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
writing thinking people
I think that's great - I just try not to be one of those people. I find the more I think about it, the less free I feel when I write and when I work.
teacher people trying
One of the things my friends would tell you is that I hang out with a lot of non-writers - just regular people like bankers and teachers, and I actually try to steer our talk away from my work when I get together with them.
writing people culture
Before I had published anything, I still hung out with people who liked to write. None of us had published, so there was no talk about the business, and there was probably a lot more angsty talk back then. But these days maybe there are some more laments about the culture, but I would say no.
people needs back-and-forth
It's not that I don't enjoy other people, but what I find with writers is this back and forth. And also, there's no need to talk about work.
book writing people
We can skip through a lot of the stuff people might ask about the writing of the book, and so their comments always start well, well down into the nitty-gritty.
real struggle people
I wanted to present a sweep and scope of larger events, and a grander backdrop, but most important was to set against that a very singular, real and modest people struggling with every day and human struggles.
betrayal people survival
There is secrecy and betrayal but that's more part and parcel of the kind of anguish that the people go through. And maybe that's modes of survival, rather than modes of consciousness.
character people personality
Like most people, Im fascinated by characters who are completely flawed personalities, riven by anguish and doubt, and are psychologically suspect.
thinking race people
Most people dont think about race as much as I do. They dont have to.
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.
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.
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."