Hello, <br><br>Dr. David Kim's announcement also brought to our attention the passing of Professor Richard Kim in 2009.<br>In memory of Professor Kim, I would like to share following...<br><br><table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="5" width="100%">
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<td width="70%"><p align="left"><small><i>Lost Names</i> is a useful, rare, and
wonderful book for several reasons. The book’s title reflects the Japanese Pacific
War policy of forcing Koreans to replace their own names with Japanese ones. <i>Lost
Names</i> is the story, as recounted by a young boy, of one Korean family’s
experience during the war years. Although <i>Lost Names</i> is technically a novel,
according to author Richard Kim, " . . . all the characters and events described in
the book are real, but everything else is fiction." Never in my time in Asian Studies
has one work been so applicable to such a wide range of students as is the case with <i>Lost
Names</i>. </small></p>
<p align="left"><small>In the pages that follow, we feature an interview by <i>EAA</i>
editorial board member Kathy Masalski with Richard E. Kim and essays by a junior high,
senior high school, and university instructor on how they have used <i>Lost Names</i> as
a highly effective teaching tool. We sincerely hope this special feature encourages
teachers at all levels to read <i>Lost Names</i> and consider using it with students. </small></p>
<p align="left"><small><i>Lucien Ellington</i></small></p></td>
<td width="30%"><p align="center"><img src="http://www.aasianst.org/eaa/lostname2.gif" alt="Lost Names" align="center" border="1" height="282" width="188"></p></td>
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<td align="left" valign="top" width="75%"><font color="#008000"><small><b>Kathleen
Woods Masalski</b> — I first met Richard Kim in 1994 when I asked him to speak
at a National Endowment for the Humanities summer institute on the War in the Pacific. The
audience responded so well that I invited him to speak at several other summer institutes
sponsored by the Five College Center for East Asian Studies. After reading Peter
Wright’s, Susan Mastro’s, and Dick Minear’s essays about their teaching of <i>Lost
Names</i>, I asked Lucien if he would be interested in an interview with Kim. Lucien had
read the book and read the essays (Kim did not ask to see them before publication), and
urged me to proceed. Kim agreed to get together with me on May 18 in Amherst,
Massachusetts.</small></font><p><font color="#008000"><small>I presented him with a list
of questions that I had prepared. The interview lasted three hours; I took copious notes
and wrote them up immediately afterward. Although I suggested that he edit the final
interview, Kim declined. What follows are selected passages from our discussion that
afternoon.</small></font></p></td>
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<p align="left"><font color="#008000"><small>I should note that I approach <i>Lost Names</i>
as history, and my questions reflect my background as a history teacher. An English
teacher would have asked different questions. Lost Names is first and foremost creative
writing. Social studies teachers may well wish to introduce the book to their colleagues
in the English or Language Arts departments.</small></font></p>
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<p align="left"> </p>
<p align="left"><font color="#400080"><small><b>Masalski:</b> One question the
audience always has about <i>Lost Names</i> is whether it is fiction or nonfiction. Do
you really intend to tell readers that nothing in <i>Lost Names</i> is
"factual" or "historical"? How much of what is in it actually
happened? How much actually happened to you?</small></font></p>
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<td align="left" valign="middle" width="70%"><p align="left"><small><b>Kim: </b>Everything
in the book actually happened. It happened to me. So why am I always insisting it’s
not autobiographical? I think because of the way I used the things that actually happened.
You have to arrange them, mix them up. Above all, it’s interpretation of facts, of
actual events—some thirty or forty years later. For example, when "the boy"
gets beaten, what went through his mind? We don’t know. . . . even I don’t know.
I like to separate the actual events from the emotional, the psychological. One
shouldn’t confuse the actual events with the inner events. That’s where a lot of
beginning writers make a big mistake. A lot think everything is exactly as it happened;
but we put our own interpretation on events. I didn’t invent any actual events. . . .
but everything else is fiction. That is very important to me.</small></p></td>
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<p align="left"><font color="#400080"><small><b>Masalski:</b> When you wrote the
book in 1970, how did you go about gathering evidence? Or didn’t you? </small></font></p>
<p align="left"><small><b>Kim:</b> I didn’t have to gather much. I made a
chronology of actual political events and a chronology of events in my life. Then I
rearranged . . . I had to rearrange the events in my life. I think that the private events
happened at the time [I described them] . . . but maybe not. The big world events happened
. . . [the question was] how to bring them together . . . . </small><br>
<small>The original plan for this book was different from what it turned out to be.
Praeger planned a series of books on different countries, Japan, China, India, Korea, etc.
to introduce these countries to American children. I decided to introduce Korea through
family life. As soon as I started writing, the book took on a different life. I called my
editor and said, "I can’t do it the way it was planned." She said,
"What is your idea for the book?" and I said I didn’t know. She said,
"Let it loose, let it go." I had already listed many details, for example, what
we typically ate for breakfast, because I was using that information to introduce what
Koreans eat. When I finished writing (it took me only three months), we took a look at the
manuscript. It was not what the editors had in mind, but they liked it. They took the work
out of the country series and decided to publish it separately. But, they wondered, how
should they treat it? They sent the manuscript to Pearl Buck, and she praised it as a
novel. But Praeger didn’t want a novel. So they convinced her to call it something
else. [She called it "the best piece of creative writing I have read about
Korea."] So Praeger decided to just get it out . . . to let others decide. And the
reviews were good. [Edward] Seidensticker reviewed it for the <i>New York Times</i> and
Praeger breathed a sigh of relief.</small></p>
<p align="left"><font color="#400080"><small><b>Masalski:</b> You were a boy of
thirteen or fourteen when the book—and the war—ended. What do you remember of
your feelings then? Now, fifty-plus years later, how have your feelings changed?</small></font></p>
<p align="left"><small><b>Kim: </b>I don’t feel differently about things
today. I feel the same as when they happened. My father was in a detention camp, so I
didn’t jump up and down for joy. Rather, I felt that finally it’s happened.
Something that should have happened happened.</small><br>
<small>I didn’t have feelings of hatred for the Japanese. My feelings were more of
contempt. I despised, had contempt for [them]. . . . In a perverse sort of way, I had a
feeling of superiority. It was a defense mechanism to think, "Forgive them, Lord, for
they know not what they do." This may be a cultural, a class thing. I felt the
Japanese were not to be trusted or respected. It might have been different in Seoul, but
not in my small town. The Japanese we dealt with were not very good. After all, who would
go to a dinky town, a dinky province, if they had a choice?</small><br>
<small>I [didn’t] think of the Korean characters as saintly, but as ordinary. In
those days there was no room for cynicism. Everything seemed clear cut. We knew where we
were and where we stood. Today is different; I don’t know where I stand. I don’t
know what to think. . . . in those days I knew. Them and us. Cynicism comes from
self-doubt. There was no room for that sort of thing.</small><br>
<small>When the Japanese priest and his wife [who lived nearby] came [when the end of the
war was announced] and begged that we protect them, my grandfather didn’t know what
to do. . . . I didn’t know what to do. . . . We went back to the source of authority.
