The Foreign Student: A Novel
Oct 2009 · Harper Collins
3.3star
3 reviewsreport
Ebook
340
Pages
family_home
Eligible
info
reportRatings and reviews aren’t verified Learn More
About this ebook
This “auspicious debut” is “epic in its harrowing accounts of war and intimate in its charged descriptions of the unlikely love affair at its center” (New Yorker).
A young Korean man scarred by war finds unlikely love in the American South in National Book Award–winning author Susan Choi’s acclaimed debut novel.
Tennessee, 1955. When Chuck Ahn arrives in Sewanee to begin his studies at the University of the South, he is shy and speaks English haltingly. On the subject of his earlier life in Korea, he will not speak at all. Then he meets Katherine Monroe, a beautiful and solitary young woman who, like Chuck, is haunted by some dark episode in her past.
Without quite knowing why, these two outsiders are drawn together, each sensing in the other the possibility of salvation. Moving between the American South and South Korea, between an adolescent girl’s sexual awakening and a young man’s nightmarish memories of war, The Foreign Student is a powerful and emotionally gripping work of fiction.
“Richly detailed . . . Moving from the present to the past, from America to Korea, Choi brings hundreds of small scenes to life.” — New York Times Book Review
“Susan Choi writes gracefully, insightfully, and with striking maturity.” —Time
“A novel of extraordinary sensibility and transforming strangeness.” — Los Angeles Times Book Review
“Elegantly wrought.” — Vanity Fair
“It is in her beautifully detailed evocation of the rich, albeit scarred emotional landscapes of her characters that Choi is at her best.” —Publishers Weekly
“[An] accomplished, perceptive novel, which invites rereading and lingers in the reader's memory.” —Booklist
“Moving and intelligent.” —Kirkus Reviews
A young Korean man scarred by war finds unlikely love in the American South in National Book Award–winning author Susan Choi’s acclaimed debut novel.
Tennessee, 1955. When Chuck Ahn arrives in Sewanee to begin his studies at the University of the South, he is shy and speaks English haltingly. On the subject of his earlier life in Korea, he will not speak at all. Then he meets Katherine Monroe, a beautiful and solitary young woman who, like Chuck, is haunted by some dark episode in her past.
Without quite knowing why, these two outsiders are drawn together, each sensing in the other the possibility of salvation. Moving between the American South and South Korea, between an adolescent girl’s sexual awakening and a young man’s nightmarish memories of war, The Foreign Student is a powerful and emotionally gripping work of fiction.
“Richly detailed . . . Moving from the present to the past, from America to Korea, Choi brings hundreds of small scenes to life.” — New York Times Book Review
“Susan Choi writes gracefully, insightfully, and with striking maturity.” —Time
“A novel of extraordinary sensibility and transforming strangeness.” — Los Angeles Times Book Review
“Elegantly wrought.” — Vanity Fair
“It is in her beautifully detailed evocation of the rich, albeit scarred emotional landscapes of her characters that Choi is at her best.” —Publishers Weekly
“[An] accomplished, perceptive novel, which invites rereading and lingers in the reader's memory.” —Booklist
“Moving and intelligent.” —Kirkus Reviews
Ratings and reviews
3.3
3 reviews
About the author
Susan Choi was born in Indiana and grew up in Texas. Her first novel, The Foreign Student, won the Asian-American Literary Award for Fiction and was a finalist for the Discover Great New Writers Award at Barnes & Noble. With David Remnick, she edited an anthology of fiction entitled Wonderful Town: New York Stories from the New Yorker. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Rate this ebook
Tell us what you think.
Reading information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.
