in 2020. The collection of essays about the natural world was a Kirkus Prize finalist and named 2020's Barnes & Noble's book of the year.
Celeste Ng: Ng first hit the USA TODAY Best-Sellers list with her debut novel, “Everything I Never Told You,” but she is perhaps best known for her second novel “Little Fires Everywhere,” which, after hitting No. 1 on our list, was adapted as a limited series on Hulu starring Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington. For aspiring fiction writers, Ng advises to "read a lot - things you love, and also things outside your comfort zone."
More: Review: Witherspoon and Washington are fantastic in the ferocious 'Little Fires Everywhere'
Andrea Nguyen: The author, consultant and cooking teacher's book, "The Pho Cookbook: Easy to Adventurous Recipes for Vietnam's Favorite Soup and Noodles," was not just a bestseller but won the prestigious James Beard Foundation's book award for a single subject in 2018. She has written several cookbooks on Vietnamese cuisine, including "Into the Vietnamese Kitchen," "The Banh Mi Handbook" and "Vietnamese Food Any Day."
Viet Thanh Nguyen: An associate professor at the University of Southern California, the writer's debut novel "The Sympathizer" made our bestseller list and won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2016. The novel follows a Vietnamese army captain who questions his divided loyalties as a sleeper agent in the U.S. after the Vietnam War. Nguyen's works include nonfiction, short stories and a children's book. His most recent novel, "The Committed," also a bestseller, was released in March.
More: 'The Committed': Viet Thanh Nguyen follows up Pulitzer winner with more of a good thing
SUBSCRIBE Support local journalism
Joanne Ramos: Born in the Philippines and raised in Wisconsin, Ramos worked for several years in investment banking and private equity investing. Her debut novel, "The Farm," follows Jane, a Filipina immigrant who agrees to become a surrogate and stay at a luxury resort in New York with no contact with the outside world – but there is a catch. According to USA TODAY, what’s so striking about it isn’t "that it imagines a frightening dystopia," but that it "isn’t a hundred years in the future, it’s next week."
More: Babies are the crop in Joanne Ramos' frightening surrogacy novel 'The Farm'
Reshma Saujani: An attorney, activist and founder/CEO of Girls Who Code, Saujani published "Brave, Not Perfect: Fear Less, Fail More, and Live Bolder," which landed on the bestsellers list in 2019. An extension of her 2016 Ted Talk, Saujani's "Brave, Not Perfect" message is also the subject of an online community and podcast.
Lisa See: After her memoir "On Gold Mountain: The One-Hundred-Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family," See was inspired to write fiction. Almost every one of her books has made its way onto the bestsellers list. Amongst them are "The Island of Sea Women," "China Dolls," "Shanghai Girls," and "Flower Net."
George Takei: The actor first hit the bestsellers list in 1994 with his autobiography "To the Stars." He would return in 2019 with his graphic memoir, "They Called Us Enemy," which won an American Book Award and an Asian/Pacific American Award for Young Adult Literature. In it, Takei recounts his childhood in American internment camps during WWII.
More: George Takei: How 'The Terror: Infamy' 'outrage' echoes today's immigrant camps
Amy Tan: The author's books have been on the USA TODAY Best-sellers list since the beginning. "The Joy Luck Club" and "The Kitchen God's Wife" debuted on our list in October of 1993, and several of her books have followed. Among them are "The Hundred Secret Senses," "The Bonesetter's Daughter" and "The Valley of Amazement." Tan has also been named one of USA TODAY's Women of the Century.
Chrissy Teigen: The model-turned-cookbook-author managed to make history in 2016 when her first book "Cravings" became the first cookbook to debut at No. 1 on our list. Teigen repeated her bestseller success with her follow-up cookbook, "Cravings: Hungry for More." Teigen's mom, Pepper Teigen, just recently hit the bestsellers list with her own cookbook, "The Pepper Thai Cookbook: Family Recipes From Everyone's Favorite Thai Mom."
Thrity Umrigar: The author's "The Space Between Us" was released in 2006 and hit our list in 2018. In the novel, which was a finalist for a PEN/Beyond Margins Award, two women discover an emotional rapport as they struggle against the confines of a rigid caste system in modern-day India. Her next novel, "Honor," is set for publication in 2022.
Ocean Vuong: Born in Vietnam, Vuong, came to the U.S. with his family at the age of 2. The award-winning poet and essayist’s debut novel, 2019’s “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous,” not only hit the bestsellers list but garnered rave reviews, including a four-star review from USA TODAY. It was also a winner of the American Book Award and Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award. Vuong is a 2019 MacArthur Foundation ‘genius grant’ winner and associate professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
More: National Book Award winners announced: Charles Yu's 'Interior Chinatown,' Malcolm X bio
Ali Wong: The comedian and actress penned her memoir, a collection of letters to her daughters, in 2019's "Dear Girls: Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets & Advice for Living Your Best Life." The novel debuted on the bestsellers list. Really a universal letter to all young women, Wong was inspired to craft the memoir as a collection of letters after she received one from her own father before he died.
More: Ali Wong talks parenthood, gets vulnerable before release of uproariously funny book, 'Dear Girls'
Susie Yang: Born in China and raised in the U.S., Yang received a doctorate of pharmacy from Rutgers and launched a tech startup. Now residing in the U.K., Yang's debut novel, "White Ivy," also debuted on the USA TODAY bestsellers list. The novel centers on teenager Ivy Lyn and her obsession with her privileged classmates.
More: 'White Ivy' review: Susie Yang takes readers to the edge with an unpredictable plot
Hanya Yanagihara: The author's second novel, "A Little Life," was a finalist for the National Book Award and won the 2015 Kirkus Prize for fiction. The novel follows the lives and friendship of four classmates from a small Massachusetts college who move to New York, where their lives are tested. In 2017, Yanagihara became the editor-in-chief of "T: The New York Times Style Magazine."
Julie Yip-Williams: The late lawyer and writer's bestseller came posthumously. Her 2019 book "The Unwinding of the Miracle: A Memoir of Life, Death, and Everything that Comes After" was published not long after Yip-Williams' death from colon cancer in 2018. The book started as a blog she wrote to share her illness and experiences with others and. After her death, the blog was turned into a book by her husband.
Charles Yu: The writer has penned short stories, essays, novels as well as teleplays for such shows as HBO's "Westworld," FX's "Legion" and AMC's "Lodge 49." His fourth novel, 2020's "Interior Chinatown," was both 2020's National Book Award winner and USA TODAY bestseller. The novel follows the character Willis Wui, who goes from supporting actor to leading man in his own life.
More: Ali Wong talks parenthood, gets vulnerable before release of uproariously funny book, 'Dear Girls'
Michelle Zauner: The singer and musician, known for her solo project Japanese Breakfast, where she has released two studio albums with a third, "Jubilee," due this year, broke into the list with her memoir, "Crying in H Mart." Zauner writes about growing up Korean American and her personal journey and the gifts of the Korean heritage her late mother bestowed on her.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 40 AAPI authors who made the USA TODAY bestseller list
