XiXi Tian was born in China and immigrated to the United States when she was a year old. She grew up in central Illinois, graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a degree in history and Harvard Law School. She is a writer, lawyer, avid reader, and lifelong Midwesterner no matter where she lives. She loves to read and write about the Asian-American experience, heartbreak, and complicated family dynamics.
Her first novel, THIS PLACE IS STILL BEAUTIFUL, is about two Chinese-American sisters who find themselves at odds with each other about how to respond to a racist attack against their home, all while one of them harbors an explosive secret.
Her second novel, ALL THE WAY AROUND THE SUN, will also feature a Chinese-American protagonist trying to survive a college roadtrip with her childhood rival, while figuring out how to pick up the pieces from a recent tragedy that has rendered her family unable to move on. It comes out in 2026.