. . . do what your father would have done. The tenant farmer, too, kept telling me that my
father would have protected them. . . .</small><br>
<small>Actually, my father was a saint. I wrote an inscription on his gravestone, "He
was a good man and just." He was like that—truly. I never heard him say anything
bad about anyone. I never saw him enraged. I’m not like him. . . . He had a great
capacity for suppressing his feelings; he was patient.</small><br>
<small>If I had been exposed to constant hatred at home, maybe I would have felt
differently about Japan and the Japanese. But I wasn’t. Grandfather never said much.
And I never heard my father say nasty things verbally. We thought, they’re bad ones.
. . . so why should we waste our time talking about them. . . . </small></p>
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<p align="left"><font color="#400080" face="Arial"><i><big>If the Japanese had been
victorious, if the war had lasted another four or five years, maybe most Koreans would
have become "Japanized."</big></i></font></p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
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<p align="left"><font color="#400080"><small><b>Masalski:</b> What difference to
<i>Lost Names</i> does it make that you and your family were well-to-do and Christian?</small></font></p>
<p align="left"><small><b>Kim:</b> This is a very important question. We were
upper-middle class, the town’s elite. The Japanese who were there were not. We saw
them as men who couldn’t get jobs in Tokyo. "Why are they here?" we asked
ourselves. As colonizers, they were supposed to be better than the colonized, but a lot of
Japanese were simply not that great. It’s a cultural, a class thing. I didn’t
hate them. They were like dangerous dogs to be avoided.</small><br>
<small>Although we were not that wealthy, we were reasonably well-to-do. In those days we
were made to look upper class because we went to college. The Christian thing is tricky.
I’ve been thinking about it. Some really well-to-do Koreans, especially in the
South—even among my generation—sometimes the Japanese treated them like upper
class, with kid gloves. Made them feel better, like the aristocracy, the ruling class, the
landlord class. Made them feel as if they were treated with respect. To this day I know
people with backgrounds like this who are without anti-Japanese feelings.</small><br>
<small>The lower classes—what did they care if they were governed by the Japanese or
a Korean dynasty? They were treated the same. My grandfather told me that one time, when
he witnessed royalty passing by, he saw someone miserably beaten because he didn’t
bow low enough. And he (my grandfather) felt that when the dynasty perished, well, it
served the royalty right.</small><br>
<small>I don’t know how much of a sense of nationalism existed at the time of
Japanese annexation. As long as the upper classes kept their money and status, and as long
as the Japanese left them alone, what difference did it make? And what difference did it
make to the peasants—both Korean royalty and the Japanese took eighty percent of
their crops, regardless. If the Japanese had been victorious, if the war had lasted
another four or five years, maybe most Koreans would have become "Japanized."</small><br>
<small>I think it was the middle class, the upper-middle class who were affected most by
the war. That group produced more educated people, those with expanded consciousness.</small><br>
<small>To the Japanese, the Christians were the ones with the most connections with the
West—simply because they were Christians. They were therefore characterized as
outsiders, as dangerous. They were an important minority because they were upper-middle
class. They sent their sons to schools and colleges. So as a group they were more
conscious of national identity. I don’t think the upper or lower classes thought
about nationalism or independence, but I really don’t know. The early uprisings were
not organized by the upper classes. In those days [during the war], memories were fresh.
Twenty–thirty years later, I don’t know. . . .</small><br>
<small>Belonging to that class and being Christian made all the difference.</small> <small>We
were more aware of where we belonged. I grew up thinking we were a little different. <i>Lost
Names</i> would be a different book if it were written by someone else at the same time
but in a different class and in a different place.</small><br>
<small>The book is not representative of "the Korean experience." I was a marked
boy. Somehow the village had voted me most likely to succeed, because I was my
father’s son. My grandfather, the minister, was one of the best-known leaders of the
Christian community. Most Christians knew my grandfather’s name. The first day back
in a Korean school, things were very tense for me. My parents wondered, how would he (I)
be received—both by the Japanese and the town’s kids. I always had to be
conscious of what I was. The key was "do not disgrace the family."</small></p>
<hr align="center" color="#c0c0c0" noshade width="70%">
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p align="left"><big><font color="#400080" face="Arial"><i>One exception I take is to
anyone who says it’s (Lost Names) anti-Japanese. It’s not; there are some bad
Japanese characters in the book, but it is not anti-Japanese.</i></font></big></p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
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<p align="left"><font color="#400080"><small><b>Masalski:</b> In your opinion,
has the Japanese government apologized to the Korean people for its treatment of them
during the occupation period? </small></font></p>
<p align="left"><small><b>Kim:</b> I’m not so sure they’ve apologized.
Regret, maybe. But that’s beside the point. I don’t really care if any
government apologizes. It’s probably a political thing, anyway. It seems to me that
Asians are less capable than Europeans of accepting collective responsibility for their
actions. Maybe the Judeo-Christian culture has more possibilities for atonement and
redemption. Not so true for Asians. Why is it so difficult for Asians or Koreans to say we
are all guilty? We tend to say, "I didn’t do it."</small></p>
<p align="left"><font color="#400080"><small><b>Masalski:</b> The title of the
book is problematic—in all three languages. Why did you choose it? What was your
intent? </small></font></p>
<p align="left"><small><b>Kim:</b> I loved the word "lost" and all the
things that it conjures up, especially in English. <i>Paradise Lost</i>. Lost is almost
damned. . . . almost sinful. Lost Souls (which was at one point my working title). I like
"lost" because it has a lot to do with my sense of my generation. Kind of like I
am now. I don’t belong. Born in Korea. Moved to Manchuria. Back to the north [Korea].
Then to South Korea. Didn’t belong either place. Then to the military, where I
didn’t belong. To here. For awhile I thought about it, then I gave up thinking about
it, for it’s not important. Especially my generation of Koreans happened to be
between periods. . . . Japanese occupation . . . a little of that . . . then the country
was divided. . . . then exodus . . . lost again. Led a refugee’s life . . . lost
again . . . then ended up here in god-forsaken Shutesbury with a name like Richard. . . . </small><br>
<small>My college dean in this country thought that other students would have difficulty
pronouncing my Korean name, so we looked at names in a telephone book. I chose Richard
because I knew of Richard the Lion-Hearted. I finally had it legalized. I like to think it
fits with my character . . . it’s how I think of myself. I’m lost, lost between
two cultures, two worlds, neither North or South Korea, not Korean or American. I felt
that way always, even as a little kid. I couldn’t even sing Korean songs. . . .</small><br>
<small>This has been one of my missions in life, to teach Koreans to accept responsibility
for their lives, to stop blaming others, the Japanese, the Chinese. We lost it. . . . but
many Koreans would like to think someone grabbed it. . . . thinking this justifies hatred.
I’ve often said that Koreans need a national psychotherapy session, a large couch.
Why are we as we are, why is self-examination such a rare commodity in Korean life?
