Lisa Ko's novel The Leavers, a finalist for the 2017 National Book Award, tells the story of a mother who vanishes and leaves an 11-year-old boy to build a life in the US with an adopted family. Ko’s timely and engrossing work crossed over into public debates around immigration policy in the past year. “There was a time I would have called Lisa Ko's novel beautifully written, ambitious and moving,” Ann Patchett has said, “and all of that is true, but it's more than that now: if you want to understand a forgotten and essential part of the world we live in, The Leavers is required reading.” The book also won the 2016 PEN/Bellwether Award for Socially Engaged Fiction, a prize awarded by Barbara Kingsolver for a novel that addresses issues of social justice.