Factual Fiction Versus Autobiography: The Korean Diaspora and Creative Writing’s Potential to Go Beyond Family Stories in The Evening Hero

Date

January 24, 2023

Time

4:00 pm – 5:30 pm

Location

School of International and Public Affairs

The alchemical magic of fiction means it can involve not just the stories of people, but places and history can be characters on their own. Fiction can tell us about lives people lived with the same truths as a history book, but a different approach.

Humans naturally want story, and also truth. It’s a time honored way to create characters and lives based on people we know. But what is it like to write backwards into things we don’t know, but wish we did? The author will speak about how her family stories—and also silences–of migration and war, her trip to North Korea, and other research informs the fictional world of The Evening Hero, a winner of a Columbia Humanities War & Peace Initiative Grant.