Traci Chee is an American author of young adult fiction, a fourth-generation Japanese American who grew up in a small California town with, by her own account, more cows than people.
She studied literature and creative writing at UC Santa Cruz and took a master's degree from San Francisco State University, and her 2016 debut The Reader, opening the Sea of Ink and Gold trilogy about a world where reading is a rare and dangerous magic, was an instant New York Times bestseller and Kirkus Prize finalist.
We Are Not Free marked a turn to history that runs close to home: the collective account of fourteen young Nisei, second-generation Japanese American teenagers whose tight-knit San Francisco community is torn apart by mass incarceration during the Second World War. It received five starred reviews, was a National Book Award finalist, a Printz Honor Book, a Walter Award honoree, and was named among TIME's 100 best young adult books of all time.
A Thousand Steps into Night, her Japanese-influenced fantasy of demons and curses, was longlisted for the National Book Award, and Kindling, her reimagining of Seven Samurai with burnt-out child soldiers of a dying magic, was an LA Times Book Prize finalist.
She teaches on the MFA programme at the University of Nevada, Reno, and lives in California with her fast-fast dog, enjoying hiking, egg painting and potluck game nights.
