I try to be aware of what I'm concerned about, aware of how I feel about myself in the world, aware of how I feel about the issues of the day, but I guess I don't want to write essays in my head about my craft and maybe it's because I teach and talk about craft of other writers as a reader. I feel the moment I start doing that is when it's going to kill me.
Chang-Rae LeeI think that's great - I just try not to be one of those people. I find the more I think about it, the less free I feel when I write and when I work.
Chang-Rae LeeThey're not parallel at all. They're my concerns, but how they're expressed particularly on the page is completely divorced from who I am in my street life.
Chang-Rae LeeObviously loss of family is huge and critical, but I think really it's more about losing a sense of family. The horror of that kind of incompleteness. Writing this book, I tried not to think about my father, which does no one any good fictionally. I did try to imagine not just the horror of that moment, but the horror of having witnessed it, and the lifelong void. And I think that's what's so frightening.
Chang-Rae LeeMy family immigrated when I was 3, and our predecessors inhabited the Korean Peninsula for as long as can be recalled.
Chang-Rae LeeTo be honest, Im not that much of a reader of Korean fiction, since so little is translated.
Chang-Rae LeeIt's just a weird idea to me because each book is a complete universe unto itself, so why would I want this other universe from this other galaxy that has nothing to do with mine? That's how I really feel about it. Let's be honest - I'm still the writer, so certain things will be common denominators. But that I just want to keep natural and not studied.
Chang-Rae Lee