Evelyn Yee-Fun Lau was born in Vancouver on July 2, 1971 to Chinese immigrants. Her parents were obsessive about their children, demanding constant top performance at school and expecting Lau to become a medical doctor. In 1983 she began publishing poems and short stories in magazines.
Early in 1986 she ran away from her unbearable family and school life. She became a drug abuser and prostitute in Vancouver and chronicling in her diary her life on the streets and her struggle as an emerging writer. The manuscript became a bestseller when it was published in 1989 under the title Runaway: Diary of a Street Kid, and was later turned into a made-for-television movie.
Fresh Girls & Other Stories published in 1993, established her as one of Canada's leading writers.
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