While she draws much of her inspiration from urban settings - Watts, Little Tokyo, Hollywood, the Crenshaw District, Glassell Park- Revoyr's work also explores the vastness and unpredictability of the natural world, its power and its restorative possibility. I hope to complicate and deepen what we think we know about people.' In reviewing 2011's 'Wingshooters,' Booklist spotlighted Revoyr's 'unique and affecting exploration of American racism.' Race, class, historical context, sexual orientation and politics all play an intrinsic part in Revoyr's fiction: 'Not because I'm trying to be politically correct but because that is the world as I know it.' In a 2014 APA interview she elaborated 'By virtue of who the characters are and the situations I put them in, I hope to compel readers to think about issues of race, community, love, family, the things we have in common, and the things that make us different. The novels reflect a complex, multi-ethnic and ever-evolving L.A., with an eye to the connections and tensions that develop in that proximity. Mostly rooted in Los Angeles, her work is as much about place as it is about people, the communities and inhabitants most often invisible both in fiction and within the city's margins. She published her first novel, The Necessary Hunger, in 1997. After attending Yale University, she taught English in Japan for two years before returning to the United States, where she took an MFA in creative writing at Cornell University. She is also executive vice president and chief operating officer of Children's Institute, Inc., which provides clinical, youth development, family support and early childhood services to children and families affected by trauma, violence and poverty in Central and South Los Angeles.īorn in Japan to a Japanese mother and a Polish American father, she grew up in Tokyo, Wisconsin, and Los Angeles.

Nina Revoyr (born June 12, 1969) is an American novelist and children's advocate, best known for her award-winning 2003 novel Southland.

Southland by nina revoyr