The Korea Times published a series of stories from artists and writers, including Maija Rhee Devine, to reflect on the 60th anniversary of the Armistice Agreement, which marked a historic end of the Korean War. Published on 7/27/2013. http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/culture/2013/07/145_140002.html
Author Archive
A Finalist Sticker
The Voices of Heaven showing the Finalist USA Best Book Awards Sticker.
The Voices of Heaven wins honors
The Voices of Heaven won honors in November, 2013:
1) A Finalist, The 2013 USA Best Book Awards in 2 categories: Fiction/Historical and Fiction/Multicultural: http://www.USABookNews.com.
2) Made The 2013 Kirkus Review Stars and Recommended Books List in Fiction & Literature:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/available-now/?category=fiction-books-literature&stars=recs (p. 33)
Yonhap News article on my Kirkus review
Kim Hyun Rho, a news reporter for Yonhap News (Korean AP) in Chicago, did an article on 08/14/2013 about the Kirkus review The Voices of Heaven received. Here’s the link (It’s in Korean!).
http://www.yonhapnews.co.kr/international/2013/08/14/0601180100AKR20130814044700009.HTML
Kirkus Review
The Voices of Heaven, my novel/love story set during the Korean War, received this review from Kirkus Review. The review is published in Kirkus Review website. The link is:
https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/maija-rhee-devine/the-voices-of-heaven-AuvWtfPI/
This review is already on Amazon and spd (small press distribution) and will be posted in the websites of Kirkus Review’s affiliates including Google, Amazon, Barns & Noble, Ingram, Baker & Taylor, etc.
KIRKUS REVIEW, 08/07/2013
TITLE INFORMATION
THE VOICES OF HEAVEN
Devine, Maija Rhee
Seoul Selection (316 pp.)
$16.00 paperback, $9.99 e-book
ISBN: 978-1624120039; May 15, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
In Devine’s debut novel, war and traditional Confucianism tear apart an idyllic Korean family.
Eum-chun and her husband, Gui-yong, have been married for 15 years and are deeply in love. Although they adore their adopted daughter, Mi-Na, they fail to produce a son—a serious problem in their deeply traditional society. Gui-yong eventually gives in to his mother’s wishes and marries a second woman, Soo-yang, hoping she will deliver a boy to carry on the family name. Although Eum-chun tries to bear the situation bravely, she’s devastated, and cracks soon begin to form in the seemingly perfect family. The novel, set against the backdrop of the Korean War, follows four main characters as they navigate their new family and the chaos that ravages the land. Devine’s prose richly describes everyday life in 1950s Korea, and the war effectively parallels the battle raging in the family home—an insurmountable rift divides the family, just as it does their country. It’s a realistic sketch of a Korea that few Westerners have seen, depicting a patriarchal society that limits women’s choices, and each character faces a unique battle stemming from that unfortunate situation. Each of their stories is rich with emotion, and their problems give the novel depth and complexity. Most compelling are the struggles of Eum-chun, Mi-Na and Soo-yang as they fight to create their own identities; although they all fight similar battles, they cannot fight them together, as their society has driven wedges between them. Their resulting stories are often melancholy and achingly beautiful.
A complex, uniquely Korean love story that shouldn’t be missed.
The U.S. Embassy Armistice Interview
During my May/June of 2013 author-visit stay in Seoul, Korea, one of the highlights was my interview with KBS’s international news anchor June Chang. She produced a series of interviews as part of the embassy’s oral history programming, “America and Me,” for the observance of the 60th anniversary of the Armistice Agreement of the Korean War. My portion of the interviews, 3-minutes long, has been posted to the embassy’s website and also on YouTube. I plan to go into the embassy website and view interviews of other Korean War survivors, especially that of Gen. Baek Sun-yop, who played an absolutely pivotal role during the war. In the “Korean War” section of my website, I posted pictures of a meeting of him and Michael (my husband and director of Harry S. Truman Presidential Library.) Here’s the link to the interview.
