Events › Meet Margaret Juhae Lee, Author of Starry Field: A Memoir of Lost History

Starry Field: A Memoir of Lost History is journalist Margaret Juhae Lee's intimate and touching debut, weaving together Margaret's family story against the backdrop of Korea's tumultuous modern history, with a powerful question at its heart. Can we ever separate ourselves from our family's past—and if the answer is yes, should we?

Join us on Tuesday, December 10 at 5:00 PM at the Atherton Library's Heritage Room as we welcome Margaret Juhae Lee in conversation with fellow local author, Susan Kiyo Ito (I Would Meet You Anywhere). Keep an eye out for free giveaway copies of Starry Field: A Memoir of Lost History in your local SMCL branch!

Growing up in Houston, Margaret was never told about her grandfather, Lee Chul Ha. His memory was submerged in 1936 Korea, when Lee Chul Ha died a disgraced communist rebel; to his surviving family, he was a criminal. As an act of unearthing her own identity, Margaret needed to understand why and began investigating her grandfather's story. She discovered an extraordinary young man - a student revolutionary imprisoned for protesting the Japanese government's colonization of Korea and a hero eventually honored as a Patriot of South Korea almost 60 years after his death. With this new knowledge came Margaret's realization that her grandmother had old wounds she needed to heal.

Margaret Juhae Lee is the author of Starry Field: A Memoir of Lost History (Melville House). A former editor at The Nation magazine, she received a Bunting Fellowship from Harvard University and a Korean Studies Fellowship from the Korea Foundation. Her articles have been published in The Nation, Newsday, Elle, ARTnews, The Rumpus and Writer's Digest. She lives in Oakland with her family and Brownie, a rescue dog from Korea.

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