Lang Leav

Lang Leav (born September 8, 1980) is an Australian novelist and poet.

Early life

Leav was born at a refugee camp in Thailand where her parents were seeking refuge from the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia.

She is the youngest of three siblings. In 1981, her family migrated to Australia.

Leav's interest in literature started at a young age. She would transcribe her poetry into books she made by hand, which she then passed around to her peers at school.

Education Leav attended the College of Fine Arts in Sydney. The refugee community she belonged to was critical of her decision as the field was perceived as financially unstable and therefore impractical. Nevertheless, Leav persisted. Her undergraduate thesis in college, titled "Cosplaying Lolita" granted her a Churchill Fellowship Award. The book was a surprise hit and caught the attention of literary agents in New York. Leav signed with New York Agency, Writers House before she was offered a publishing deal with Andrews McMeel. Newsweek credits Leav for popularizing poetry.

Leav subsequently published another five poetry titles: Memories (2015) The Universe of Us, (2017) Sea of Strangers (2018) and Love Looks Pretty on You (2018), all of which were nominated for the Goodreads Choice Award for Poetry have been international bestsellers. Her debut YA novel Sad Girls reached #1 on the Straits Times Bestseller chart for fiction and drew mixed reviews. Bustle wrote, "Sad Girls will have you reaching for the tissues; this YA debut is incredibly powerful." The New Straits Times and The Star (Malaysia) criticized the novel for its lack of depth and character development.

Leav's second YA novel, Poemsia, was also a Straits Times Bestseller and drew mainly positive reviews, with Marie Claire stating: 'Leav writes masterfully from the perspective of her protagonist, an aspiring poet, and gives readers a backstage glimpse into the new-wave poetry movement.'

Readings stated, "The writing is not as lyrical as one would have hoped from a poet, but the characters are well defined."

Leav's college degree equipped her with the technical skills to illustrate several of her books, including Love & Misadventure, Lullabies, Memories and The Universe of Us. Auckland Writers Festival and was a headliner at the Mass Poetry Festival in Boston, Massachusetts.

In 2019, Penguin Random House secured the audio rights to Leav's novel Poemsia in addition to her poetry titles, including The Universe of Us, Sea of Strangers and Love Looks Pretty on You.

The foreword for Leav's poetry book September Love is written by Lili Reinhart.

Leav's debut in literary fiction, Others Were Emeralds, was sold to Harper Perennial in a pre-empt, and international rights were secured at auction by Penguin Random House, Australia. Others Were Emeralds, based on Leav's immigrant roots, has been praised by critics, with Publishers Weekly describing it as "A heartrending novel." Booklist wrote, "Leav's coming-of-age debut is poetic and lyrical, her prose rich in beautiful imagery."

Literary critic Sonia Nair from Books & Publishing wrote: "Others Were Emeralds is rich with lush descriptions and an unmistakable sense of place...there's a beautiful specificity in Leav's evocation of life as a second-generation Cambodian-Australian."

Leav's sophomore novel, I Know the Ants, (Harper Perennial) a literary mystery set in her hometown of Cabramatta, received a starred review from Booklist, with the ALA publication praising Leav's emotional poetic prose and handling of complicated adult women's relationships, describing the book as a "beautiful coming-of-age story wrapped inside a literary mystery."

Lucy Yu from Yu & Me Books selected I Know the Ants as part of her curated list of The Most Anticipated Books by Women of Color for Summer and Fall 2026 for Electric Literature Magazine, stating, "Leav does not shy away from the complications of long-term female friendships."

Bestselling Author, Shelley Burr writes, “I Know the Ants is an amazing book – both an immersive and satisfying puzzle, and a genuinely impressive thriller.”​

Style and inspiration

Leav's fiction is described by Booklist as dreamlike and unsettling, capturing adolescent girlhood and friendship with incredible specificity.

Leav's poetry is described by the New York Times as frank poems about love, sex, heartache and betrayal.

She writes mainly in rhyme, verse and prose poetry. The tone of her work is confessional.

Leav considers Emily Dickinson as an inspiration. She admires Dickinson's ability to convey intense emotion in short and compact poems. She also cites Robert Frost as an influence, for his use of colloquial language. The re-occurring themes of nature, love, death and time in Frost's poems often appear in Leav's own work.

Maryanne Moll, an award-winning Filipino fictionist and a literary criticism student, said Lang's poems are her way of exercising the trauma she inherited from her mother.

Criticism

Leav is occasionally attributed to the Instapoetry movement, which has been panned by the literary establishment as being derivative.

Whether Leav's work falls into this genre has been a subject of contention. Journalist Laura Grainger from Hot Press wrote, "But if you compare Lang's work to many of her contemporaries, you'll notice she writes somewhat less like them and more in line with the work of classical poets."