Musician, author, and director Michelle Zauner is best known as the frontwoman for her acclaimed indie pop band, Japanese Breakfast, and her bestselling memoir, Crying in H Mart. Named a TIME 100 Most Influential Person, Zauner speaks on loss, identity, and how food became a vital source of connection to her Korean heritage and her mother’s memory.

Michelle Zauner is the acclaimed author of the bestselling Crying in H Mart, an unflinching, powerful memoir about growing up Korean American, losing her mother, and forging her own identity. With humor and heart, Zauner describes her adolescence in Oregon, discovering her love of music, and her complex relationship with her mother—from struggling to meet her high expectations to bonding with her over plates of steaming food on trips to Seoul.

When Zauner was 25, her mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Zauner moved home to become her mother’s caretaker, embarking on a journey that would force a reckoning with her identity and eventually a reclamation of the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her. In her vivacious talks, Zauner shares her story of family, food, grief, and self-discovery, along with anecdotes from her childhood and career as a musical artist.

Crying in H Mart instantly rocketed to the New York Times bestseller list, where it has stayed for over a year. It was named one of the year’s best books by The New York Times, TIME, NPR, Washington Post, Vogue, Entertainment Weekly, Good Morning America, and more. President Obama also included Crying in H Mart among his “Favorite Books of the Year.”

In 2022, TIME named Michelle Zauner one of its “100 Most Influential People.” For the occasion, comedian Bowen Yang wrote, “While she intertwines the threads of her art into perfect plaits, she lets us find something in our own lives, a new strand with which to adorn ourselves. It doesn’t get better than that. Everybody wants to love her.”

Zauner initially launched to fame as the frontwoman for Japanese Breakfast, a Grammy-nominated indie pop band that has toured internationally and appeared on Saturday Night Live. They have released three studio albums: Psychopomp (2016), Soft Sounds from Another Planet (2017), and Jubilee (2021). In addition to writing, singing, and performing, Zauner has also directed many of Japanese Breakfast’s music videos.

Zauner is currently adapting Crying in H Mart into a feature film through Orion Pictures. When she is not on tour, she lives in Brooklyn, NY, with her husband, Japanese Breakfast guitarist Peter Bradley.