Koreans are so good about blaming others . . . they know so little about what they have
done. They lack a collective sense of guilt or action.</small><br>
<small>Koreans can’t say we were careless, we dropped our names, and someone else
picked them up and took them away. What the Japanese did was terrible—perhaps more
stupid than terrible. How can such smart people do such dumb things? Didn’t they see
that what they did would cause more resentment?</small></p>
<p align="left"><font color="#400080"><small><b>Masalski:</b> One of the most
important scenes in the book takes place in a graveyard, where all your known ancestors
are buried. You, your grandfather, and your father visit that burial ground after the
Japanese have given you new names, Japanese names. Your grandfather says, "We are a
disgrace to our family. We bring disgrace and humiliation to your name. How can you
forgive us?" He and your father bow, their tears flowing (p. 111). . . . Will you
explain that scene?</small></font></p>
<p align="left"><small><b>Kim:</b> My father felt that his generation had
failed. (Maybe that’s why there isn’t naked hatred of the Japanese.) The kind of
man he was resulted in his asking, "What have we done? How could we have allowed this
to happen?" I don’t think he blamed grandfather’s generation. My father had
a perfect right to fly into a rage, but there was none of that. "The important
thing," my father said, "is now how can we deal with this? Someday your
generation will forgive us." Why otherwise would he have taken me to the graveyard
where he and my grandfather asked their ancestors to forgive them? He was almost telling
me that one day we would have to forgive his generation.</small></p>
<p align="left"><font color="#400080"><small><b>Masalski:</b> Were you surprised
by the book’s reception? By the way readers (then and now) interpret it? Is there a
difference?</small></font></p>
<p align="left"><small><b>Kim:</b> It has been a surprise. It’s especially
a great honor to find it’s read in so many schools. I really feel good about that. I
have no way of influencing how readers take it, however. One exception I take is to anyone
who says it’s anti-Japanese. It’s not; there are some bad Japanese characters in
the book, but it is not anti-Japanese.</small><br>
<small>I wrote it quickly—between books. I had some legal problems with my second
book and decided to do something with the Praeger series. It started out as one thing and
ended up another. So I was very surprised.</small></p>
<p align="left"><font color="#400080"><small><b>Masalski:</b> When they finish
reading <i>Lost Names</i>, how do you want readers to feel toward the characters and the
countries represented?</small></font></p>
<p align="left"><small><b>Kim: </b>When I wrote the book, I didn’t feel
that I wanted the reader to feel this way or that. I really didn’t think about
writing for a foreign audience. I never thought about any audience, in fact.</small></p>
<p align="left"><font color="#400080"><small><b>Masalski:</b> What led to the
rebirth of <i>Lost Names</i>? How much did the 50th anniversary of World War II have to
do with it?</small></font></p>
<p align="left"><small><b>Kim:</b> I was willing to let it go, but the time came
when Asian studies programs here and there realized that there’s not enough material
around. The talk was taken up on the Internet, and there you are. I don’t think it
had anything to do with the anniversary of the war. </small></p>
<p align="left"><font color="#400080"><small><b>Masalski:</b> What do you think
the book has become?</small></font></p>
<p align="left"><small><b>Kim:</b> I don’t know. A textbook. I’ll tell
you . . . when <i>The Martyred</i> came out, the <i>New York Times</i> reviewer said
it would last. . . . When I finished <i>Lost Names</i>, I didn’t think it was in
the same class as <i>The Martyred</i>, but I said to my wife, Penny, this is an
exquisite piece, a small jewel. Because that was how I felt. It was hard to find fault
with the book. The technique, the language: granted that the author was biased, prejudiced
. . . I felt it was nice, not grand, not big (<i>The Martyred</i> was), but nice. I felt
good, really good about it.</small><br>
<small>I don’t know. . . . maybe it [the book] will last. If it does, it’s only
because people will look at it [in a larger context?] . . . if it were only a picture of a
family. . . . I don’t know, maybe there’s something more to it than a family and
a family’s survival.</small></p>
<p align="left"><font color="#400080"><small><b>Masalski:</b> If you were
teaching in a college, high school, or junior high/middle school classroom today, how
would you "teach" the book?</small></font></p>
<p align="left"><small><b>Kim:</b> I would stress that they shouldn’t read
this book as issue-oriented, as anti-Japanese or anti-colonial. I would ask that they
[teachers and students] observe and understand how a family, both in private and in times
of war, copes with war and with one another. I know you think the characters are almost
too good to be true, but we really were good. We never fought. My parents never exchanged
harsh words.</small><br>
<small>My grandparents were patient souls. It may have to do with the culture thing. . . .
They had humble beginnings. . . . didn’t have the "more sinned against than
sinning" attitude . . . they didn’t feel wronged; they were always grateful for
what they had. I think I have that. I’m so grateful every time I go into a grocery
store that I am able to pick from the shelves that which I want. . . .</small><br>
<small>My grandmother was tough. . . . grandfather was saintly. They didn’t talk that
much. I’m different. I’m told that on the second day of Kindergarten I
didn’t like school so I stopped going. I left the house every morning and hid. No one
knew until the school came looking. I never went back. . . . I’m different. . . .</small></p>
<p align="left"><font color="#400080"><small><b>Masalski:</b> At every one of
our summer institutes, teachers have brought up the incident in <i>Lost Names</i> that
involves rubber balls. The chapter, "An Empire for Rubber Balls," presents such
an engaging, dramatic scene. When the Japanese Empire was at its height, the Japanese
distributed rubber balls to all children. But after the tide turned for Japan, they wanted
them back. As class leader, the boy was responsible for collecting the balls. He pricked
them in order to fit them into a container, and the teacher beat him severely. What is the
message here, the lesson? </small></font></p>
<p align="left"><small><b>Kim:</b> The Japanese really wanted the balls back.
And here is the irony of the situation. My grandmother, in her peasant wisdom, came up
with the idea of pricking holes in them. I think the Japanese assumed that the boy’s
father had influenced him. It was not so . . . the incident happened. . . . I was beaten
pretty badly. . . . I don’t remember all the details . . . for example, there was a
Korean policeman, but I don’t think he intervened. . . . this is where the fiction
comes in. . . . I brought him into the story.</small><br>
<small>That’s the fun part of a book like this. . . . taking fact and fiction and
mixing them together. I don’t know what my mother said in certain situations, but
I’d make what she said sound good in certain situations. The momentum creates the
situation. . . . dialogue comes out . . . you can’t plan every dialogue. I would call
my mother up (when I was writing the book) and say guess what you said today, and she
would ask, "did I really say that?"</small><br>
<small>"There is no nobility in pain; there is only degradation" (p. 134). This
was an unusual thing for me to say. It’s not Christian, but . . . the truth is, for
most people a beating is a beating. I remember my father was held upside down from the
ceiling, not by the Japanese, but by a Korean who was working for American intelligence.
