ally nomadic childhood. This experience of being
multicultural and bilingual profoundly influences
her writing.
In 1992 Kim received her B.A. from Barnard
College, where she majored in English and mi-
nored in East Asian literature. Right after gradua-
tion, she attended the graduate program in Korean
literature and translation at the School of Oriental
and African Studies, the University of London.
After returning from London and going through
several jobs such as editing and teaching, she came
to realize that writing was what she wanted to do.
In 2003 Kim’s debut novel, The Interpreter, was
published and well received. Narrated by a young
Korean-American woman, the novel revolves
around the unsolved double homicide of her im-
migrant parents in New York five years earlier.
The emotionally detached protagonist, Suzy Park,
while working as a court interpreter, happens to
discover that her parents’ murder in their grocery
store was not a random act of violence but a care-
fully planned act that also resulted in the sudden
disappearance of her estranged sister, Grace. In
searching for her missing sister, Suzy recollects
fragmented memories about her dysfunctional
family caught in cultural transition. She also re-
members the painful loss, sacrifice, dark secrets,
and social injustice through which hard-working
(legal or illegal) Korean immigrants go to realize
their American dreams. This dazzling, haunting
mystery novel not only subverts stereotypical im-
ages of Asian Americans as the model minority
but also mocks the judicial system. The Interpreter
is the winner of the 2004 PEN Beyond Margins
Award and the 2004 Gustavus Myers Outstanding
Book Award.
New York Review of Books, New York Times,
Boston Globe, and Newsweek published her prose
pieces including her essays on being single in New
York City and her visit to North Korea in Febru-
ary 2002. Kim refuses to be merely categorized as
a Korean-American woman writer; instead, she
wants to be recognized as an American writer. She
lives in Manhattan, working on her second novel.
Heejung ChaKim, Yong Ik (1920–1995)
Yong Ik Kim is among the first-generation Korean-
American authors who have shown a great deal of
nostalgia for their motherland. Winner of several
awards, Kim published seven novels and 32 short
stories, some of which were written in both Eng-
lish and Korean. Kim came to the United States at
the age of 28 and graduated from Florida Southern
College with a B.A. degree and the University of
Kentucky with an M.A. degree. Kim then moved to
Japan to attend Aoyama Kakuin, earning another
B.A. degree. Back in Korea, he became a profes-
sor at Busan University and Korea University. In
1964 he came back to the United States to teach at
Western Illinois University, Lockhaven State Col-
lege, and Duquesne University.
His major works deal with Korean culture and
the everyday life of Koreans before and after the
Korean War. He explores the issue of class con-
flict in Korea in “The Wedding Shoes,” one of his
first short stories published in the United States.
A son of a butcher, Sangdo belongs to the lowest
of the social strata in Korea but has a crush on a
girl whose father runs a traditional wedding-shoes
store, and who therefore belongs to a class higher
than Sangdo’s. Sangdo’s family becomes wealthy
thanks to the strong demand for meat, but the
girl’s family becomes destitute because people now
prefer Western-style weddings, which do not re-
quire the traditional wedding shoes. When Sangdo
proposes a marriage to the girl’s family, however,
the girl’s father rejects the proposal solely based on
their class difference. Years later, during the Korean
War, Sangdo learns of the death of the girl and her
father during the war and reminisces about his
first love. Known in 19 countries around the world
in the form of TV programs, movies, ballets, an-
thologies, and other adaptations, “The Wedding
Shoes” investigates the intersections of class, love,
and family. It also depicts the ways in which West-
ern culture affected modern Korea.
Kim’s other well-known work is Blue in the Seed,
a young adult novel examining the identity forma-
tion of Chun Bok, a mixed-race child growing up
in Korea. Ridiculed by his peers because of his blue
eyes, he decides not to go to school on the pretextKim, Yong Ik 151