CHANG-RAE LEE
Name: Chang-Rae Lee
Born: July 29, 1965
Chang-Rae Lee (born July 29, 1965) is a first-generation Korean American
novelist.
Lee was born in Korea in 1965. He emigrated to the United States with his family
when he was 3 years old. He was raised in Westchester, New York but attended
Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire. He graduated from Yale
University with a degree in English and from the University of Oregon with a MFA
in writing. He worked as a Wall Street financial analyst for a year before
turning to writing full time.
His first novel, Native Speaker (1995), won the PEN/Hemingway Award and centers
around a Korean American industrial spy.
In 1999, he published his second novel, A Gesture Life, which elaborated on his
themes of identity and assimilation through the narrative of an elderly
physician who remembers treating Korean comfort women during World War II. His
2004 novel Aloft received mixed notices from the critics and features Lee's
first protagonist who is not Asian American, but a disengaged and isolated
suburbanite forced to deal with his world.
He teaches writing at Princeton University, where he has served as the director
of Princeton's Program in Creative Writing, though he is currently taking a sabbatical
to serve as writer-in residence at Punahou School.
His upcoming novel is called 'The Surrendered'.
Name: Chang-Rae Lee
Born: July 29, 1965
Chang-Rae Lee (born July 29, 1965) is a first-generation Korean American
novelist.
Lee was born in Korea in 1965. He emigrated to the United States with his family
when he was 3 years old. He was raised in Westchester, New York but attended
Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire. He graduated from Yale
University with a degree in English and from the University of Oregon with a MFA
in writing. He worked as a Wall Street financial analyst for a year before
turning to writing full time.
His first novel, Native Speaker (1995), won the PEN/Hemingway Award and centers
around a Korean American industrial spy.
In 1999, he published his second novel, A Gesture Life, which elaborated on his
themes of identity and assimilation through the narrative of an elderly
physician who remembers treating Korean comfort women during World War II. His
2004 novel Aloft received mixed notices from the critics and features Lee's
first protagonist who is not Asian American, but a disengaged and isolated
suburbanite forced to deal with his world.
He teaches writing at Princeton University, where he has served as the director
of Princeton's Program in Creative Writing, though he is currently taking a sabbatical
to serve as writer-in residence at Punahou School.
His upcoming novel is called 'The Surrendered'.