Kim, Suki 1970-

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KIM, Suki 1970-

PERSONAL:

Born 1970, in Seoul, Korea; immigrated to United States. Education: Graduated from Barnard College; attended graduate school.

ADDRESSES:

Agent—c/o Author Mail, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 19 Union Square West, New York, NY 10003.

CAREER:

Freelance translator and novelist. Formerly worked as a teacher and editor.

WRITINGS:

The Interpreter, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux (New York, NY), 2003.

SIDELIGHTS:

Born in Korea, Suki Kim came to New York City at the age of thirteen. She graduated from Barnard College with a degree in English and a minor in East Asian literature. After an excursion to London to study Korean literature at the graduate level, she returned to New York City and a series of jobs, including editing and teaching. Eventually she realized that writing was her true calling, and she attended a number of writers' colonies, including the Ragdale Foundation, outside Chicago, MacDowell in New Hampshire, and Millay in upstate New York. What emerged from her writing experiences was an idea for a Korean-American traveling between the two cultures. The result was The Interpreter, Kim's debut novel.

The Interpreter tells the story of Suzy Park, a twenty-nine-year-old Korean American who discovers that her parents, supposedly killed in a robbery, may actually have been the targets of much darker, political forces. Listless, depressed, and long estranged from her family, Park is gradually drawn into the mystery of her parents' murder and the life they led before it, which involves her in an underworld of gangs, prostitution rings, and immigrant smugglers. "While time and place are well captured, the writing is so emotionally flat that one closes the book feeling aroused but ultimately unmoved," wrote Library Journal reviewer Eleanor Bader. Other reviewers were more pleased. A Publishers Weekly reviewer found that "as the novel progresses, Kim's talents become apparent: a good eye for detail, an excellent prose style and the ability to create compelling characters." A Kirkus Reviews contributor called the novel a "sleek, nearly hypnotic glimpse into the world of a Korean family ruptured in translation to America."