Join us as we listen to author Kwan Kew Lai talk about her latest book The Girl Who Taught Herself to Fly, followed by a Q&A session and book signing. Books will be available for purchase ($18 - cash, check, PayPal, Venmo).

About the author:

Originally from Penang, Malaysia, Kwan Kew Lai attended Wellesley College on a full scholarship, paving the way for her to become a doctor. In 2005, she left her position as a professor of medicine to dedicate time to humanitarian work: in HIV/AIDS in Africa and to provide disaster relief all over the world, during wars, famine, and natural disasters, including the Ebola outbreak, the Syrian, Rohingya refugee crises Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, Yemen, and the COVID-19 pandemic in New York and the Navajo Nation. She is a three-time recipient of the President’s Volunteer Service Award, the Distinguished Alumna Award of Wellesley College, and the Distinguished Alumni Service Award of Chicago Medical School.

Kwan Kew Lai met her first Punjabi woman doctor while lying in a hospital bed with a severe kidney infection at the age of fourteen. Watching the woman walk away down the hall, Kwan Kew was convinced she could, and would, carve out her own destiny. In the British Straits Settlement of Penang Island, she was born into an impoverished Chinese family of two boys and ten girls on the cusp of the Japanese occupation during World War Two. She did not wish to repeat the life of her uneducated mother, burdened with an endless brood, nor tolerate the fact that her father considered girls useless since they could not carry on their family name.  The newly independent country of Malaya developed a national policy favoring one racial group, the Bumiputras, vastly diminishing her chance of receiving a university scholarship. Her fortuitous introduction to a free library and her determination to continue her education, led to the opportunity of a lifetime: a scholarship from Wellesley College. When her father saw her off at the Penang International Airport as the first child to attend college, she proved herself to him, but more importantly she started the journey of a lifetime fulfilling dreams that originated as a young girl playing in the mud with the chickens. In The Girl Who Taught Herself to Fly, the author weaves in her family’s story of joy, sorrow, loss, love, and endless struggles with poverty and hunger. This poignant memoir, with universal and timeless themes, will leave you in awe.

Other books by the Author:
Lest We Forget: A Doctor’s Experience with Life and Death During the Ebola Outbreak
Into Africa, Out of Academia: A Doctor’s Memoir