Chang-rae Lee was born on July 29, 1965 in Seoul, South Korea. He is a professor of
creative writing and the author of novels, articles and screenplays. He has
written at least six books.
Native Speaker was published in 1995 and won the 1996 Hemingway
Foundation/PEN Award (which each year gives $25,000 to the author
of "a full-length novel or book of short stories by an American author who has not
previously published a full-length book of fiction"). The book tells the story of
Henry Park, who lives in the United States but still remembers his Korean
upbringing. It brings up issues of a troubled marriage, politics, and industrial espionage.
Amazon characterizes it as "a story of cultural alienation. It is about fathers and sons,
about the desire to connect with the world rather than stand apart from it, about
loyalty and betrayal, about the alien in all of us and who we finally are."