Esther Lin

Esther Lin is a Brazil–born poet of Chinese descent. Her debut poetry collection, Cold Thief Place, won the 2023 Alice James Award, was published by Alice James Books in 2025, and was longlisted for the 2025 National Book Award for Poetry.

Early life Lin was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; her parents had defected from China. She and her family later moved to the United States, where she lived as an undocumented immigrant for 21 years. At age 27, she received her green card and later became an American citizen. In The Rumpus, Asa Drake wrote that "Esther Lin's Cold Thief Place is a testament to this kind of liberation through art—the ability to find oneself reflected in the canon and to, in turn, offer that visibility to others." Christopher Kempf, in the Los Angeles Review of Books, lauded Lin's clean, spare style, as well as her ability to sharply observe the undocumented immigrant experience.