The Leavers (National Book Award Finalist)

The Leavers is a powerful and moving novel that explores themes of social justice, identity, and belonging.

The story follows 11-year-old Deming Guo, an undocumented Chinese immigrant who goes missing and is eventually adopted by a pair of white professors.

Through the perspectives of both Deming and his mother Polly, Ko's novel gives us one of fiction's most singular mothers, loving and selfish, determined and frightened.

The book examines the complexities of borders and belonging in New York and China, and how a boy comes into his own when everything he loves is taken away.

A moving story of mistakes of the past and how a mother learns to live with them, this novel is required reading for anyone looking to understand a forgotten and essential part of the world we live in.