(This took place in South Korea after the family moved from the north to the south.) He
was picked up in 1946, ‘47, ‘48. . . . a Korean detective working for the
Americans brought him in, saying he was a communist spy sent by the north Koreans. They
held him upside down and pulled all his hair out. (In the Japanese prison earlier, the
Japanese shaved his head every day. . . . he said that was so painful. . . .) The
Americans held him until something happened that proved he was not a spy. When I arrived
in the south, I found him and spoke with a Korean American in intelligence. When my father
was released, I shouted, "Someday I’ll kill all you Americans." This was so
difficult for me. . . . the Americans had come as our liberators. . . .</small></p>
<p align="left"><font color="#400080"><small><b>Masalski:</b> Which
incident/passage in the book lends itself to teaching, or presents an "ideal"
teaching situation?</small></font></p>
<p align="left"><small><b>Kim:</b> I don’t know about teaching it, but my
favorite scene in the book is in "Once upon a Time, on a Sunday." . . . They
come home, finally, and the boy is outside the cottage with paper screen (<i>shoji</i>)
for windows; the light inside glows, and the boy is looking up. . . . and this is fact and
fiction . . . being so afraid of the dark, but suddenly with a sense of the insignificance
of things . . . of his minute existence . . . and yet we were killing each other. . . .
the sudden ludicrousness of being in a vast universe. That day we had studied with the map
in the classroom. . . . and the day ended with the entire universe in the dark. . . . I
felt some kind of fear, a primordial fear drove me into the cottage. Mom, Dad, and light
were there in the face of this primordial fear of the vast unknown. And what was there to
protect me was the family.</small><br>
<small>I like that one-page scene because it suggests the possibility for the mind and the
view of this boy. . . . the scene is so commonplace, the beautiful stars, a conventional
thing . . . why be terrified of that when everyone else sees something beautiful, awesome.
. . . What is there to terrify him . . . something scary out there? Something terrifying
out there—all this is going on out there—war, nationalism,
colonialism—it’s all so insignificant.</small><br>
<small>Maybe in a sense that’s what I think today, having gone through colonial life,
war which consumed my youthful existence . . . and defined everything for me . . . now is
so insignificant . . . in the twilight of my life. Really, what we think is so
earth-shaking turns out in the end to be so insignificant. . . . </small></p>
<hr align="center" color="#c0c0c0" noshade width="80%">
<p align="left"><font color="#008000"><small><b>Richard E. Kim</b> was born in
Korea and has lived in the U.S. much of his adult life. He was educated at Middlebury
College, Johns Hopkins University, the State University of Iowa, and Harvard. Richard Kim
has taught at several universities in the U.S. and, as a Fulbright Scholar, at Seoul
National University in Korea. In addition to <i>Lost Names</i>, he is the author of
several books including <i>The Innocent</i> (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1968) and <i>The
Martyred</i> (New York: George Brassiller, 1964). He has also scripted and narrated
several documentaries for KBS-TV in Seoul.</small></font></p>
<p align="left"><font color="#008000"><small><b>Kathleen Woods Masalski</b> is
Program Coordinator for the Five College Center for East Asian Studies located at Smith
College in Massachusetts. She directs projects on China, Japan, and Korea that serve New
England teachers. She serves as chair of the AAS Committee on Teaching About Asia (CTA)
and is a member of the editorial board of <i>EAA</i>.</small></font></p>
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<p><a name="13096990457a239b_Essays"></a></p>
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<td align="left" valign="middle" width="70%"><small>I first was introduced to the novel <i>Lost
Names</i> during a recent postgraduate fellowship I participated in entitled <i>Imperial
Japan—Expansion and War, 1892 to 1945</i>. Sponsored by the Five College Center for
East Asian Studies, the seminar was conducted at Mount Holyoke College. Our preconference
assignment included reading this novel, and we actually had the opportunity to meet its
author, Richard E. Kim, during the conference. He helped us analyze our feelings and
reactions to his powerful story. In announcing its reprinting, scheduled for 1998, he
previewed our group with his own Author’s Note for this new edition in which he
states that he is proud of the fact that his work is often taken as a factual memoir, not
fiction.</small></td>
<td align="center" valign="middle" width="30%"><img src="http://www.aasianst.org/eaa/wright.jpg" alt="wright.jpg (5097 bytes)" height="170" width="120"></td>
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<p align="left"><small>Fast-forward one year, and I am now teaching Seventh Grade Social
Studies at the Brimmer and May School in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Brimmer is a small,
coed private school and a member of the Coalition of Essential Schools. The philosophy of
this coalition promotes a collaborative education encompassing the values of independent
thinking with group oriented problem solving and analytical skills, community, individual
responsibility, citizenship, and respect.</small></p>
<p align="left"><small>In this collaborative setting, I found myself team teaching these
students with Joseph Iuliano, who taught English in addition to being Head of the Middle
School. Interestingly enough, when we met over the summer, we were both new teachers to
the Brimmer community. Our initial course curriculum goal was to meld writing skills with
the study of geography and culture of the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. We also
planned to incorporate a student project entitled "Family History—A Short
Story." Questions to be addressed included: what resources can students use to learn
about their ancestors and other cultures; and how can factual events be used to enhance a
fictional work? For this project, we required both accurate historical and cultural
information, along with a solid narrative model, which the students could relate to and
emulate. We also wanted to ensure that this experience would be academically enriching for
them as well as being personally satisfying.</small></p>
<p align="left"><small>In August, I had given Joe my copy of <i>Lost Names</i> as
potential curriculum material for his English class. He rediscovered the book while
cleaning out his office prior to this term and began reading it. Simultaneously, I
realized that we were doing the students a disservice in not studying the cultures of
Asia. In discussing this lapse with him, we realized that this novel would be a perfect
fit for our project. When both Joe and myself had initially read <i>Lost Names</i>, we
did so without realizing that it was a work of fiction because of its personal intensity.
We hoped that our students would assume the same until they read the Author’s Note at
the end, thus subliminally impressing upon them the literary style we were looking for.</small></p>
<p align="left"><small>In addition to reading the book to appreciate its composition, we
also wanted our students to glean the significance of the actual history. <i>Lost Names</i>
contains pronounced anti-Japanese sentiment expressed from the black vs. white/good vs.
