Chang-rae Lee is the author of Native Speaker, On Such a Full Sea, A Gesture Life, Aloft, and The Surrendered, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His latest novel, My Year Abroad, is a dazzling tale about an American college student whose life is upended when he travels to Asia under the wing of a mysterious Chinese American entrepreneur. From his home in San Francisco, where he’s on sabbatical from his position as a professor at Stanford, Chang-rae talks with Catherine and Juliana about overcoming the pressures of being “the first” well-known Korean American novelist, developing his early love of writing as a student at Exeter, and the way his mother’s early death from cancer at age 52 may have influenced his decision to pursue writing as a career. He also shares stories about his parents (we learn his mother was featured in Time magazine in 1956!) and his fond memories of the Korean church summer camp he attended as a kid.

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Co-host, Producer, Photographer: Juliana Sohn @juliana_sohn
Co-host, Producer, Editor: Catherine Hong @catherinehong100
Production Manager: Jessica Park
Audio Engineer: AJ Valente
Executive Producer: HJ Lee

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