You are hereWriters At Work: Chang-rae Lee

Writers At Work: Chang-rae Lee

Start: 04/22/2010 6:30 pm

End: 04/22/2010 8:00 pm

Author: Chang-rae Lee is the author of three novels, Native Speaker, A Gesture Life, and Aloft. His new novel The Surrendered goes on sale March 9, 2010. Lee was born in South Korea and immigrated to the United States with his family when he was three. A graduate of Yale College, he is professor of creative writing in the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University.

What: Chang-rae Lee will discuss his new novel The Surrendered, his career, and answer audience questions. With his three critically acclaimed novels, Chang-rae Lee has established himself as one of the most talented writers of contemporary literary fiction. Now, with The Surrendered, Lee has created a book that amplifies everything we've seen in his previous works, and reads like nothing else. It is a brilliant, haunting, heartbreaking story about how love and war inalterably change the lives of those they touch.
June Han was only a girl when the Korean War left her orphaned; Hector Brennan was a young GI who fled the petty tragedies of his small town to serve his country. When the war ended, their lives collided at a Korean orphanage where they vied for the attentions of Sylvie Tanner, the beautiful yet deeply damaged missionary wife whose elusive love seemed to transform everything. Thirty years later and on the other side of the world, June and Hector are reunited in a plot that will force them to come to terms with the mysterious secrets of their past, and the shocking acts of love and violence that bind them together. As Lee unfurls the stunning story of June, Hector, and Sylvie, he weaves a profound meditation on the nature of heroism and sacrifice, the power of love, and the possibilities for mercy, salvation, and surrendering oneself to another. Combining the complex themes of identity and belonging of Native Speaker and A Gesture Life with the broad range, energy, and pure storytelling gifts of Aloft, Chang-rae Lee has delivered his most ambitious, exciting, and unforgettable work yet. It is a mesmerizing novel, elegantly suspenseful and deeply affecting.

This event is part of the Writers At Work speaker series organized by Kansas City novelist Whitney Terrell and co-sponsored by Chris Davis and the English Department at the University Of Missouri - Kansas City.

Where: Kansas City Public Library, Central Branch, Helzberg Auditorium, 14 W 10th Street, Kansas City, Missouri 64105

When: Thursday, April 22, 2010, 6:30 PM.

Admission: Complimentary and open to the public. Reservations requested, please call the Kansas City Public Library at (816) 701-3407.

Writers' books are available for purchase at events from Rainy Day Books.

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