Paul Yee is a Canadian who specialises in writing historical fiction about the plight of Chinese people in his home country.
Born in Saskatchewan in 1956, he began writing about 20 years ago when a publisher recruited him to pen a children's book about young people living in Vancouver's Chinatown.
Yee had grown up in Chinatown and was doing volunteer work there and, as he had already had a short story published in a magazine, he thought: 'Sure, why not? Even if I can't do it, it won't be embarrassing.'
The result was Teach me how to fly Sky Fighter. Since then he has written another 11 books, with more than 100,000 copies sold.
Some of his titles have won accolades, including the Governor-General's Literary Award in 1966 for his favourite book, Ghost Train. That book was illustrated by Harvey Chan, who was born in Hong Kong.
The story follows the fortunes of a girl born with only one arm and how she deals with the difficulties resulting from this handicap.
Choon-yi is left behind in China when her father goes off to North America to find work and survives by selling paintings in the market. He writes and invites her to join him, but things don't go according to plan.