Suki Kim
| Suki Kim | |
|---|---|
| Nationality | USA |
| Alma mater | Columbia University |
| Genre | novel, essay |
| Notable works | The Interpreter, Without You, There is No Us |
| Notable awards |
PEN Beyond Margins Award Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award |
| Website | |
|
www | |
Suki Kim is a Korean American writer, a 2006 Guggenheim fellow and the author of the award winning novel The Interpreter.
Biography and work
Kim was born in Seoul, South Korea. She emigrated to the United States with her family when she was 13, moving to New York.[1] Kim is a naturalized American citizen.
Kim graduated from Barnard College with a BA in English and a minor in East Asian Literature. Kim also lived in London for several years, studying Korean literature at the School of Oriental and African Studies. She received a Fulbright Research Grant, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and an Open Society Foundations Fellowship.
Her debut novel, The Interpreter, is a murder mystery about a young Korean American woman, Suzy Park, living in New York City and searching for answers as to why her shopkeeper parents were murdered. Kim took a short term job as an interpreter in New York City when working on the novel to look into the life of an interpreter.[2] The book received positive critic reviews[3] and won the PEN Beyond Margins Award and the Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award and was a finalist for a Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award. The Interpreter was translated into Dutch, French, Korean, Italian, and Japanese.
Kim visited North Korea in February, 2002, to participate in the 60th Birthday Celebration of Kim Jong-il and wrote a cover essay for the New York Review of Books[4]
Kim accompanied the New York Philharmonic in February, 2008, when they traveled to Pyongyang for the historical cultural visit to North Korea from the United States. Her article, “A Really Big Show: The New York Philharmonic’s fantasia in North Korea” was published in Harper's Magazine in December, 2008.[5]
Her latest book, Without You, There Is No Us, is a work of non-fiction about her six months teaching English to the sons of the North Korean elite at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology.[6]
Works
Essays
- "Our Affair Was One Long Lesson in How to Break Up" ("Modern Love," The New York Times) September 24, 2006
Novels
- The Interpreter (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) 2003
Non-fiction
- Without You, There Is No Us; My Time with the Sons of North Korea's Elite (Crown, 2014)
See also
- List of Asian American writers
References
- ↑ Kim, Suki. New York times: Facing Poverty With a Rich Girl's Habits, The New York Times, November 21, 2004. Accessed March 19, 2015.
- ↑ Kim, Suki. NEW YORK OBSERVED; Translating Poverty and Pain, The New York Times, March 2, 2003. Accessed March 19, 2015.
- ↑ Yoon, Cindy. Suki Kim and 'The Interpreter'
- ↑ "A Visit to North Korea"
- ↑ Talking with Suki Kim for her article “A Really Big Show: The New York Philharmonic’s fantasia in North Korea
- ↑ Kim discussed her book on The Diane Rehm Show 2014-10-15 (WAMU/NPR)