Mother Tongue (Novel), Santa Monica, CA
“I hope that my work can ask difficult questions and plant seeds of genuine empathy for the forgotten or marginalized.”
Joanna Hong was born in Los Angeles and is the daughter of Korean immigrants. She received an MA in Human Rights from University College London and has lived across Europe and South Korea working as a freelance journalist and translator. Her work has focused on human rights issues and can be found in The Guardian, Dazed & Confused, Newsweek and other outlets. She is a recipient of a PEN America Emerging Voices Fellowship in Fiction where she was mentored by Patricia Engel, author of Infinite Country, and received a grant from Reese Witherspoon’s Book Club and Poets & Writers. Joanna also speaks Korean, German, Italian, French, and English. She is represented by Melissa Danaczko at Stuart Krichevsky Literary Agency.