Underwood International College

Associate Professor of English Literature

• M.F.A. in Creative Writing, Warren Wilson College
• M.A. in English Literature, University of York
• B.A. in English Literature, UCLA

Education

M.F.A. in Creative Writing, Warren Wilson College
M.A. in English Literature, University of York
B.A. in English Literature, UCLA

Courses and Current Research Areas

"Creative Writing," "World Women and Literature," "English Composition," and "Literary Translation"

Selected Publications

BOOKS

• How I Became a North Korean: A Novel ( Viking/Penguin, U.S.A.,August 2016)
• Drifting House: Stories (Viking/Penguin, U.S.A., February 2012 Faber and Faber, U.K., January 2012)

TRANSLATIONS

• I Hear Your Voice [너의 목소리가 들려] (by Kim Young-Ha) (Mariner Books, U.S.A., July 2017)

 SHORT STORIES

• “The Jungle,” ZYZZYVA, November 2017
• “Fat,” Cooked Up: Food Fiction from Around the World, New Internationalist, April 2015
• “The Girl on a Leash,” Pen America, July 2013
• “The Goose Father,” BBC International Story Award 2012 Anthology, September 2012
• “A Temporary Marriage,” The Sunday Times (London, reprint), February 2012
• “Drifting House,” Granta (New Voices), Winter 2012
• “A Temporary Marriage,” The Kenyon Review, Summer 2010 
• “The Salaryman,” Narrative Magazine, Winter 2005

 ARTICLES/BOOK REVIEWS

• “Violence and Being Human: A Conversation with Han Kang,” World Literature Today, May 2016
• Book review of Pachinko, The New York Times, February 2017
• Book review of Familiar Things, The Guardian, June 2017
• Book review of “In the Shadow of the Banyan,” The Guardian, September 2012
• Book review of The Accusation: Forbidden Stories from Inside North Korea, WorldLiterature Today, January 2018
• Book review of The Hole, World Literature Today, November 2017
• Book review of Victor Cha’s The Impossible State: North Korea, Past and Future, Washington Post, May 2012
• Book review of How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, SFGate, March 2013
• Book review of We Need New Names, SFGate, May 2013
• “The Invention of Self Is Another Kind of Fiction,” The Center for Fiction
• “Should We Still Be Using the Term ‘Ethnic Literature?’”, Huffington Post, February 2012
• “Women Writers, Part One,” English PEN, June 2012
• Book review of Victor Cha’s “The Impossible State: North Korea, Past and Future,” Washington Post, May 2012
• “Foreign Correspondence,” Conde Nast Traveller, April 2012
• “Way to an unknown world,” English PEN, April 2012
• “What we don’t know about North Korea,” English PEN, April 2012
• “For the defectors, there’s no way home,” New Statesman, January 2012
• “In South Korea, we are used to waiting and worrying,” The Guardian, December 2011
• “The Body Politic,” Narrative, Spring 2006

More Information

HONORS AND AWARDS
 
2014-2014 John Guare Writer’s Fund Rome Prize, a gift of Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman
2012 BBC International Story PrizeShort List, BBC 4 radio interview and story aired 
2012 Frank O’Connor Story Prize, Long List
2012 Pushcart Prize,special mention
2012 Itunes Book of the Month selection, February 2012
2009 Scholarship, Squaw Valley Community of Writers
2008 University of Anglia, David Wong Fellowship, shortlisted
2006 Best New American Voices, finalist
2005 Holden Scholarship, MFA program
2005 Scholarship, Napa Valley Writers’ Workshop