Adeline Yen Mah was born in Tianjin, China. She lived in Shanghai as a child and moved from shelter to shelter until settling down in a Hong Kong boarding school at age 11. At age 14, she won an international playwriting competition that convinced her emotionally distant father to allow her to study abroad. Although she had a passion for writing, she attended London Hospital Medical School, graduated as a physician, and established a thriving medical practice in California.
After the commercial success of her first novel, Falling Leaves, in 1997, Mrs. Yen Mah decided to leave her medical practice to write full-time. Chinese Cinderella was her second novel, receiving the award from the...
