The universally acclaimed debut novel from a powerful new voice in literary fiction.

At birth, Peter Huang is given the Chinese name juan chaun, meaning powerful king. He is the exalted only son in a family of daughters; the one who will finally fulfill his father's dreams of western masculinity. But Peter has different dreams: he knows that he is a girl.

Peter and his sisters-the elegant Adele, the shrewd Helen, and Bonnie, the bon vivant-grow up in a house of many secrets, then escape the confines of small-town Ontario and spread from Montreal to California to Berlin. Peter's own journey is obstructed by playground bullies, masochistic lovers, Christian ex-gays and the ever-present shadow of his father.

Sensitive, witty and stunningly assured, Kim Fu's debut novel is a coming-of-age tale like no other and marks the emergence of an astonishing new Canadian literary voice. Both lyrical and steely-eyed, For Today I Am a Boy shows us an unforgettable struggle: that of a woman in the body of a Chinese Canadian man.

KIM FU is a graduate of The University of British Columbia’s MFA program in creative writing. She has written poetry, essays and long-form journalism for NPR, the National Post, Ms. Magazine, Maisonneuve, The Tyee, The Rumpus, Vancouver Magazine, Grain Magazine, Room and The New Quarterly, among others. Her work has been anthologized in Best Canadian Essays and nominated for three National Magazine Awards. For Today I Am A Boy, her debut novel, was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. Kim is the news columns editor for This, a magazine of progressive politics now in its 47th year.

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