Marc Kuo

The work of award-winning journalist Suzanne Ma has appeared in numerous publications including the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg Businessweek, the Associated Press, Huffington Post, and Salon.

She has crisscrossed the globe, filing stories from cities across Europe, Canada, China, and the United States, where she was a reporter in New York City for the Associated Press and DNAinfo, a digital news start-up. A graduate of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, Ma was awarded the Pulitzer Traveling Fellowship, which helped fund her fieldwork in China for her first book, Meet Me in Venice: A Chinese Immigrant’s Journey from the Far East to the Faraway West.

Born in Toronto, Ma was raised by immigrant parents who insisted she attend Chinese school every Saturday morning. Her Chinese lessons continued in Beijing where studied abroad. His family’s hometown is also the hometown of the subject of Meet Me in Venice, and the town’s remarkable 300-year history of emigration inspired the book.

She lives in Vancouver, Canada.

Last Updated: May 7, 2015
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Excerpts

05.14.15

The Bar

Suzanne Ma
She had been working at the bar for less than a week when the skin on her hands started to peel. Little bits of skin, translucent and pink, flaked off like Parmesan cheese. Then the cracks appeared. Tiny fissures ruptured at the joints and split her...

Books

05.05.15

Meet Me in Venice

Suzanne Ma
When Ye Pei dreamed of Venice as a girl, she imagined a magical floating city of canals and gondola rides. And she imagined her mother, successful in her new life and eager to embrace the daughter she had never forgotten. But when Ye Pei arrives in Italy, she learns her mother works on a farm far from the city. Her only connection, a mean-spirited Chinese auntie, puts Ye Pei to work in a small-town café. Rather than giving up and returning to China, a determined Ye Pei takes on a grueling schedule, resolving to save enough money to provide her family with a better future.{node, 15611}A groundbreaking work of journalism, Meet Me in Venice provides a personal, intimate account of Chinese individuals in the very act of migration. Suzanne Ma spent years in China and Europe to understand why Chinese people choose to immigrate to nations where they endure hardship, suspicion, manual labor, and separation from their loved ones. Today, all eyes are on China and its explosive economic growth. With the rise of the Chinese middle class, Chinese communities around the world are growing in size and prosperity, a development many westerners find unsettling and even threatening. Following Ye Pei’s undaunted path, this inspiring book is an engrossing read for those eager to understand contemporary China and the enormous impact of Chinese emigrants around the world. —Rowman & Littlefield{chop}