LEE, Mark 1950-

PERSONAL:

Born 1950, in MN; married; children: two. Education: Yale University, B.A., 1973.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Los Angeles, CA. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Algonquin Books, P.O. Box 225, Chapel Hill, NC 27515.

CAREER:

Writer, journalist, and poet.

MEMBER:

PEN (vice president).

WRITINGS:

The Lost Tribe, Picador (New York, NY), 1998.

The Canal House, Algonquin Books (Chapel Hill, NC), 2003.

Contributor to periodicals including Atlantic Monthly, Los Angeles Times, and the Times Literary Supplement (London, England).

SIDELIGHTS:

Mark Lee's first novel, The Lost Tribe, features Ben Chase, a Reuters reporter who is stationed in Africa. Lee was a Reuters reporter, and in the early 1980s he was living in Uganda during a civil war and was eventually expelled from the country for writing about military acts committed during the conflict. The Lost Tribe has Chase digging his own grave after he reports on a story dealing with the kidnapping and rape of schoolgirls by soliders. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly noted, "Lee succeeds in capturing the chaotic, terrifying nature of African life during times of upheaval," but the reviewer went on to say that "the inner lives of his characters don't get as full a treatment." And in a review for Library Journal, Bettie Alston Shea claimed that the novel "never quite lives up to the reader's expectations."

Lee's second novel, The Canal House, again features a journalist in Africa. This time it is Daniel McFarland, a war correspondent who has teamed up with photojournalist Nicky Bettencourt. "Lee is a foreign correspondent who creates a powerful aura of realism that will forever alter your perception of the news," wrote Elsa Gaztambide in a review for Booklist. Daniel begins an affair with Dr. Julia Cadell, a relief worker in the war zones. The Canal House title refers to a house that the two share in London in-between stints in the dangerous war-torn areas. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly claimed that "there's no denying the eloquence and terror of Lee's vistas of contemporary war."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, March 15, 2003, Elsa Gaztambide, review of The Canal House, p. 1275.

Kirkus Reviews, May 9, 2003, review of The Canal House, p. 168.

Library Journal, June 1, 1998, Bettie Alston Shea, review of The Lost Tribe, pp. 152-153; February 15, 2003, Marc Kloszewski, review of The Canal House, p. 169.

Publishers Weekly, April 13, 1998, review of The Lost Tribe, p. 48; February 10, 2003, review of The Canal House, p. 160.*