Esther Lin
Esther Lin | |
|---|---|
| Born | |
| Occupation | Poet |
Esther Lin is a Brazil–born poet of Chinese descent. Her debut poetry collection, Cold Thief Place, won the 2023 Alice James Award, was published by Alice James Books in 2025, and was put on the longlist for the National Book Award for Poetry.[1][2]
Early life
Lin was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; her family had defected from China.[3] She and her family then moved to the United States, where she lived as an undocumented immigrant for 21 years.[3] At the age of 27, she received her green card.[4]
Career
Lin's work has been supported by the Fine Arts Work Center, the T. S. Eliot House, Cité Internationale, the Stegner Fellowship.[3] In addition to her poetry, she serves as a critic-at-large at Poetry Northwest. She also co-runs Undocupoets, an organization founded in 2015 to provide fellowships to other undocumented poets and promote a sense of literary community.[1][4]
In 2017, Lin released her debut chapbook, The Ghost Wife, which won the Poetry Society of America's Chapbook Fellowship.[3]
In 2024, Lin's poem, "French Sentence," won a Pushcart Prize.[3]
In 2025, Lin released her debut poetry collection, Cold Thief Place, which won the 2023 Alice James Award and was longlisted for the National Book Award for Poetry.[1][2] In The Rumpus, Asa Drake wrote that "Esther Lin's Cold Thief Place is a testament to this kind of liberation through art—the ability to find oneself reflected in the canon and to, in turn, offer that visibility to others."[5] Christopher Kempf, in the Los Angeles Review of Books, lauded Lin's clean, spare style, as well as her ability to sharply observe the undocumented immigrant experience.[6]
References
- ^ a b c "BOMB Magazine | Esther Lin by Aditi Bhattacharjee". BOMB Magazine. Retrieved 2025-12-28.
- ^ a b Sher, Ira (2025-09-09). "2025 National Book Awards Longlist for Poetry". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2025-12-28.
- ^ a b c d e Berkovitz, Zoe (2025-07-16). "One Dreams of Place: An Interview with Esther Lin". Rain Taxi. Retrieved 2025-12-28.
- ^ a b Lin, Esther. "I Was Undocumented for 21 Years. This Is Why I Tell My Story". TIME. Archived from the original on 2025-06-17. Retrieved 2025-12-28.
- ^ Drake, Asa (2025-08-28). "I Thought America Was the Thief: Mastery and Assimilation in Esther Lin's "Cold Thief Place"". The Rumpus. Retrieved 2025-12-28.
- ^ "My Poem with This Wailing in the Background". Los Angeles Review of Books. 2025-03-11. Retrieved 2025-12-28.