Runaway
A BESTSELLING MEMOIR, RUNAWAY IS A STORY OF SURVIVAL: PHYSICAL, EMOTIONAL, AND PSYCHOLOGICAL. IT IS AT TIMES TRAGIC, SOMETIMES INFURIATING, BUT ALWAYS HONEST AND INSPIRED. MAKING NO APOLOGIES AND OFFERING NO SOLUTIONS, IT IS A VIVID AND DISTURBING PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG GIRL'S LIFE ON THE STREET
Diary of a Street Kid
by Evelyn Lau
Frustrated and discouraged by her parents, who forbade her to “waste” valuable study time writing, Evelyn ran away at the age of fourteen. Seduced by the freedom and independence that life on the streets of Vancouver seemed to offer, she was soon trapped in a downward spiral of drug addiction and prostitution. During her two harrowing years on the street, Lau’s writing ambition never left her; almost obsessively, she kept a written record of her days on the street. This record is Runaway: Diary of a Street Kid.
Tragic, sometimes infuriating, but always honest and inspired, Runaway makes no apologies, passes no judgments, and offers no trite moral-of-the-story solutions. The result is a raw and vivid portrait of the life of a street kid.
PRAISE FOR RUNAWAY: DIARY OF A STREET KID
“…perhaps the most powerful and searing portrayal of street life in this country ever to emerge.” — WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
“…a compelling and unsettling journey into the mind of a teenage girl.” — THE GLOBE AND MAIL
“n the world of elements, Lau is fire…In her writing the heat is unrelenting.” — THE VANCOUVER SUN
“Lau is a writer of tremendous power. Runaway tells a gripping story, and its revelations about the workings of an adolescent’s mind are much more illuminating than a whole shelf of how-to-parent books.” — BOOKS IN CANADA
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295 pages paperback
Finished books available
RIGHTS SOLD
Canada: HarperCollins, 1989
Germany: Goldmann, 1993
China: International Village Book Store, 1994
Hungary: Knokret Konyvek, 1995
Poland: Zysk i S-kaWydawnictwo, 1996
Italy: Marco Tropea Editore, 1996
UK: Reed Consumer Books
France: Les Quinze
Bulgaria: Atika Publishers
Sweden: Wahlstrom & Widstrand
Japan: Pandora Co.
Brasil: Editora Scipione, 1997
Korea: Minumsa, December 2008
Netherlands: H.J.W. Becht, 1999
ABOUT EVELYN LAU
(Photo: Lorne Bridgman)
Evelyn Lau has written seven books, including the bestselling short-story collection Choose Me. Her first book, Runaway: Diary of a Street Kid, was published in 1989 when she was eighteen; it became a Canadian bestseller and was published internationally. In 1992, Lau became the youngest poet ever to be nominated for the Governor General's Award, and in 1999, she received a Woman of Originality Award. Evelyn Lau lives and works in Vancouver.
At the age of six, Evelyn Lau already knew what she wanted from life—to be a writer.