Chang-Rae Lee
Chang-Rae Lee
Chang-rae Leeis a Korean American novelist and a professor of creative writing at Stanford University,. He was previously Professor of Creative Writing at Princeton and director of Princeton's Program in Creative Writing...
NationalitySouth Korean
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth29 July 1965
believe chemical guess
I write on a computer. On breaks, I'll make myself green tea. I don't want something too caffeinated. I guess I don't believe in chemical enhancement of my writing. Just slight, but nothing crazy.
decidedly fitzgerald proper tom unlike
Unlike F. Scott Fitzgerald and Tom Wolfe, I don't like proper dress while working. I like writing in pajama-like clothing, which eases and relaxes me and allows me to connect with the decidedly improper.
against good head leave left love nature street wall work
I didn't leave Wall Street because the work was against my nature - I do have a pretty good head for numbers. I left because I had this love for writing.
amount hard inordinate revising time
I have a hard time revising sentences, because I spend an inordinate amount of time on each sentence, and the sentence before it, and the sentence after it.
arrived came families followed rest year
We arrived the way most emigrant families did. My father came first, and the rest of us - my mother, my sister and me - followed a year later.
writing thinking historical-novels
Historical novels are about costumery. I think that's the magic and mystery of fiction. I don't want to write historical fiction but I do want the story to have the feel of history. There's a difference.
book years people
I assumed just from being around, all these years, that people would immediately glom on to, Well, it's a departure, and it's a dystopian kind of thing, and that's natural, of course. But it's surprised me - not even surprised me, but it's pleased me - how much people have been responding to the way the book was written.
writing issues trying
I try to be aware of what I'm concerned about, aware of how I feel about myself in the world, aware of how I feel about the issues of the day, but I guess I don't want to write essays in my head about my craft and maybe it's because I teach and talk about craft of other writers as a reader. I feel the moment I start doing that is when it's going to kill me.
brother war father
I'd always wanted to write something about the Korean War because of my heritage. My father lost his brother during the war, and I fictionalized that episode, which was told to me very briefly without much detail.
war struggle mean
I had a visceral connection to the period [of Korean War]. By visceral I suppose I mean emotional. But every fiction requires so much that is not that so I did a lot of other research and a lot of thinking, a lot of struggling there.
reading rivers details
I did a lot of reading of first person accounts from Koreans and combatants and aid workers. And I spoke to relatives. A lot of wonderful photographs were made available to me from that period - 1950-1956 - and those were given to me by a Korean newspaper in Seoul. Ruined villages, refugees streaming through a river valley, GI's and orphans and orphanages, those tiny details that you can only see in a picture.
thinking past voice
I think their pasts are treated with a voice that sees their role as those of innocents. That's reflected in the past time sequences. They're less "written."
mirrors trying interviews
I really try to forget. I only look at my old works if there's an interview and someone asks me about it. Otherwise, it's not even in the rearview mirror.
thinking preparation three
I think the action is ninety-three percent, and the consideration is peppered throughout but pretty short... Once I start it, I feel as though I don't want to look over my shoulder too much. I want to trust the preparations I've made.