bad viewpoint of a young boy. In order to counterbalance this one-sided view, I also chose
to incorporate excerpts from other works such as Saburo Ienaga’s <i>The Pacific War:
1931–1945</i>, Norma Field’s <i>In the Realm of a Dying Emperor</i>, and
films like Isao Takahata’s <i>Grave of the Fireflies</i>, which all added critical
insight into this study. My fear was that if I presented <i>Lost Names</i> on its own,
my students would walk away with a biased opinion of Japan instead of a variety of
perspectives from which they could judge Japanese culture and political actions
themselves. We did not believe our seventh grade students had been exposed to a strong
enough background in World War II history to prevent a bias if the book was taken on its
own.</small></p>
<p align="left"><small>Some initial student comments regarding Lost Names follow:</small></p>
<blockquote>
<p align="left"><b><small><font color="#400080" face="Arial"><small>We learned a lot
about war and life in it. After we read the book we watched a video about life in Japan
during the war. I found out that life was no picnic there either.</small></font></small></b></p>
<p align="left"><small><font color="#400080" face="Arial"><b><small><i>Lost Names</i>
was a really moving story. I think <i>Lost Names</i> was the perfect book to read before
we did the Family History Short Story Project.</small></b></font></small></p>
<p align="left"><small><font color="#400080" face="Arial"><b><small>. . . it was a
great example of an autobiography and dealing with hardships. <i>Lost Names</i> is a lot
easier to understand than many other World War II references. It is also rare to find a
book with a Korean point of view.</small></b></font></small></p>
<p align="left"><small><font color="#400080" face="Arial"><b><small>I am the same age
as the narrator, but we have some huge differences in our lifestyles. I can play football
and use computers and do a lot of different things. He was forced to work on building an
airfield.</small></b></font></small></p>
<p align="left"><small><font color="#400080" face="Arial"><b><small>Before reading <i>Lost
Names</i>, I always had thought of books based on history as being boring, but after
finishing it and writing the short story on my family history, I realized what I had
thought wasn’t necessarily true.</small></b></font></small></p>
<p align="left"><small><font color="#400080" face="Arial"><b><small>My great
grandfather, the person I am writing about, also suffered through a lot of persecution
because he was Jewish. Reading about this boy’s experiences helped me to understand
what might have happened to my great grandfather.</small></b></font></small></p>
<p align="left"><small><font color="#400080" face="Arial"><b><small>The real events
in <i>Lost Names</i> make it a great research tool as well as a great book that teaches
different writing styles.</small></b></font></small></p>
</blockquote>
<p align="left"><small>Many of the students’ projects on family history
coincidentally involve that same period of time illustrated in <i>Lost Names</i>. I
think this novel gave them an added perspective on the political changes erupting at this
time. The novel also illustrated to them that persecution and political unrest exists
across all cultures and age groups. They not only learned what factors affected their
recent ancestors’ choices in life, but that these factors are in a way universal.</small></p>
<p align="left"><small><i>Lost Names</i> is a multidisciplinary novel; it goes beyond
the confines of social studies or a history course; I plan to incorporate it into my
United States History courses in the future. I hope my seventh graders will have the
opportunity to study <i>Lost Names</i> at some other time in their educational career
with an insight gained from their Family History Short Story Projects.</small></p>
<hr align="left" color="#c0c0c0" noshade size="1" width="30%">
<p align="left"><font color="#400080" face="Arial"><small><small><b>PETER R. WRIGHT</b>
holds a Master’s degree in History and a Master’s in Teaching from Simmons
College and teaches United States History and Seventh Grade Humanities at the Brimmer and
May School in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. He has participated in summer programs and
fellowships at Deerfield Academy, the University of Virginia, and at the Five College
Center for East Asian Studies at Smith College.</small></small></font></p>
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<td align="center" valign="middle" width="30%"><p align="center"><img src="http://www.aasianst.org/eaa/mastro.jpg" alt="mastro.jpg (5333 bytes)" height="188" width="133"></p></td>
<td align="left" valign="middle" width="70%"><p align="left"><small>In a currently popular
world literature text of 1,442 pages, there are a total of four pages on Korean
literature. An entire country’s literary heritage is condensed into two poems. Until
I read <i>Lost Names</i> by Richard Kim, my only contact with Korea had been to watch my
mother cry as my older brother set off for the Korean War. Then later I encountered some
opinions and allusions to the country through study of Japanese language and culture. None
of these led me any closer to what might be the heart and soul of the Korean
people—the essential quality to which I wanted to expose my students in world
literature. Then I read <i>Lost Names</i>. I knew immediately that this text would help
my students discover that a small country across the world from America, with customs and
traditions very different from theirs, is a place with warm, friendly people who share the
same hopes and dreams as they do.</small></p></td>
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</tbody></table>
</div>
<p align="left"><small>The student body at W. G. Enloe High School is very diverse. There
might be a dozen different national backgrounds in any given classroom. A student sitting
side-by-side with a friend who speaks English fluently may have no idea that his
classmate’s home life is based on assumptions and ideas quite different from his own.
Until they are introduced to world cultures and world literature in tenth grade, our
students often have little idea of the value and richness of other cultural heritages.</small></p>
<p align="left"><small>It is the personal lives of others that draw students into
literature, that make them want to know and understand more about another culture.
Literature is the perfect key to open the curious minds of adolescents and help them to
understand that for all of our differences, human beings share the same basic needs and
desires and values. <i>Lost Names</i> is one of those rare texts that appeal to all
ages. Seeing World War II through the eyes of a boy growing up in the midst of the chaos
puts the war in a completely different perspective for our students who have no
understanding of genuine hardship or sacrifice.</small></p>
<hr align="center" color="#c0c0c0" noshade size="1" width="70%">
<blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p align="left"><font color="#400080" face="Arial"><i><b>I knew immediately that
this text would help my students discover that a small country across the world from
America, with customs and traditions very different from theirs, is a place with warm,
friendly people who share the same hopes and dreams as they do</b></i></font></p>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<hr align="center" color="#c0c0c0" noshade size="1" width="70%">
<p align="left"><small>Before my students begin to read <i>Lost Names</i>, they have
studied the cultures, religions, and literatures of India, China, and Japan. They have
looked at World War II through the eyes of Japanese survivors of the bomb dropped on
Hiroshima. They are empathetic and sympathetic to the suffering of the Japanese people.
