Tom Lin

Tom Wentao Lin (born ) is an American novelist. His debut novel, The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu, a Western about a Chinese American outlaw, was published by Little, Brown and Company in 2021 and won the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction.

Early life and education Lin was born in Beijing, China, and moved to Flushing, Queens, New York City with his family when he was four. Media praised the story's subversion of the white-centric perspective of traditional westerns and its exploration of identity. The novel was awarded the 2022 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, making Lin the youngest Carnegie winner.

Lin's second novel, Babylon, South Dakota, was published by Little, Brown and Company on May 26, 2026. The novel blends the Western with Magical Realism and Science Fiction to tell the story of the Hsiu family, who inherit a farm in South Dakota, one acre of which is purchased by the US Army for use as a Nuclear missile silo.

Works