Sky Lee (born September 15, 1952, as Sharon Lee) is a

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

artist An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating the work of art. The most common usage (in both everyday speech and academic discourse) refers to a practitioner in the visual arts o ...

and

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living wage, living writing novels and other fiction, while other ...

. Lee has published both feminist fiction and non-fiction and identifies as

lesbian A lesbian is a homosexual woman or girl. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate nouns with female homosexu ...

Personal life

Lee was born September 15, 1952, in Port Alberni, British Columbia. Her mother, Wong Mowe Oi, was a homemaker and her father, Lee Gwei Chang, was a millworker. Moving to

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

in 1967 to attend university, she received a

B.A. A Bachelor of Arts (abbreviated B.A., BA, A.B. or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is the holder of a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the liberal arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree ...

in Fine Arts at the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a Public university, public research university with campuses near University of British Columbia Vancouver, Vancouver and University of British Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna, in British Columbia, Canada ...

and a Diploma in Nursing from

Douglas College Douglas College is the largest college in British Columbia, Canada with 7,958 full-time equivalent students in 2023-24. Douglas College offers bachelor's degrees and general university arts and science courses, as well as career programs in h ...

. She became a member of the Asian Canadian Writers Workshop. Lee lives on

Saltspring Island Salt Spring Island or Saltspring Island is one of the Gulf Islands in the Strait of Georgia between mainland British Columbia, Canada, and Vancouver Island. The island was initially inhabited by various Salishan peoples before being settled ...

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

Career

Lee was first published as the illustrator of 1983's children's book, ''Teach Me to Fly, Skyfighter!'' by

Paul Yee Paul Yee (born 1 October 1956) is a Chinese-Canadian historian and writer. He is the author of many books for children, including ''Teach Me to Fly, Skyfighter'', ''The Curses of Third Uncle'', ''Dead Man's Gold'', and ''Ghost Train''—winner of ...

. The book is a collection of four stories exploring what it is like to grow up as a

Chinese Chinese may refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people identified with China, through nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **Han Chinese, East Asian ethnic group native to China. **'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic ...

in a community with links to both Asian-Canadian and Anglo-Canadian cultures. Reviewer Robert W. Bruinsma argued the book was "modestly illustrated." Lee's first book, ''Disappearing Moon Cafe'', published in 1990, explores the Wong family over four generations, as they operate the titled cafe. Nominated for the

Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize The Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, established in 1985 as one of the BC and Yukon Book Prizes, is awarded annually to the best work of fiction by a resident of British Columbia, Canada. The award is named after novelist and short story A short ...

and the

Governor General's Award The Governor General's Awards are a collection of annual awards presented by the governor general of Canada, recognizing distinction in numerous academic, artistic, and social fields. The first award was conceived and inaugurated in 1937 by the ...

, the novel won the City of Vancouver Book Award despite some critics charging that the writing was over-earnest. For example, critic Gary Draper wrote, "Hardly a noun walks free of a trail of adjectives." Critic John Z. Ming Chen has studied Lee's literary works exhaustively from a Daoist perspective in ''The Influence of Daoism on Asian-Canadian Writers'' (Mellen, 2008). ''Disappearing Moon Café'' was reissued in 2017 by NeWest Press with an afterword by Chris Lee and an interview with the author conducted by Smaro Kamboureli. Chris Lee comments: "SKY Lee's novel was a major intervention in contemporary Canadian literature, a bold attempt to account for the role of Chinese migrants in settler colonialism, a feminist interrogation of diaspora, family, and kinship, as well as a gesture towards queer futures." In the same year, Lee contributed to the collective prose, ''Telling It: Women and Language Across Culture.'' The book's writing is attributed to the "Telling It Book Collective", of which Lee was a member. The book explores issues of

racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one Race (human categorization), race or ethnicity over another. It may also me ...

and

homophobia Homophobia encompasses a range of negative attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who identify or are perceived as being lesbian, Gay men, gay or bisexual. It has been defined as contempt, prejudice, aversion, hatred, or ant ...

experienced by

native Native may refer to: People * '' Jus sanguinis'', nationality by blood * '' Jus soli'', nationality by location of birth * Indigenous peoples, peoples with a set of specific rights based on their historical ties to a particular territory ** Nat ...

and

Asian Canadian Asian Canadians are Canadians who were either born in or can trace their ancestry to the continent of Asia. Canadians with Asian ancestry comprise both the largest and fastest-growing group in Canada, after European Canadians, forming approximat ...

women. In 1994, Lee published ''Bellydancer: Stories'', a collection of 15 short stories that explore a range of

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

themes, with

allegories As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory throughou ...

focusing primarily on the "bellydancer," an

archetype The concept of an archetype ( ) appears in areas relating to behavior, historical psychology, philosophy and literary analysis. An archetype can be any of the following: # a statement, pattern of behavior, prototype, "first" form, or a main mo ...

of survival. The back cover of the book explains: "bellydancing was originally performed at the bedside of women in

labor Labour or labor may refer to: * Childbirth, the delivery of a baby * Labour (human activity), or work ** Manual labour, physical work ** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer ** Organized labour and the labour ...

, as an erotic dance of creation." Critical Studies: Dr. John Z. Ming Chen's monograph, The Influence of Daoism on Asian-Canadian Writers (2008), features an entire chapter on SKY Lee's two book-length works of fiction published so far. Her short stories have also appeared in ''Vancouver Short Stories'' as well as periodicals such as ''West Coast Line'',
The Asianadian
'', ''Kinethis'', and ''

Makara Makara () is a legendary sea-creature in Hindu mythology. In Hindu astrology, Makara is equivalent to the Zodiac sign Capricorn. Makara appears as the vahana (vehicle) of the river goddess Ganga, Narmada, and of the god of the ocean, Varun ...

''.

Bibliography

*'' Teach Me to Fly, Skyfighter!: And Other Stories'' (as illustrator, text by

) – 1983 *'' Disappearing Moon Cafe'' – 1990 *'' Telling It: Women and Language Across Cultures'' – 1990 (with Betsy Warland,

Lee Maracle Bobbi Lee Maracle (born Marguerite Aline Carter; July 2, 1950November 11, 2021) was an Indigenous Canadian writer and academic of the Stó꞉lō nation. Born in North Vancouver, British Columbia, she left formal education after grade 8 to tra ...

and

Daphne Marlatt Daphne Marlatt, CM ( Buckle, July 11, 1942), is a Canadian poet and novelist who lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. At a young age, her family moved to Malaysia and at age nine, they moved to British Columbia, where she later attended the Un ...

)

Press Gang Publishers Press Gang Publishing was a feminist printing and publishing collective active in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, between the early 1970s and 2002.Pike, Lois. "A Survey of Feminist Publishers and Periodicals in Canada" in ''Women and Words/L ...

*'' Bellydancer: Stories'' – 1994

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, Sky Canadian women novelists Canadian feminist writers Canadian lesbian writers People from Port Alberni Canadian writers of Asian descent Canadian illustrators Lesbian feminists Canadian women artists 1952 births Living people 20th-century Canadian novelists Canadian LGBTQ novelists Canadian women short story writers 20th-century Canadian women writers 20th-century Canadian short story writers Lesbian novelists 20th-century Canadian LGBTQ people Canadian lesbian artists Novelists from British Columbia