Evelyn Lau is a Canadian poet and novelist. Lau was born in Vancouver, British Columbia on July 2, 1971 to Chinese-Canadian parents from Hong Kong, who intended for her to become a doctor. Her parents' ambitions for her were wholly irreconcilable with her own; consequently, her home and school lives were desperately unhappy. Lau attended Templeton Secondary School in Vancouver. In 1986 Lau ran away from her unbearable existence as a social outcast and pariah in school and a tyrannized daughter at home.
