Lensey Namioka

Lensey Namioka ( or ; born June 14, 1929) is a Chinese-born American writer of books for young adults and children. She writes about China and Chinese American families, as well as Japan, her husband's native country.

Early life and education Lensey Chao attended Radcliffe College and the University of California, Berkeley, where her father was a professor of Asian Studies, to study mathematics. Here she met and married Isaac Namioka, a fellow graduate student who was born in Japan. Namioka ended up earning a bachelor's and a master's degree in math.

Origin of her first name Lensey Namioka is the only Chinese person to have the first name "Lensey". Her name has an especially unusual property: there are no Chinese characters corresponding to it. When Lensey's father was cataloging all of the syllables used in Chinese, he noted that there were two that were possible but not in use. These syllables could be written (in Gwoyeu Romatzyh) as and (Pinyin: , ). His third daughter was born soon after, so he named her "Lensey." is a compromise representation in characters using fanqie principles, and Fu Ssu-nien would give her the more convenient name , derived from the Book of Odes.

Awards and recognition Namioka has won many awards for her work. For instance, Ties that Bind, Ties that Break was named one of the American Library Association's 10 Best Books for Young People, and also won the California Young Reader Medal and the Washington State Governor's Writers Award.