Biography of Ruthanne Lum McCunn

Ruthanne Lum McCunn is an Eurasian of Chinese and Scottish descent. Born in 1946 in San Francisco's Chinatown, she grew up in Hong Kong, where she was educated first in Chinese and then British schools. In 1962 she returned to the U.S. to attend college.

Ruthanne began writing seriously when she was thirty. Three years later, she published her first novel THOUSAND PIECES OF GOLD, the story of a Chinese American pioneer's experiences as a slave and free woman in the Pacific Northwest. Acclaimed as a "stunning biography" by the Los Angeles Times, THOUSAND PIECES OF GOLD was twice a Quality Paperback Book Club Alternate and was made into a film. In 2006 it was selected by Washington State Library for Washington Reads and Idaho's Rathdrum Public Library for Rathdrum Reads.

Ruthanne's titles include a children's picture book, PIE-BITER, which won the Before Columbus Foundation's American Book Award in 1984, and two nonfiction titles: SOLE SURVIVOR, her account of Poon Lim's 133 days on a raft, which was selected as 1985 Best Book, Nonfiction Adventure by the Southwest Booksellers Association, and CHINESE AMERICAN PORTRAITS: PERSONAL HISTORIES 1828-1988, selected by Choice as an Outstanding Academic Book in 1990.

Her novel THE MOON PEARL-which tells the story of young girls in nineteenth century China who fought and won a battle for economic and personal independence that changed the future for thousands of others-was highlighted in The New York Public Library's 2001 "Books for the Teen Age" and chosen by the American Library Association as "The Best of the Best" from American University Presses in 2002. Similarly, SOLE SURVIVOR was selected to be a Condensed Book by Reader's Digest International and for both Book of the Month's Dolphin Book Club and Scholastic's Teen Age Book Club.

When asked why she thought her books appeal to such a broad age range, Ruthanne said, "Although I've always been a voracious reader, books were hard to come by when I was a child in Hong Kong. But I had access to public storytellers who had to seize and maintain the interest of children as well as adults, and it's their voices that I have in my head when I write." Indeed, the form of Ruthanne's WOODEN FISH SONGS was inspired by a style of oral storytelling in which the life of a Gold Mountain man is recounted through women's voices.

A. Magazine proclaimed WOODEN FISH SONGS "Historical fiction with a flourish. The story of Lue Gim Gong, a 19th century Chinese immigrant-cum-horticultural innovator, comes alive through multiple narrators: mother Sum Jui, white spinster Fanny, and African American cook Sheba." The novel won the Women's Heritage Museum's Jeanne Farr McDonnell Award for Best Fiction in 1997, and a stage adaptation enjoyed successful tours of colleges, libraries, museums, and community organizations including the Smithsonian. This Fall, University of Washington Press will be bringing out a new edition of WOODEN FISH SONGS with an Introduction by University of California, Los Angeles, Professor King-Kok Cheung.

Ruthanne also has a new book, GOD OF LUCK, coming out this Fall from Soho Press. In this novel, Ah Lung and his beloved wife, Bo See, are separated by a cruel fate when, like thousands of other Chinese men in the nineteenth century, he is kidnapped, enslaved and sent to the deadly guano mines off the shore of Peru. Praying to the God of Luck and using their own ingenuity, the couple never loses hope of some day being reunited. According to Lisa See, author of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Ruthanne "beautifully combines the hardships and brutality of the kidnapping of a Chinese man, conditions on the slave ships, and the bitterness of back-breaking labor in a foreign land with the sadness and determination of a wife and family back home. Never separating history from its impact on individual people, McCunn has reached into her characters' hearts to bring readers a story of emotional depth and truth."

Ruthanne's work has been translated into eleven languages and published in twenty-two countries. She has taught at Cornell University, the University of California at Santa Cruz, and the University of San Francisco, and she frequently lectures at community organizations, libraries, and schools as well as universities. A co-founder of the Chinese Historical Society of America's annual journal, she has served on its editorial committee for the past twenty years. Ruthanne lives in San Francisco with her husband, Don, and two cats, Dusty and Bunny. When not in her study, she is likely paddling with Don in their canoe, serving breakfast at Martin de Porres House of Hospitality, or cuddling a baby at San Francisco General Hospital.