Ilyon Woo

Ilyon Woo is a Korean American author. She won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Biography.^[1]

Ilyon Woo
Alma mater	Yale University Columbia University
Occupation	Non-fiction writer, writer
Awards	Pulitzer Prize for Biography (2024)
Website	ilyonwoo.com

Education

Woo attended the public elementary school King Open School in Cambridge, Massachusetts alongside Imani Perry.^[2] She graduated with a BA in the Humanities from Yale College in 1994.^[3][4][5] She received her PhD in English from Columbia University in 2004.^[6][4][5]

Career

In 2010, Woo published The Great Divorce: A Nineteenth-Century Mother's Extraordinary Fight Against Her Husband, the Shakers, and Her Times, which takes place in the 19th century and focuses on Eunice Chapman.^[7]

Her 2023 book Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom, a history of the escape of Ellen and William Craft from slavery, was named one of the 10 Best Books of 2023 by The New York Times,^[8] one of the 100 must-read books of 2023 by Time,^[9] and won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Biography.^[1]

Woo was also a featured author at the 2024 Exeter Literature Festival^[10] and 2024 Newburyport Literary Festival.^[11]

Books

• The Great Divorce: A Nineteenth-Century Mother's Extraordinary Fight Against Her Husband, the Shakers, and Her Times. Atlantic Monthly Press, 2010.^[12]

• Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom. 37 INK, 2023.^[13][14]