Then they look at another non-American side of the war—not just what Japan suffered,
but also the suffering Japan caused. They triumph with the small victories of a young boy
and his proud father trying to retain their self respect amid the indignities of
occupation and war. The story that Richard Kim weaves encircles them and draws them into
the pain and daily victories of survival, into the courage and determination to persevere
in the face of great danger. They see the Confucian values of family hierarchy and duty,
not as abstract characteristics to memorize, but as a way of life that, when they are
practiced well, supports every member of a society. They see filial piety and duty as two
parts of a whole. They see the boy practicing these values as a son and then as a leader
of his group at school.</small></p>
<p align="left"><small>Until American students see how these values work in everyday life,
it is hard for them to understand how anything but being a "rugged
individualist" can be a good way of life. When, in chapter three, the boy challenges
a classmate to a race, knowing the classmate will win, students can see that losing can be
a different kind of victory. From reading this novel students can begin to develop an
understanding of the tragedy of war in general and civil war in particular. In addition,
they can vicariously experience the triumph of the human spirit, something common to all
mankind.</small></p>
<p align="left"><small>At the end of last school year, when I asked which works in the
curriculum should be taught again and which replaced, there was a great outcry for the
continued inclusion of <i>Lost Names</i>. For further information, see <i>Teaching More
about Korea: Lessons for Students in Grades K-12</i>. The lesson plans are published by
The Korea Society as an outcome of the Tenth Annual Summer Fellowship in Korean Studies
Program. The booklet includes "A Study Guide for <i>Lost Names</i> and Discussion
Questions for Various Short Stories," all by Korean authors. For more information
about the publication, contact Yong Jin Choi, Director, Korean Studies Program, The Korea
Society, 950 Third Avenue, 8th Floor, New York, NY 10022; Phone: <a href="tel:%28212%29%20759-7525%2C%20ext.%2025" value="+12127597525" target="_blank">(212) 759-7525, ext. 25</a>.</small></p>
<hr align="left" color="#c0c0c0" noshade size="1" width="30%">
<p align="left"><font color="#400080" face="Arial"><small><small><b>SUSAN MASTRO</b>
is currently the Coordinator of the International Baccalaureate Programme at W. G. Enloe
Magnet High School in Raleigh, North Carolina. Formerly a teacher of world literature and
Japanese language, she has written curricula for both subjects and an article on Japanese
literature for AGORA magazine (1992). She is an adjunct to the North Carolina Japan Center
and has traveled extensively in Japan.</small></small></font></p>
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<p align="left"> </p>
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<td align="left" valign="middle" width="70%"><small>"Problematize the master
narrative!" These were the words some years ago at an NEH summer institute for
teachers. The speaker’s language wasn’t mine then (it is now), but I realized
that that’s what I’d been doing in my teaching for years: making an issue of the
dominant interpretation (usually that of a textbook). It is what more of us need to focus
on, at all levels and in all subjects. Textbooks are always wrong. History is never
simple.</small><p><small>As a professor of Japanese history at a major state university, I
have the luxury of teaching a full-semester survey course on Japan (History of Japanese
Civilization). It is in this course that for many years now I have used Richard Kim’s
<i>Lost Names</i>. (Just before the first edition went out of print, I was able to buy
forty copies, so that <i>Lost Names</i> lived on in my course even though it was out of
print.) So let me describe the course. </small></p></td>
<td align="center" valign="middle" width="30%"><img src="http://www.aasianst.org/eaa/minear.jpg" alt="Richard Minear" height="221" width="143"></td>
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</div>
<p align="left"><small>There are forty-five students of various rank, freshman through
senior; and the class meets three times per week. Two meetings per week are lectures,
films, or other activities; one meeting per week is a discussion. I lead all the
discussions. One of the concerns throughout the course is the relation between author and
material (study the historian), and the syllabus carries biographical data on all authors
we encounter, including both me and Richard Kim. I have as well the advantage of having
been present twice in the last five years when Kim discussed <i>Lost Names</i> with
groups of teachers.</small></p>
<p align="left"><small>The latter half of my course, roughly, is Japan since 1800. Because
I dislike textbooks, I assign a non-textbook, Ienaga Saburo’s <i>The Pacific War</i>,
and then spend much of my time disagreeing with it. My lecture presentations take issue
with Ienaga, and for the final paper the students have to compare and contrast Ienaga and
Minear. The next-to-last paper concerns <i>Lost Names</i>.</small></p>
<p align="left"><small>The <i>Lost Names</i> paper focuses on ethnocentrism in the
Japanese treatment of their Korean subjects (<i>Lost Names</i> is the students’
only source) and on how to evaluate the evidence Kim presents. Lost Names is not a history
book; but how do we process the information Kim offers? Students find the first part of
the paper—how ethnocentrism affects the narrator and his family and the Japanese
officials—very easy and the second part very difficult. The sheer power of Kim’s
prose makes it difficult for them to step back and criticize—even though this is late
in the course and we have been criticizing sources all semester.</small></p>
<p align="left"><small>But close reading and criticism are what the course is about, and
despite the fact that many students complain that <i>Lost Names</i> is all they know
about the subject, I insist that they can and must <i>criticize</i>. It is not a matter
of liking the book or not liking the book; with rare exceptions, students are bowled over
by it. It is a matter of processing the material. </small></p>
<p align="left"><small>So where to begin? As always, with the author’s biography.
Clearly, the narrator’s life and Kim’s overlap. But how do we deal with
autobiography? What are the advantages and disadvantages of hearing things "straight
from the horse’s mouth"? Some students find it impossible to believe that the
narrator was so utterly invincible, so right in all the major choices he makes. The
"Author’s Note" at the end of the new edition states artfully (too
artfully?), "Perhaps I should have included a disclaimer [in the first edition]: all
the characters and events described in this book are real, but everything else is fiction.
. . . It is for me a happy predicament. On the one hand, a book I created as fiction is
not accepted as such. . . ." In sessions with teachers, Kim has come close to stating
that things happened essentially as he recounts them in the book, except that he combined
events from separate days into one day or changed a daytime event to nighttime.</small></p>
<p align="left"><small>At war’s end, Kim the author is thirteen years old, the age of
the narrator. But Kim wrote <i>Lost Names</i> twenty-five years later, in 1970, when Kim
the author was thirty-eight. Between 1945 and 1970 Kim had continued his education in
Korea, fought in the Korean War (on the side of South Korea), attended Middlebury College,
and written several novels about the Korean War; in 1970 he was teaching in the English
Department at the University of Massachusetts (he wrote <i>Lost Names</i> in English).
What is the relation between Kim in 1970 and the narrator in 1933 or 1940 or 1945? That is
a real question.</small></p>
<p align="left"><small>Most if not all students note that Kim the author cannot have
remembered the scenes from 1933, at the beginning of <i>Lost Names</i>. After all, he is
a baby in his mother’s arms. Fewer raise questions about the scenes of 1940 (the loss
of names, when author Kim was eight years old) or 1945 (the liberation, when author Kim
was thirteen). <i>Lost Names</i> is seductive in part because it purports to be a
child’s recollection, but are we reading the thoughts of an eight-year-old Korean
schoolkid (1940) or the thoughts of a war-hardened and cross-culturally sophisticated
38-year-old (1970)? At the end of the "Lost Names" chapter, the narrator speaks:
"Their pitifulness, their weakness, their self-lacerating lamentation for their ruin
and their misfortune repulse me and infuriate me. What are we doing anyway—kneeling
down and bowing our heads in front of all those graves? I am gripped by the same outrage
and revolt I felt at the Japanese shrine, where, whipped by the biting snow and mocked by
the howling wind, I stood, like an idiot, bowing my head to the gods and the spirit of the
Japanese Emperor." Are these the words of an eight-year-old? Fortunately, some
students have a family member or know a neighbor of that age.</small></p>
<p align="left"><small>If the thoughts are, in part at least, the thoughts of a
38-year-old, what were the influences on him? When teachers asked author Kim about
favorite reading when he was young, he mentioned the great Russian novelists (in Japanese
translation). Is Kim’s narrator perhaps part Tolstoyan hero? </small></p>
<p align="left"><small>Is the narrator’s experience representative of the Korean
experience? <i>Lost Names</i> is useful in my course in part because much of what the
students hear from me (especially in contrast with Ienaga’s book) is sympathetic to
the Japanese—not in their treatment of Koreans but in relation to their struggle with
American power. To hear a Korean viewpoint is enormously useful. But is Kim’s
viewpoint <i>the</i> Korean viewpoint or <i>a</i> Korean viewpoint? This is a tougher
issue for students, but some acknowledge that the narrator and his family are exceptional
in terms of wealth, prestige, nationalistic activity and religion, that one of the
narrator’s classmates—Pumpkin, for example—might have written a very
different book. On occasion I have given them a quotation from an essay by Bruce Cumings
to underline the point that not all Koreans think alike. Speaking in 1950, a Korean
industrialist commented that the return to Korea after the war of "numerous
revolutionists and nationalists" had stirred up anti-Japanese feeling, but today
"there is hardly any trace of it." Korea and Japan "are destined to go
hand-in-hand, to live and let live," so bad feelings should be "cast
overboard." Today "an economic unity is lacking whereas in prewar days Japan,
Manchuria, Korea and Taiwan economically combined to make an organic whole."</small></p>
<p align="left"><small>Almost to a person, the students are appalled at the Japanese
treatment of the Koreans that <i>Lost Names</i> describes. It reinforces what they read
in Ienaga, and I offer them no contrary evidence. (A former colleague of mine, growing up
on Taiwan at the same time, was sure at the end of the war that he was Japanese, not
Chinese. Was Japanese colonialism the same everywhere and for every person subject to it?
