Lee Lai


Lee Lai is a transgender, Asian-Australian cartoonist who presently lives in Canada. In 2021, the National Book Foundation named them an honoree of their 5 Under 35 award for their debut graphic novel, Stone Fruit. The following year, Stone Fruit won the Lambda Literary Award for Graphic Novel/Comics, and was a finalist for the Barbara Gittings Literature Award and Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Graphic Novel/Comics.

Biography

Lai was born in 1993 in Melbourne and has a sister, with whom they are close. They presently live in Montreal.
Lai became interested in comics because of mild dyslexia, which made reading traditional novels difficult. Their short story comics have been published in The New Yorker, The Lifted Brow, Room Magazine, and Everyday Feminism.
Lai is transgender and homosexual.

Awards and honours

Publications

  • Stone Fruit
  • ''Cannon''

    Contributions

  • Heartwood: Non-binary Tales of Sylvan Fantasy, edited by Joamette Gil
  • McSweeney's #62: The Queer Fiction Issue, edited by Patrick Cottrell, Dave Eggers, and Claire Boyle

    Illustrations

  • A Head-Heart Start For Life: Creative Mindful Discoveries for Young Children, written by Janet Etty-Leal