C Pam Zhang

C Pam Zhang (born 1990) is an American writer. Her debut novel, How Much of These Hills Is Gold, was released by Riverhead Books in 2020. It was a finalist for the 2021 Lambda Literary Award for Bisexual Fiction and longlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize. Zhang was named a 2020 "5 Under 35" Honoree by the National Book Foundation.

Early life and education Zhang was born in Beijing in 1990 and moved to the United States when she was four years old. While growing up, Zhang moved to ten new homes by the time she was eighteen.

She attended Brown University and studied at Cambridge University.

Zhang was a 2017 Truman Capote Fellow at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she received her Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing in 2019.

Career

How Much of These Hills Is Gold Zhang's debut novel, How Much of These Hills Is Gold, published in 2020, follows two recently orphaned children of immigrants on the run, trying not just to survive but to find a home. The novel is set against the twilight of the American gold rush. How Much of These Hills Is Gold is inspired by Zhang's childhood of moving homes often. It reckons with the grief she experienced after losing her father when she was twenty-two.

The San Francisco Chronicle wrote that Zhang's novel is a "a fully immersive epic drama packed with narrative riches and exquisitely crafted prose … . Zhang captures not only the mesmeric beauty and storied history of America's sacred landscape, but also the harsh sacrifices countless people were forced to make in hopes of laying claim to its bounty."

Zhang has been awarded support from Tin House, Bread Loaf, and Aspen Words. In 2020, Zhang was longlisted for the Booker Prize. The same year, Zhang was named a "5 Under 35" Honoree by the National Book Foundation.

Land of Milk and Honey Zhang's second novel, Land of Milk and Honey, published in 2023, is set in a near-future ecological crisis where a global smog has wiped out biodiversity and collapsed agriculture.

The protagonist, a 29-year-old unnamed Asian American chef, leaves collapsed England to work in a secluded elite research facility in the Italian Alps.

The mountain enclave, owned by a reclusive capitalist, is one of the few places where food still grows. It serves as both a biobank and a sanctuary for investors and scientists developing genetically engineered plants and animals. The chef is hired to prepare elaborate meals from rare and extinct ingredients for wealthy backers. Her culinary work is used to evoke emotion and secure financial support. It was longlisted for the 2024 Aspen Words Literary Prize and the 2024 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction.

Awards Year Work Award Category Result Ref 2020 How Much of These Hills Is Gold Booker Prize — California Book Award First Fiction (Gold) Center for Fiction First Novel Prize — Goodreads Choice Award Debut Novel Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature Adult Fiction Lambda Literary Award Bisexual Fiction National Book Critics Circle Award John Leonard Prize PEN/Hemingway Award — Young Lions Fiction Award — 2023 Land of Milk and Honey Goodreads Choice Awards Science Fiction 2024 Aspen Words Literary Prize — Audie Award Fiction Narrator BookTube Prize Fiction Carol Shields Prize for Fiction — "The Taste of Her Care" in EsquireJames Beard AwardPersonal Essay

Selected texts