Kathy Wang

Kathy Wang is an Asian-American author of Fanily Trust (2018) and Impostor Syndrome (2021). The setting of her novels takes place in Silicon Valley, where she lived and worked almost her entire life.

Kathy Wang grew up in Northern California. She is a graduate of UC Berkeley and Harvard Business School.

In her debut novel, Family Trust, the story revolves around the Huang family, whose lives are thrown into upheaval by the cancer diagnosis of their patriarch, Stanley Huang. The setting is the ever-changing landscape of Silicon Valley, marked by ambition, gentrification, and cultural shifts.

The narrative alternates between the perspectives of different family members. There's Kate, a daughter who supports her family while her husband focuses on his start-up; Fred, a son with a Harvard MBA stuck in a frustrating salary range; and Linda, who is re-entering the dating scene after divorcing Stanley.

While awaiting an inheritance, their desire reflects both the pursuit of wealth and the search for domestic happiness — values that are often misrepresented in the American context.

Her second, Impostor Syndrome, is the page-turner spy thriller. Wang follows two protagonists: Julia is a plant sent over from Moscow to rise through the ranks of the tech industry, eventually landing in one of the top spots at Tangerine (a fictional riff on Google); Alice is a first-generation Chinese American whose low-level Tangerine salary barely covers her Silicon Valley rent. While delving into a security glitch, Alice stumbles upon a hint of Julia's potentially shady associations.

Kathy Wang lives in The San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and two children.

Photo credit: www.bykathywang.com