Judy Fong Bates

Judy Fong Bates was born in China and came to Canada as a young child. She grew up in several small Ontario towns. She taught elementary school in Toronto and was active in the local storytelling community before devoting herself more fully to writing. Some of her stories have been broadcast on CBC radio. Bates now lives on a farm outside of Toronto.

Fiction (Short Stories)

China Dog and Other Tales From a Chinese Laundry

Toronto: Sister Vision, 1997.
New York: Counterpoint, 2002. [This edition has cover title: China Dogs and Other Stories From a Chinese Laundry]
PS8553 .A84 C45 2002

Publisher’s Synopsis (Sister Vision)

Set in small town Ontario, these vivid, richly textured, often wryly funny stories, bring together a host of Chinese immigrants, from the turn of the century to the present. Fong Bates’ dazzling assortment of characters will arouse, capture and delight. She is a storyteller confident in her authority and language.

Fiction

Midnight at the Dragon Café

Toronto: M&S, 2004.
PS8553 .A84 M44 2004

Publisher’s Synopsis

Set in a small Ontario town in the 1960s, [this] is the story of a young girl whose life is changed over the course of one summer when she learns the burden of secrets and, ultimately, something of forgiveness.
… Bates vividly captures a time and place and the complexities of a childhood divided by two cultures and touched by unspoken secrets and unfulfilled longings.

Awards and Honours

2005 Evergreen Award, Fiction — Ontario Library Association (Nominated)
2006 Alex Award — American Library Association (One of ten winners)
2006 ALA Notable Book for Adult Fiction
2011 Chosen for Toronto Public Library’s One Book Program

Anthology (Short story/Excerpt from work in progress)

Tok. Book 3

PS8237 .T6 T54 2008

Bates, Judy Fong. “If You Only Knew.” In Tok. Book 3, edited by Helen Walsh. Toronto: Zephyr Press, 2008, 71-79.

Non Fiction (Memoir)

The Year of Finding Memory: A Memoir

Toronto: Random House Canada, 2010
PS8553 .A827 Z478 2010

Publisher’s Synopsis (from its website)

An elegant and surprising book about a Chinese family’s difficult arrival in Canada, and a daughter’s search to understand remarkable and terrible truths about her parents’ past lives.