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A new work by an American writer of Korean descent has been receiving acclaim from the press and literary circles in the U.S. Susan Choi's "A Person of Interest" deals with the subtle racism that lurks in everyday American life. Several leading U.S. papers have reviewed the book, including the New York Times, USA Today, and the San Francisco Chronicle.
The story begins with a tragedy: the colleague of an Asian-born professor named Lee is killed by a mail bomb. A letter delivered after the bombing ruins almost overnight the reputation that Lee had built for 40 years as a respected scholar in the community. The letter was from an old friend of Lee whose wife abandoned him for the professor. The revelation of Lee's past wrongdoing causes the community to turn its back on him, almost as if they were waiting for it to happen.
The work asks if the lives of minorities in the U.S. are being protected when the only thing that has concerned the country since the 9/11 terrorist attacks is the safety of Americans around the world. It elaborately describes how the bombing leads to a witch-hunt against an individual of a different color. Lee's "white" friends manipulate fragmentary details about him with ill intent. Even the authorities drive him into a corner.
Choi has an extraordinary talent for turning real events into literary works. Her 1998 debut novel "The Foreign Student" is a love story between a Korean man and an American girl. The immigrant suffers painful memories of the Korean War while the girl suffers for an affair she had with a friend of her father. The LA Times called the book one of the top 10 novels of the year.
Her second book, "American Woman," published in 2003, was inspired by the 1974 kidnapping by a leftist guerrilla group of Patty Hearst, the daughter of a media mogul, who eventually accepted the group's ideology and became one of them. It was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
"A Person of Interest" was based on the case of the Unabomber, an American terrorist who mail-bombed universities and airlines for 17 years from 1978, causing 26 casualties, and another incident in which a Taiwanese-American scientist was arrested for stealing nuclear secrets.
Choi's literary output is different from the typical "minority literature" that deals with the reality of America as seen by writers of different races. Her family background might explain why -- she was born to a Korean father and a Russian-Jewish mother and grew up in the U.S.
The New York Times praised her for providing a different perspective on the U.S. from within the country. "Choi's new book may turn out to be a prototypical 21st-century novel," the newspaper said.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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