Marie Myung-Ok Lee + Jeff Yang

2122 East 4th Street,Long Beach CA 90814

18 August, 2022

Description

Join Bel Canto Books as we welcome Marie Myung-Ok Lee, author of THE EVENING HERO, which earned a rave review from the New York Times: “This precise, watchful novel reveals the loneliness of the immigrant experience, even when cloaked in outward success… a novel about healers and healing, about unflashy, quiet heroism…[with] lyrical, lush, deeply felt prose… a soulful, melodic, rhapsodic novel.” Marie will be joined in conversation by Jeff Yang, co-author of RISE: A POP HISTORY OF ASIAN AMERICA. A book signing will follow. This is an outdoor event in the garden at The Hangout (2122 E 4th Street, LB). Attendees will be required to follow all current COVID-19 restrictions and staff instructions. Please stay home if you are feeling sick. ABOUT THE BOOK A sweeping, lyrical novel following a Korean immigrant pursuing the American dream who must confront the secrets of the past or risk watching the world he’s worked so hard to build come crumbling down. Dr. Yungman Kwak is in the twilight of his life. Every day for the last fifty years, he has brushed his teeth, slipped on his shoes, and headed to Horse Breath’s General Hospital, where, as an obstetrician, he treats the women and babies of the small rural Minnesota town he chose to call home. This was the life he longed for. The so-called American dream. He immigrated from Korea after the Korean War, forced to leave his family, ancestors, village, and all that he knew behind. But his life is built on a lie. And one day, a letter arrives that threatens to expose it. Toggling between the past and the present, Korea and America, Evening Hero is a sweeping, moving, darkly comic novel about a man looking back at his life and asking big questions about what is lost and what is gained when immigrants leave home for new shores. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Marie Myung-Ok Lee is an acclaimed Korean American writer and author of the young adult novel Finding my Voice, thought to be one of the first contemporary-set Asian American YA novels. She is one of a handful of American journalists who have been granted a visa to North Korea since the Korean War. She was the first Fulbright Scholar to Korea in creative writing and has received many honors for her work, including an O. Henry honorable mention, the Best Book Award from the Friends of American Writers, and a New York Foundation for the Arts fiction fellowship. Her stories and essays have been published in The Atlantic, The New York Times, Slate, Salon, Guernica, The Paris Review, The Nation, and The Guardian, among others. Marie is a founder of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop and teaches creative writing at Columbia. She lives in New York City with her family. ABOUT THE IN-CONVERSATION PARTNER Jeff Yang is the co-author of Rise : A Pop History of Asian America from the Nineties to Now . He has been observing, exploring, and writing about the Asian American community for over thirty years. He launched one of the first Asian American national magazines, A. Magazine, in the late '90s and early 2000s, and now writes frequently for CNN, Quartz, Slate and elsewhere. He has previously written/edited Jackie Chan’s New York Times-best-selling memoir I Am Jackie Chan: My Life in Action; Once Upon a Time in China, a history of the cinemas of Hong Kong, Taiwan and the Mainland; and Eastern Standard Time: A Guide to Asian Influence on American Culture. He lives in Los Angeles, CA. Marie Myung-Ok Lee and Jeff Yang 8/18 event hosted by Bel Canto Books in Long Beach, California