Embedded Files
Early Life
Celeste Ng was born on July 30, 1980, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She moved at a young age and spent her childhood in Shaker Heights, Ohio. Her parents were immigrants from Hong Kong who moved to the United States in the 1960s. Her father worked for NASA as a physicist. Her mother worked at a local university as a chemistry teacher. She grew up in a household that values education and science. She was surrounded by books and curiosity since she was very young. She often felt caught between her Chinese Heritage at home and her American culture that was all around her. The feeling of being “in between” cultures would later be one of her main themes in her writing. As a child Celeste had a love for reading and writing stories. She was the kind of student who always had a book in her backpack and spent hours in the library. She used to write little stories on scrap pieces of paper for fun. She was also very observant and enjoyed paying attention to people’s mannerisms and how they would act. This later helped her when creating realistic characters in her novel. Her childhood in the Shaker Heights would soon inspire the setting in the novel Little Fires Everywhere, which takes place in the same town.
Education
Celeste Ng went to high school in Shaker Heights, Ohio, where she was a good student who loved English and creative writing. After graduating, she attended Harvard University, where she earned her bachelor’s degree in English. While attending Harvard, she took many writing classes and got to read many books from authors who would later influence her writing style, like Toni Morrison and Jhumpa Lahiri. After graduating college she did not immediately become a famous author; she decided to continue learning about writing and storytelling. She continued her education at the University of Michigan where she earned her Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Creative Writing. While she was there she won the Hopwood Award for a short story fiction, which gave the confidence she needed to become a successful writer. Also, while she was in school, she wrote and edited short stories that appeared in literary magazines.
Inspiration
Much of Celeste Ng’s writing is inspired by her personal life experiences, including growing up as an Asian American in the Midwest and feeling the pressure to live up to her parents’ expectations. Her background helped shape her understanding of race, family, and identity. In many interviews she said that she likes to write about “what people don't say”, the quiet tension that exists in families and communities. Her first novel, Everything I Never Told You, was published back in 2014. The story is about a Chinese American family in the 1970’s whose daughter dies suddenly. The novel goes on to uncover hidden pressures and secrets inside their home. The book was a huge success and was named a New York Times Bestseller. Many critics loved how emotional and powerful it was, especially how it showed the struggles of being a mixed race family in America. Her second novel, Little Fires Everywhere, came out in 2017, and became even more popular. It was about two very different families, one wealthy and one struggling, living in the same neighborhood in Shaker Heights. The story explores class, privilege, and motherhood, showing the juxtaposition of two families. The book was so popular that it was made into a Hulu miniseries in 2020 starring Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington. Celeste wrote that novel with inspiration of her own experiences growing up in Shaker Heights where everything seemed perfect on the surface but often wasn’t underneath. In 2022, she released her third novel, Our Missing Hearts. This book focused on a dystopian America where free speech and diversity are under attack, and a young boy that goes on a journey to find his mom. Like her other books, it deals with big themes like love, identity, and justice, but in a more political way.
Awards
Celeste Ng’s books have received a lot of awards and recognition. Everything I Never Told You won the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, the Massachusetts Book Award, and was named Amazon's Book of the Year in 2014. It was also chosen as one of the New York Times Notable Books of the Year. Her second novel, Little Fires Everywhere, was even more successful. It won the Goodreads Choice Award for Fiction in 2017 and was named one of the best books of the Year by People Entertainment Weekly, and The Washington Post. The Hulu miniseries earned her several award nominations and helped her broaden her audience. She has also been recognized for pieces outside of her novels. Her short stories and essays have been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, and Huffington Post. One of her short stories from 2012, Girls at Play, received the annual American literary award, the Pushcart Prize. She is also very active on social media, especially Twitter, where she often speaks about racism, equality, and different voices in writing. She had said before regarding race, "There's this sense that whiteness is the default and does not need to be questioned. That you've got a race if you're black, or any kind of Asian, or any kind of Native American, but that you have no race if you are white." -Celeste Ng
Today, Celeste Ng lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her husband and their son. She continues to write and speak about important issues like race, identity, and freedom of expression. Even though she’s become very successful, she stays humble and focuses on creating stories. Celeste says she doesn’t write just for entertainment but to help people understand each other better.
Page updated
Report abuse