Mai Der Vang

Mai Der Vang is a Hmong American poet.

Life and education
Vang was born in Fresno, California. Vang's parents resettled in the United States in 1981 as Hmong refugees fleeing Laos.

She graduated from University of California, Berkeley with a degree in English, and from Columbia University with an MFA in Creative Writing-Poetry.

Her book, Afterland, won the 2016 Walt Whitman Award selected by Carolyn Forche. Afterland was longlisted for the National Book Award for Poetry in 2017, as well as a finalist for the 2018 Kate Tufts Discovery Award.

Vang is a "finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry."

Works

 * Afterland: poems Minneapolis, Minnesota: Graywolf Press, 2017. ISBN 9781555977702,    *
 * Yellow Rain: Poems

Awards and honors

 * Walt Whitman Award, 2016.
 * National Book Award Finalist, 2017.
 * Lannan Literary Fellowship, 2017.
 * Kate Tufts Discovery Award finalist for Afterland (2018).