Native Speaker

by Lee, Chang-rae

• ISBN13: 9781573220019
• ISBN10: 1573220019
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1995-03-21
• Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover

Summary

In Native Speaker, author Chang-rae Lee introduces readers to Henry Park. Park has spent hisentire life trying to become a true American -- a native speaker. But even as the essenceof his adopted country continues to elude him, his Korean heritage seems to drift furtherand further away. Park's harsh Korean upbringing has taught him to hide his emotions, to remembereverything he learns, and most of all to feel an overwhelming sense of alienation. Inother words, it has shaped him as a natural spy. But the very attributes that help him to excel in his profession put a strain on hismarriage to his American wife and stand in the way of his coming to terms with hisyoung son's death. When he is assigned to spy on a rising Korean-American politician,his very identity is tested, and he must figure out who he is amid not only the conflictswithin himself but also within the ethnic and political tensions of the New York Citystreets. Native Speaker is a story of cultural alienation. It is about fathers andsons, about the desire to connect with the world rather than stand apart from it, aboutloyalty and betrayal, about the alien in all of us and who we finally are.

Author Biography

Chang-rae Lee is an assistant professor of creative writing the University of Oregon.