Literary Birthday – 29 July – Chang-Rae Lee

Happy Birthday, Chang-Rae Lee, born on 29 July 1965.

Chang-Rae Lee Quotes

1. A tale, like the universe, they tell us, expands ceaselessly each time you examine it, until there’s finally no telling exactly where it begins, or ends, or where it places you now.
2. One of the ready advantages of writing a road or quest story is that it mirrors the experience of writing a novel.
3. As for what’s the most challenging aspect of teaching, it’s convincing younger writers of the importance of reading widely and passionately.
4. Imagination might not be limitless. It’s still tethered to the universe of what we know.
5. Suffering is the noblest art, the quieter the better.
6. I often think that the prime directive for me as a teacher of writing is akin to that for a physician, which is this: do no harm.
7. Like most people, I’m fascinated by characters who are completely flawed personalities, riven by anguish and doubt, and are psychologically suspect.
8. I don’t listen to music while writing; it seems to me I’m trying to make my own kind of music, and to have anything else going on is just noisy interference.

Chang-Rae Lee is a Korean American novelist and a professor of creative writing at Stanford University. He is the author of Native Speaker, winner of the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for first fiction, A Gesture Life, Aloft, The Surrendered, and My Year Abroad. Lee explores important themes in the Asian American experience, including the impact of history, cultural differences, racism, and exclusion. His work also examines the hopes people achieve and the dreams that remain unfulfilled.

Source for image: Penguin Random House Photo credit Michelle Branca Lee

by Amanda Patterson
Are you interested in more authors’ birthdays? Please click here: The Complete Author Birthday Calendar