Julie Wu

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Julie Wu (born April 2, 1967) is a Taiwanese-American novelist and physician. She wrote The Third Son, published in 2013 by Algonquin Books.

Wu grew up in a Taiwanese-American family and studied at Harvard University, where she earned magna cum laude with a BA in literature. She then earned an MD from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. She practiced internal medicine as a primary care physician before leaving medicine to focus on writing and her children.

She has received a 2012 Massachusetts Cultural Council fellowship and a writing grant from the Vermont Studio Center.

The Third Son follows a boy named Saburo and is set in the 1950s in occupied Taiwan and in America at the dawn of the space age. The book earned praise from The Boston Globe, O, The Oprah Magazine, Kirkus Reviews, The Christian Science Monitor, Shelf Awareness, and others.

While researching Taiwan’s political history and the 2/28 incident, Wu wanted to tell the story of Taiwanese history to American readers. The novel began with her wish to write the “Great American Novel” but became a way to give a voice to Taiwan’s history—partly inspired by her parents’ story, though fictionalized for a broader audience.