It’s been almost 10 years since former Austin Mayor Bonnie Rietz formed the Austin Page Turners, a group dedicated to promoting reading and welfare in Austin.

This year, the Page Turners is sponsoring Kao Kalia Yang’s “The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir,” as the Minnesota author to read. Yang will be in Austin April 28 to have lunch and give a public lecture.

“This year, our goal was to have an emerging author,” Rietz said. “She really is pretty amazing.”

Yang was born in a refugee camp in Thailand, moving to Minnesota with her family at age 7. Her book won the 2009 Minnesota Book Awards for a memoir/creative non-fiction and reader’s choice, the first time a book has one two awards in the same year.

“Her style is very clear, very straightforward,” said Terry Dilley, a member of the Page Turners.

Copies of “The Latehomecomer” are available at Philomathian Religious Books in downtown Austin and 40 copies are currently at Austin Public Library.