Evelyn Lau
Evelyn Lau is a Canadian author and poet, born on July 2, 1971, in Vancouver, British Columbia. She began writing at a young age and, by fourteen, her passion for literature led her to run away from her family. This tumultuous period resulted in her experiences with juvenile prostitution, drug abuse, and homelessness, which she later chronicled in her debut memoir, "Runaway: Diary of a Street Kid" (1989). Lau's poetry often reflects her challenging journey, exploring themes of alienation, loss, and the search for genuine human connection.
Her work has garnered critical acclaim, winning awards such as the Milton Acorn People's Poetry award and being nominated for Canada's prestigious Governor-General's Award. Over the years, Lau has published multiple poetry collections, including "Oedipal Dreams" (1994), "Living under Plastic" (2010), and "Pineapple Express" (2020), which delve into topics like family dynamics, mental health, and cultural history. Her most recent work, "Cactus Garden" (2022), examines the complexities of interpersonal relationships in the context of changing environments and was recognized as a finalist for the 2023 City of Vancouver Book Award. Lau’s writing is characterized by its haunting clarity and emotional depth, providing a powerful voice to her unique lived experiences.
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Subject Terms
Evelyn Lau
- Born: July 2, 1971
- Birthplace: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Author Profile
Evelyn Lau began to write in 1977 at the age of six. At fourteen, her self-described obsession with writing led her to run away from her Chinese Canadian family, who did not permit her to pursue this passion. Keeping journals and penning poetry kept Lau’s spirit alive while she descended into a nightmare world of juvenile prostitution, rampant drug abuse, and homelessness.
Lau left the streets at sixteen, and wrote Runaway: Diary of a Street Kid (1989, 1995) about her experience. She also published her first collection of poetry, You Are Not Who You Claim (1990), in which her harrowing ordeals find artistic expression. The persona of Lau’s poetry is often a woman who resembles Lau, and her voice hauntingly evokes the mostly futile search for human warmth and genuine affection in a nightmare adult world.
In Lau’s poetry and fiction, lovemaking can end sadly. Thus, “Two Smokers” ends on a note of complete alienation: While the sleeping lover of the persona “gropes at the wall” and “finds flesh in his dreams,” the woman “watches the trail of smoke” from her cigarette “drift towards the ceiling, / hesitate, fall apart.”
The haunting lucidity, freshness of imagination, and stunning power of Lau’s writings have earned her several important literary prizes. Her first poetry collection won the Milton Acorn People’s Poetry award. Her second collection, Oedipal Dreams (1994), which contains many interrelated poems reflecting on a young woman’s relationship with her married psychiatrist and lover, was nominated for the Governor-General’s Award. This is Canada’s highest literary honor.
Perhaps most important, Lau’s youth gave her writing a sharp awareness of the startling coexistence of mainstream and alternative lifestyles. As an example, her poems and stories feature many professional men who show pictures of their children to a teenage sex workers they have hired to be their dominatrix. Similarly, the persona of In the House of Slaves (1994) watches a squirrel as a customer drips hot wax on her body. Drawn from the author's own experience, the main character of In the House of Slaves has lived simultaneously in the world of pop culture adolescence and in hell. Lau's later work, including the poetry collections Living under Plastic (2010)—which won the 2011 Pat Lowther Memorial Award for poetry by a Canadian woman—and A Grain of Rice (2012), depart from her earlier themes and explore issues of family, death, the environment, and cultural history.
In 2020, Lau released a book of poetry entitled Pineapple Express. This work represented her eighth such work. The poetry explored the environment surrounding mental disorders. This included aspects such as changes in moods, physical change, obsessiveness, and medications. Lau released another poetry collection, Cactus Garden, in 2022. The book explores the complexities of interpersonal relationships amidst shifting weather and landscapes. The book was a finalist for the 2023 City of Vancouver Book Award.
Bibliography
Dieckmann, Katherina. Review of In the House of Slaves, by Evelyn Lau. Village Voice Literary Supplement, Apr. 1994, p. 32.
Gee, Dana. "Vancouver’s Evelyn Lau’s New Book of Poetry: A Rumination on Aging, Anxiety." Vancouver Sun, 5 Jun. 2020, vancouversun.com/entertainment/books/vancouvers-evelyn-laus-new-book-of-poetry-a-rumination-on-aging-anxiety. Accessed 4 Oct. 2024.
Halim, Nadia. Review of In the House of Slaves, by Evelyn Lau. Canadian Forum, vol. 73, 1994, p. 41.
James, Darlene. Review of Runaway: Diary of a Street Kid, by Evelyn Lau. Maclean’s, 13 Nov. 1989, p. 81.
Lo, Marie. "The Currency of Visibility and the Paratext of "Evelyn Lau." Canadian Literature, vol. 199, 2008, pp. 100–17. Literary Reference Center. Accessed 25 Mar. 2015.
Matteson, Zach. “Review: Evelyn Lau’s ‘A Grain of Rice.’ PRISM. Prism International, 22 Aug. 2013. Accessed 25 Mar. 2015.
"Pineapple Express." McNallyrobinson.com, 22 May 2020, www.mcnallyrobinson.com/9781772141474/evelyn-lau/pineapple-express. Accessed 4 Oct. 2024.
Wong, Lindsay. “The Poetic Is Political.” Herizons, vol. 35, no. 4, Winter 2022, pp. 14–17. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=154628026&site=ehost-live.