Native Speaker Paperback - 1996
by Chang-rae Lee
- Used
- Good
- Paperback
Henry Park has spent his entire life trying to become a true American--a native speaker. But even as the essence of his adopted country continues to elude him, his Korean heritage and language seem to drift further and further away, and Henry fears that in becoming a man of two worlds, he has betrayed both--and belongs to neither. "A searing portrait of the immigrant experience".--Vanity Fair.
Description
Details
- Title Native Speaker
- Author Chang-rae Lee
- Binding Paperback
- Edition [ Edition: First
- Condition Used - Good
- Pages 376
- Volumes 1
- Language ENG
- Publisher Penguin Publishing Group, New York, New York, U.S.A.
- Date 1996
- Bookseller's Inventory # G1573225312I3N00
- ISBN 9781573225311 / 1573225312
- Weight 0.73 lbs (0.33 kg)
- Dimensions 8.01 x 5.13 x 0.89 in (20.35 x 13.03 x 2.26 cm)
- Ages 18 to UP years
- Grade levels 13 - UP
-
Themes
- Cultural Region: Mid-Atlantic
- Cultural Region: Northeast U.S.
- Ethnic Orientation: Asian - General
- Ethnic Orientation: Asian - Korean
- Geographic Orientation: New York
- Locality: New York, N.Y.
- Library of Congress subjects New York (N.Y.), Spy stories
- Library of Congress Catalog Number 94032241
- Dewey Decimal Code FIC
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Summary
The debut novel from critically-acclaimed and New York Times–bestselling author Chang-rae Lee.
In Native Speaker, author Chang-rae Lee introduces readers to Henry Park. Park has spent his entire life trying to become a true American—a native speaker. But even as the essence of his adopted country continues to elude him, his Korean heritage seems to drift further and further away.
Park's harsh Korean upbringing has taught him to hide his emotions, to remember everything he learns, and most of all to feel an overwhelming sense of alienation. In other words, it has shaped him as a natural spy.
But the very attributes that help him to excel in his profession put a strain on his marriage to his American wife and stand in the way of his coming to terms with his young son's death. When he is assigned to spy on a rising Korean-American politician, his very identity is tested, and he must figure out who he is amid not only the conflicts within himself but also within the ethnic and political tensions of the New York City streets.
Native Speaker is a story of cultural alienation. It is about fathers and sons, about the desire to connect with the world rather than stand apart from it, about loyalty and betrayal, about the alien in all of us and who we finally are.
His most recent book, On Such a Full Sea, will be published in January 2014.
From the publisher
From the rear cover
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Media reviews
Citations
- New York Times, 03/17/1996, Page 32
