Lan Samantha Chang was born, 1965, and raised in Appleton, Wisconsin. She is the daughter of Chinese parents who survived the World War II Japanese occupation of China and later immigrated to the United States. Chang attended Yale University, first as a premedical student and then as an East Asian studies major. She went on to earn an M.F.A. at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. In her fiction, she focuses on the fragility of family relationships and the Chinese American immigrant experience. Chang's "Pipa's Story" was selected for Best American Short Stories 1994. Her books include All is Forgotten, Nothing is Lost (W. W. Norton & Company, 2010), Hunger (W. W. Norton & Company,… 1998), Inheritance (W. W. Norton & Company, 2004).