11 Facts About Chang-Rae Lee

Chang-rae Lee was born on July 29,1965 and is a Korean-American novelist and a professor of creative writing at Stanford University.

Chang-Rae Lee was previously Professor of Creative Writing at Princeton and director of Princeton's Program in Creative Writing.

Chang-Rae Lee immigrated to the United States with his family when he was 3 years old to join his father, who was then a psychiatric resident and later established a successful practice in Westchester County, New York.

On 19 June 1993 Chang-Rae Lee married architect Michelle Branca, with whom he has two daughters.

The success of his debut novel, Native Speaker, led Chang-Rae Lee to move to Hunter College of the City University of New York, where he was hired to direct and teach in the prestigious creative-writing program.

Chang-Rae Lee's 2010 novel The Surrendered won the 2011 Dayton Literary Peace Prize and was a nominated finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Chang-Rae Lee's next novel, On Such a Full Sea is set in a dystopian future version of the American city of Baltimore, Maryland called B-Mor where the main character, Fan, is a Chinese-American laborer working as a diver in a fish farm.

In 2016, Lee joined the faculty of Stanford University, where he is the Ward W and Priscilla B Woods Professor of English.

Chang-Rae Lee previously taught creative writing in the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University.

Chang-Rae Lee was a Shinhan Distinguished Visiting Professor at Yonsei University in South Korea.

Chang-Rae Lee explores issues central to the Asian-American experience: the legacy of the past; the encounter of diverse cultures; the challenges of racism and discrimination, and exclusion; dreams achieved and dreams deferred.