That is material for an entire course.) Could <i>Lost Names</i> happen only in Korea, or
are there echoes in the histories of other countries, perhaps even our own? This is a
tough one. A number of students come up with Ellis Island and the changing of names; but
that was by and large voluntary—a simplification, not the forced purging of a past. A
very few mention the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the schools it ran, which outlawed the
use of native languages and insisted on "Christian" names. These events do not
excuse the Japanese acts we read about in <i>Lost Names</i>, but they provide a context
that the book does not.</small></p>
<p align="left"><small>We do not discuss <i>Lost Names</i> in class; the students read
it on their own. Here are excerpts from two papers from Fall 1998 (I have made no
changes):</small></p>
<blockquote>
<p align="left"><small><small><font color="#400080" face="Arial"><i>Lost Names</i> is a
work of fiction, and it can not be construed otherwise. . . . [t]he narrator’s family
counters each insult from the Japanese in a glorious manner, which gives the story an
element of unrealistic magnificence often found in fiction. . . . Events described in the
book may have happened to Koreans, but it is implausible to have one family continually
shake the foundations of Japanese occupation in one town without being ousted or
"disappeared"—especially when the Thought Police knew the narrator’s
father organized a resistance in the past. The story is perfect. It was obvious that the
narrator would save the Japanese Shinto priest—everything falls into place, and the
family reclaims their dignity at every step. But these elements exist only in fiction.</font></small></small></p>
<p align="right"><small>—a junior majoring in History</small></p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p align="left"><small><font color="#400080" face="Arial"><small>Kim did not write <i>Lost
Names</i> as a journal, as events happened. Instead he wrote the story when he was in his
late 30’s as a subjective reflection on what happened. The story was subjected to his
experience and his views of the occupation and later events that shaped his life.</small></font></small></p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p align="right"><small>—a sophomore majoring in Political Science</small></p>
</blockquote>
<p align="left"><small>It was clear from both their papers that <i>Lost Names</i> had
moved these students, but they had been able to keep their critical faculties intact. And
that, I suggest, should be one major goal of our teaching.</small></p>
<p align="left"><small><i>Lost Names</i> is a work of high art. It deserves the most
serious consideration. In my course, we use it in significant measure to problematize the
Japanese master narrative. But just as there are American and Japanese master narratives,
so there is a Korean master narrative. We need to be as leery of the Korean master
narrative as of the other two. We may not know much about Korea, but there, too, we need
to problematize the master narrative.</small></p>
<hr align="left" color="#c0c0c0" noshade size="1" width="30%">
<p align="left"><font color="#400080" face="Arial"><small><small><b>RICHARD H. MINEAR</b>
is Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He has translated
the writings and poetry of atomic bomb survivors of Hiroshima, <i>Hiroshima:Three
Witnesses</i>, 1990; <i>Black Eggs</i>, 1994; <i>When We Say ‘Hiroshima</i>,’
1999. His most recent book is <i>Dr. Seuss Goes to War: The World War II Editorial
Cartoons of Theodor Seuss Geisel</i> (1999).</small></small></font></p>
<hr align="center" color="#c0c0c0" noshade size="4" width="80%"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 7:50 AM, Laura Reizman <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:lhreizman@gmail.com" target="_blank">lhreizman@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">Hello,<div><br></div><div>This is in reference to the film version by Yu Hyon-mok. They do have it at KOFA, I believe it is titled "The Martyrs," (순교자) and was made in 1965. Those who are interested in watching the film can do so via VOD online. You do have to pay a small fee to watch it though, and will need Internet Explorer. </div>
<div><br></div><div>Best,</div><div><br></div><div><font color="#888888">Laura Reizman</font><div><div></div><div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 8:26 PM, Mark Morris <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:mrm1000@cam.ac.uk" target="_blank">mrm1000@cam.ac.uk</a>></span> wrote:<br>
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<br>
This is very good news. <br>
<br>
Now if only someone could get Bitwin to re-release<br>
the DVD of the film version by Yu Hyon-mok -- one of the best Korean War films <br>
of the 1960s.<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Mark Morris<br>
Cambridge<br>
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<br>
On 13/6/11 20:14, "David Kim" <<a href="mailto:dkim@asiafound-dc.org" target="_blank">dkim@asiafound-dc.org</a>> wrote:<br>
<br>
</span></font><blockquote><span style="font-size: 12px;"><font color="#0000ff"><font face="Arial"> <br>
</font></font><font face="Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><br>
</font></span><font face="Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><font size="4"><span style="font-size: 14px;">Dear Korean Studies </span></font><font size="5"><span style="font-size: 18px;">Colleagues: <br>
</span></font><span style="font-size: 12px;"> <br>
</span><font size="4"><span style="font-size: 14px;">It gives me great pleasure to share with you this news on the re-release of "The Martyred."<br>
</span></font><span style="font-size: 12px;"> <br>
</span><font size="4"><span style="font-size: 14px;">David Kim<br>
</span></font><span style="font-size: 12px;"> <br>
<br>
</span><font size="5"><span style="font-size: 18px;">***<br>
</span></font><span style="font-size: 12px;"> <br>
</span><font size="5"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><i>Penguin Classics proudly presents the </i>New York Times <i>bestseller and National Book Award Finalist back in print for the first time in twenty-five years…<br>
</i></span></font><span style="font-size: 12px;"><br>
</span><font size="6"><span style="font-size: 21px;"><b><i> <br>
</i></b></span></font><font size="4"><span style="font-size: 14px;"> <br>
</span></font><font size="7"><span style="font-size: 45px;">THE MARTYRED<br>
</span></font><span style="font-size: 12px;"><br>
</span><font size="7"><span style="font-size: 26px;"><b> <br>
Richard E. Kim<br>
</b></span></font><font size="6"><span style="font-size: 21px;"> <br>
