An Na writes young-adult fiction about migration, family, identity, memory, and mental health. Born in Korea and raised in California, she transformed emotionally resonant childhood fragments into the vignette-structured A Step from Heaven, winner of the 2002 Michael L. Printz Award.
A Time Best YA Book of All Time (2021) From master storyteller An Na comes the Printz Award–winning novel about a Korean girl who tells her firsthand account of trying to find her place and identity in America from the day she leaves Korea as a child to her rocky journey through the teenage years. At age four, Young Ju moves with her parents from Korea to Southern California. She has always imagined America would be like heaven: easy, blissful, and full of riches. But when her family arrives, she finds it to be the opposite. With a stubborn language barrier and cultural dissimilarities, not only is it impossible to make friends, but even her family’s internal bonds are wavering. Her parents’ finances are strained, yet her father’s stomach is full of booze. As Young Ju’s once solid and reliable family starts tearing apart, her younger brother begins to gain more freedom and respect simply because of his gender. Young Ju begins to lose all hope in the dream she once held—the heaven she longs for. Even as she begins to finally fit in, a cataclysmic family event will change her idea of heaven forever. But it also helps her to recognize the strength she holds, and envision the future she desires, and deserves.
Print · 2001 · English
eBook · Simon and Schuster · 2016 · English
More About An Na
An Na was born in Korea and grew up in San Diego. She first worked as a middle-school English and history teacher, and a college course in children's literature helped her imagine writing as a life. At Vermont College, she developed short pieces drawn from emotional memories of migration and childhood; those pieces became A Step from Heaven.
Na distinguishes the novel from autobiography even as she acknowledges shared feelings and remembered moments. Her interviews describe the pressure of moving between a traditional Korean household and predominantly white schools, and the importance of books as guides to American customs that her parents could not explain.
Across later work, Na continues to use compressed, nonlinear forms for difficult interior experience. The Place Between Breaths emerged from family grief and research into schizophrenia; she described building the book around a recurring train image and writing toward greater understanding of mental illness and its stigma.
A Step from Heaven won the 2002 Michael L. Printz Award. The American Library Association identifies An Na as the winner, and the author's official awards page records the same award.
