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Experience great American novels through reviews, interviews, images and other rich media.
Native Speaker book cover
Lee's first novel, NATIVE SPEAKER, was published by Penguin Putnam Inc., in 1995.
NATIVE SPEAKER
By Chang-rae Lee

Before she leaves at the beginning of the novel, Lelia, Henry Park's wife, gives him a list of words that define him.

You are surreptitious
B+ student of life
first thing hummer of Wagner and Strauss
illegal alien
emotional alien
genre bug
Yellow peril: neo-American
great in bed
overrated
poppa's boy
sentimentalist
anti-romantic
____ analyst (you fill in)
stranger
follower
traitor
spy
article
THE NEW YORK TIMES article, "American Dream, No Illusions," discusses developments in contemporary immigrant literature. more
article
Elements of the detective novel inform NATIVE SPEAKER, and other Korean American writers have found inspiration in the genre. more
interview
Chang-rae Lee
image newspaper
President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Immigration Act, 1965 Image of Korean-Americans in front of a building with Korean and American flags
The American Novel