</span></font><font size="5"><span style="font-size: 18px;">With an introduction by <b>Heinz Insu Fenkl <br>
</b>and a foreword by <b>Susan Choi<br>
</b></span></font><font size="4"><span style="font-size: 14px;"> <br>
<i> <br>
PRAISE FOR </i></span></font><span style="font-size: 12px;"><b>THE MARTYRED:<br>
</b></span><font size="4"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><img src="https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=4e8d9a8e81&view=att&th=13096867f3c2803c&attid=0.1&disp=emb&realattid=c6ba0e250c174720_0.1&zw"><br>
<b>“Written in a mood of total austerity; and yet the passion of the book is perpetually beating up against its seemingly barren surface…I am deeply moved.”<br>
</b>―Philip Roth<br>
<br>
<b>“An extraordinary book. </b></span></font><b><span style="font-size: 12px;">To take one incident and through it express the universal need of the human heart for God…the agony of doubt combined with the longing to believe, is difficult indeed. Kim has accomplished just this.”<br>
</span></b><span style="font-size: 12px;"><br>
</span><font size="4"><span style="font-size: 14px;">―Pearl S. Buck<br>
</span></font><span style="font-size: 12px;"><br>
</span><font size="4"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b> <br>
</b></span></font><span style="font-size: 12px;"><br>
</span><font size="4"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b>“Kim’s book stands out as one written in the great moral and psychological tradition of Job, Dostoevsky, and Albert Camus…it is a magnificent achievement, and it will last.<br>
</b></span></font><span style="font-size: 12px;"><br>
</span><font size="4"><span style="font-size: 14px;">―<i>The New York Times Book Review<br>
</i></span></font><span style="font-size: 12px;"><br>
</span><font size="1"><span style="font-size: 8px;">\<br>
</span></font><font size="4"><span style="font-size: 14px;"> <br>
<b>RICHARD KIM</b></span></font><span style="font-size: 12px;">’s breathtaking novel, <b>THE MARTYRED (</b>Penguin Classics; ISBN: 978-0-14-310640-1; On-Sale 5/31/11; $16.00; 240 pages; also available as an e-book), begins during the early weeks of the Korean War. Captain Lee, a young South Korean officer, is ordered to investigate the kidnapping and mass murder of North Korean ministers by Communist forces. For propaganda purposes, the priests are declared martyrs, but as he delves into the crime, Lee finds himself asking: what if they are not martyrs? What if they renounced their faith in the face of death, failing both God and country? Should the people be fed this lie? Part thriller, part mystery, part existential treatise, <b>THE MARTYRED</b><i> </i>is a stunning meditation on truth, religion, and faith in the time of crisis. <br>
</span><font size="4"><span style="font-size: 14px;"> <br>
<b>THE MARTYRED </b></span></font><span style="font-size: 12px;">is a moving modern classic that will appeal to fans of Chang-Rae Lee’s <i>The Surrendered, </i>and its publication is timed to coincide with the sixtieth anniversary of the Korean War (June 1950 to July 1953). It also follows the recent publication of the fortieth anniversary edition of Richard Kim’s <b>LOST NAMES </b>from University of California Press (ISBN: 9780520268128; on sale: March 2011; $18.95).<br>
</span><font size="4"><span style="font-size: 14px;"> <br>
<b><u>ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS<br>
</u>Richard E. Kim </b></span></font><span style="font-size: 12px;">(1932-2009) was born Kim Eun Kook in Hamheung, Korea. After an honorable discharge from the Republic of South Korea’s army, he immigrated to the United States, where he rose to prominence as an academic and a writer of novels, including <i>The Innocent </i>and <i>Lost Names</i>. <br>
</span><font size="4"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b> <br>
Heinz Insu Fenkl </b></span></font><span style="font-size: 12px;">is the director of the creative writing program at the State University of New York, New Paltz.<br>
</span><font size="4"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b> <br>
Susan Choi </b></span></font><span style="font-size: 12px;">is the author of <i>A Person of Interest, The Foreign Student, </i>and <i>American Woman</i>, a finalist for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize.<br>
</span><font size="4"><span style="font-size: 14px;"> <br>
<b>THE MARTYRED<br>
</b></span><span style="font-size: 13px;">by <b>Richard E. Kim</b> with an introduction by <b>Heinz Insu Fenkl </b>and a foreword by <b>Susan Choi<br>
</b>Penguin Classics ♦ 978-0-14-310640-1 ♦ On-Sale 5/31/11♦ $16.00 ♦ 240 pages<br>
Also available as an e-book.<br>
</span><span style="font-size: 14px;"><b> <br>
For more information or to schedule an interview with Heinz Insu Fenkl or Susan Choi, please contact: <br>
<br>
Langan Kingsley <br>
<a href="tel:212.366.2226" value="+12123662226" target="_blank">212.366.2226</a> </b></span><b><span style="font-size: 13px;">/ </span><span style="font-size: 14px;"><a href="mailto:langan.kingsley@us.penguingroup.com" target="_blank">langan.kingsley@us.penguingroup.com</a> <br>
</span></b><span style="font-size: 14px;"> <br>
<b>Please visit:<br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.richardekim.com/" target="_blank">http://www.richardekim.com/</a></b></span></font><b><span style="font-size: 12px;"> <a href="http://www.richardekim.com/" target="_blank"><http://www.richardekim.com/></a> <br>
</span><font size="4"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><a href="http://us.penguingroup.com" target="_blank">http://us.penguingroup.com</a></span></font><span style="font-size: 12px;"> <a href="http://us.penguingroup.com/" target="_blank"><http://us.penguingroup.com/></a> </span><font size="4"><span style="font-size: 14px;">.<br>
</span></font></b><span style="font-size: 12px;"> <br>
<b>***<br>
David L. Kim<br>
</b>Coordinator, Luce Scholars Program<br>
The Asia Foundation <br>
1779 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, #815<br>
Washington, DC 20036<br>
Tel: <a href="tel:%28202%29%20588-9468" value="+12025889468" target="_blank">(202) 588-9468</a> / Fax: <a href="tel:%28202%29%20588-9409" value="+12025889409" target="_blank">(202) 588-9409</a> / Cell: <a href="tel:%28301%29%20787-1195" value="+13017871195" target="_blank">(301) 787-1195</a><br>
Email: <a href="mailto:dkim@asiafound-dc.org" target="_blank">dkim@asiafound-dc.org</a> <a href="mailto:dkim@asiafound-dc.org" target="_blank"><mailto:dkim@asiafound-dc.org></a> <br>
Skype: Davidlkim (The Asia Foundation)<br>
<a href="http://www.asiafoundation.org" target="_blank">www.asiafoundation.org</a> <a href="http://www.asiafoundation.org/" target="_blank"><http://www.asiafoundation.org/></a> <br>
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