Suki Kim

Suki Kim

Born Seoul, South Korea
Nationality American
Alma mater Barnard College, 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
SukiKim.com

Suki Kim is a Korean American writer, a 2006 Guggenheim fellow and the author of the award winning novel The Interpreter and a New York Times Bestselling literary nonfiction, Without You, There Is No Us: Undercover Among the Sons of North Korea's Elite. Kim is the only writer ever to have lived undercover in North Korea for immersive journalism.

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 the outer boroughs of New York City. 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.[1] The book received positive critic reviews[2] 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[3]

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.[4]

Her second book, Without You, There Is No Us: Undercover Among the Sons of North Korea's Elite, is a work of literary nonfiction about her six months undercover in North Korea, teaching English to the future leaders of the country at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology.[5] The book sheds a new light on the understanding of the North Korean society by delving into its day-to-day life and provides unprecedented insights into the psychology of its ruling class, about whom the world knows very little.

To promote the book, Kim appeared on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart on December 10, 2014. Her 2015 TED Talk "What It's Like To Go Undercover in North Korea" received a standing ovation from its audience including Bill Gates and Al Gore, and has since drawn millions of viewers online.

The book has resulted in some controversy, with reviewers saying that Kim potentially brought harm on the students she wrote about, and has caused tensions between the school and the North Korean government.[6] In June, 2016, Kim confronted her critics in The New Republic essay, "The Reluctant Memoirist"; in it, she takes on racism and sexism in publishing and examines the "systematic undermining of her expertise" and the misbranding of her investigative literary journalism book as a memoir. Her publisher subsequently removed "memoir" from the cover of Without You, There Is No Us: Undercover Among the Sons of North Korea's Elite.

Kim is a contributing editor at The New Republic. In March 2016, Kim profiled the GOP candidate Marco Rubio during his 2016 Presidential campaign for the magazine.[7]

Works

Essays & Op Eds

Novels

Non-fiction

See also

References

  1. ↑ Kim, Suki. NEW YORK OBSERVED; Translating Poverty and Pain, The New York Times, March 2, 2003. Accessed March 19, 2015.
  2. ↑ Yoon, Cindy. Suki Kim and 'The Interpreter'
  3. ↑ "A Visit to North Korea"
  4. ↑ Talking with Suki Kim for her article “A Really Big Show: The New York Philharmonic’s fantasia in North Korea
  5. ↑ Kim discussed her book on The Diane Rehm Show 2014-10-15 (WAMU/NPR)
  6. ↑ Gladstone, Rick Tales Told Out of School in Pyongyang Cause Stir, The New York Times, November 30, 2014. Accessed July 10, 2016.
  7. ↑ "Mr. Rubio's Neighborhood"
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