Famed author Chang-rae Lee is out with yet another stunning novel, The Surrendered. In our Summer Issue, out now, Audrey book reviewer Susan Soon He Stanton reviews the work and talks to Lee about his father, the Korean War and The Iliad.
They Could Be Heroes by Susan Soon He Stanton
Reviewer Susan Soon He Stanton says Chang-rae Lee’s The Surrendered is an engrossing tale of the effects of war.
Author Chang-rae Lee.
Chang-rae Lee opens his fourth novel with the words “the journey was nearly over.” A curiously misleading start to an epic tale which moves from 1934 Manchuria, the aftermath of the Korean War, and New York in the 1980s. Lee spent nearly six years crafting The Surrendered and his uncanny gift of describing the war-ravaged countryside of Korea can make the reader forget Lee himself is not a war survivor. Inspired by a memory of his father’s, Lee turns his attention to the aftermath of the war, creating characters that are profoundly shaped by acts of shocking violence and loss. The result is a haunting story of endurance: survival at a cost.
Find out more about The Surrendered and Chang-rae Lee’s own insight into his latest work of art in our Summer Issue, available here.
