English Professor Da Zheng ’s book Chiang Yee: The Silent Traveller from the East won the Chinese American Librarians Association's "CALA 2010 Best Book" award in the adult fiction and non-fiction category.

The book tells the true story of Chiang Yee, who arrived in England in the 1930s knowing only a few words of English. Two years later he wrote a successful English book on Chinese art and went on to publish more than a dozen others, the most popular of which were those in the Silent Traveller series—illustrated stories of England, the United States, Ireland, France, Japan and Australia.

Da Zheng’s biography is a recounting of artist and writer Chiang Yee’s extraordinary accomplishments as well as his transnational experience. The book uncovers Chiang’s encounters with racial exclusion and immigration laws, displacement, exile, and the pain and losses he endured while maintaining a popular public image.

The Adams Gallery showed an exhibit of Chiang Yee’s work in connection with the book’s release in 2010.