
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures
#154 of 3,809 books · #6 in General
Won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction (1997) and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Current Interest (1997).
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Current Interest, and the Salon Book Award. The book explores the clash between a small county hospital in California and a refugee family from Laos over the care of Lia Lee, a Hmong child diagnosed with severe epilepsy. Lia's parents and her doctors both wanted what was best for Lia, but the lack of understanding between them led to tragedy.
- Publisher
- Farrar, Straus and Giroux
- ISBN-13
- 9781429931113
- Genre
- Topics
Awards
Other awarded books from Anne Fadiman
Anne Fadiman has no other awarded or shortlisted books yet.
If you liked The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures, you could also like these

The Hungry Season: A Journey of War, Love, and Survival
Lisa M. Hamilton
0 wins · 2 score

Daughters of the Bamboo Grove: From China to America, a True Story of Abduction, Adoption, and Separated Twins
Barbara Demick
0 wins · 4 score

The Mind Electric: A Neurologist on the Strangeness and Wonder of Our Brains
Pria Anand
1 win · 5 score

What the Eyes Don’t See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City
Mona Hanna-Attisha
0 wins · 3 score

Lightning Flowers: My Journey to Uncover the Cost of Saving a Life
Katherine E. Standefer
0 wins · 3 score

A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, a History, a Memorial
Viet Thanh Nguyen
0 wins · 4 score

The Song Poet: A Memoir of My Father
Kao Kalia Yang
0 wins · 4 score

Tastes Like War: A Memoir
Grace M. Cho
0 wins · 4 score

Tragic Mountains: The Hmong, the Americans, and the Secret Wars for Laos, 1942-1992
Jane Hamilton-Merritt
0 wins · 3 score

Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning
Cathy Park Hong
1 win · 16 score

The Eaves of Heaven
Andrew X. Pham
0 wins · 4 score

Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir
Tessa Hulls
1 win · 15 score

The Spiral Staircase: My Climb Out of Darkness
Karen Armstrong
0 wins · 3 score

Whiskey Tender
Deborah Jackson Taffa
0 wins · 4 score

Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam
Frances FitzGerald
2 wins · 24 score