The publication of Jean Kwok’s debut novel, Girl in Translation, is a literary event with a remarkable story about it. It is an affecting story of a girl who goes from a sweatshop to the Ivy League. Mirroring this novel’s tale is the real story of the author, who was born in Hong Kong, emigrated to Brooklyn with her family, worked in a Chinatown factory and managed to put herself through Harvard. She has been a teacher and translator in the Netherlands, a reader for the blind, a housekeeper, a ballroom dancer and a computer graphics specialist. Jean Kwok read at the Decatur Library on May 4, 2010.