Events

  Read the Washington Post review of The Surrendered.   See Michiko Kakutani's rave review in the New York Times. Chang-rae Lee's powerful new novel (released March 9) had its beginnings twenty years ago in questions he had about his father's Korean War experiences, something his father had never wanted to discuss.   But under prompting, the elder man finally opened up, describing the horrors he had seen and endured as a boy fleeing with his family southward ahead of the advancing North Korean army. Lee could never shake those images. Now they have inspired the opening pages of The Surrendered, a novel Publishers Weekly hails as "deeply felt, compulsively readable and imbued with moral gravity."   It is the fourth novel from 44-year-old Korean-born, American-raised Lee, whose first book, Native Speaker (1995), won the PEN/Hemingway Award for best first work of fiction. Though it begins in the chaotic opening days of the Korean War, The Surrendered expands outward over time and geography and becomes what Lee describes as "not so much a war novel as a story concerned with the effects of mass conflict on the human psyche and spirit, the private odysseys those who've experienced conflict must endure."   The story centers on the life of June Wan, who escapes the war and builds a business in New York, outlives a husband, and raises a son. But a mid-life quest for that now-missing son prompts a journey into the past and opens up the secrets she has nursed for three decades. The journey also involves a reunion with the man, Hector Brennan, who saved her life long ago. Novelist Junot Diaz says The Surrendered "looks to be Lee's epic masterpiece."   Born in Korea in 1965, Lee emigrated to the United States with his family when he was three. Raised in Westchester, N.Y., he graduated from Yale University and worked briefly as a Wall Street analyst before turning to writing full time. Native Speaker, about a Korean-American industrial spy, was followed by A Gesture Life (1999) and Aloft (2004). Lee's books have been named to "best books of the year" lists by The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Esquire, and other publications. In addition to the PEN/Hemingway, he has won the Asian-American Literary Award and the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Award. The New Yorker named him one of the twenty best writers under forty. He teaches creative writing at Princeton University and is widely considered the most important living Korean-American novelist.   His reading will be followed by a reception and book-signing in nearby Brochstein Pavilion. Brazos Bookstore will handle onsite book sales. Admission to the reading is free to Asia Society members, $5 for nonmembers. Click here to register. Directions to Herring Hall:  Take Entrance 18 off Rice Boulevard, park in West Lot 1. For campus map, visit link below. http://www.rice.edu/maps/maps.html   For more information, please call 713.439.0051 x17  or email fritzl@asiasociety.org