Chang-rae Lee

Chang-Rae Lee was born in Seoul, South Korea, in 1965, but his family emigrated to the United States when he was three years old. He grew up in Westchester County in New York, where his father opened a psychiatric practice. When he was a teenager, he attended Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire, obtaining a prestigious education that eventually led him to Yale University to study English literature. He graduated in 1987 and went on to work very briefly as an analyst on Wall Street before attending graduate school at the University of Oregon. His first novel, Native Speaker, served as the thesis for his Master of Fine Arts degree and was published in 1995, ultimately winning him the PEN/Hemingway Award for best first novel. He has since gone on to win many other literary awards, and his 2010 novel, The Surrendered, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction. He has also taught creative writing at widely respected institutions like Princeton University and Stanford University.