*The “America and Me” video, a Korean War oral history program by the American Embassy in Seoul, includes an interview of Maija Rhee Devine. It has been uploaded on YouTube and posted to the US Embassy website. It’s a little over three minutes long: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-6-Qm-MtEg
I am also adding a link to my Korea Times article, published on 7/27, again as part of the English language newspaper’s remembrance of the Armistice Agreement.
*A Korean War story, “My Brother and General MacArthur,” by Maija Rhee Devine was published in Korea Times, 7/27/2013: http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/culture/2013/07/145_140002.html
I know I have this info. on the home page of this website, but I wanted to add my feeling about these two posts. These stories are specific to the Korean War but the emotion of grief over lost and maimed lives, fury of many depths and reasons for them, and the joy of newly-formed bonding and forgiveness, given and taken–or the despair of it neither given nor taken–are common to all wars. I’d like to see these messages reach all those whose souls have been touched by wars. I feel extremely blessed to have been given the opportunity to participate in these programs. Thank you, war veterans and their families!
GoodReads.com ratings of The Voices of Heaven
7/30, I went into www.GoodReads.com and I found 9 reviews that gave 5-star rating to The Voices of Heaven! 6 gave 4-stars and 3 gave 3 stars. There are 20 pages of people who marked the book as their “to-read.”
“America & Me” Interview
An interview with KBS anchor June Chang for the U.S. Embassy’s oral history project, “America and Me,” on the 60th anniversary of the Armistice Agreement of the Korean War. July 27, 2013.
Korean War refugee recounts how her life changed
06/30/2013 Published on Harold-Review, by Huey Freeman
SPRINGFIELD — For Maija Rhee Devine, a 7-year-old girl when North Korean forces invaded her home city, the Korean War became the happiest time of her life.
Six decades later, Devine told an audience at the Korean War National Museum about her experiences as a refugee who was liberated by the war from domestic oppression resulting from her not being a boy.
Devine, a former Lincoln Land Community College teacher, delivered a riveting lecture at the museum Saturday, June 22, after the writing of her recently published novel stirred up childhood memories.
“The Voices of Heaven” is based on the story of Devine’s family, which underwent a situation that was not unusual in pre-war Korea.
When the parents’ union failed to produce a boy, a mistress was invited into the household to correct the situation. A male child was the only means of support for people in their old age and their afterlife, according to Confucian tradition.
The little girl was repeatedly told she was the cause of the family’s trouble. If she had only been a boy, they wouldn’t be in that predicament.
While Seoul residents were hearing the war drums of their northern neighbors, a quieter battle was raging in the once-peaceful household.
“The struggle was against their own instincts for monogamy,” Devine said of her parents. “They were put into a polygamous situation.”
The struggle, which incapacitated the girl’s mother for several months, was suddenly overshadowed by Seoul’s takeover by communist troops. Devine and her mother fled the city with a sea of refugees, which were strafed by bullets from Soviet-built airplanes.
“My mother covered my eyes to keep me from seeing people collapsing in a pool of blood,” Devine recalled.
After a nightmarish three-day train ride in a windowless boxcar crammed with refugees, they arrived in the southeast corner of the country, which was heavily protected by U.S. and United Nations troops.
At a time when thousands of Korean children were orphaned, Devine enjoyed a period of freedom from verbal retribution for being born a female.
“I loved the Korean War period,” Devine said. “People were worrying so much about who was killed or maimed, nobody cared about if I was a girl or boy. That was heaven.”
The war also inspired her to leave her homeland. After a U.S. soldier put candies into her pocket, she dreamed of “going to the country where they came from.”
She earned a master’s degree at St. Louis University and married Michael Devine, who later served as the Illinois state historian and is now director of Harry S. Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Mo. Maija Devine is now working on a book on Korean women who served as sex slaves for Japanese troops during World War II.
hfreeman@herald-review.com|(217) 421-6985
재미 여류작가 이매자 워싱턴 방문 [워싱턴 중앙일보] ‘The Voice of Heaven’ 북 사인회
Reference: http://www.koreadaily.com/news/read.asp?page=3&branch=DC&source=DC&category=&art_id=1807767
재미 여류작가 이매자씨가 워싱턴을 찾아 그녀의 최신작인 ‘The Voice of Heaven’ 책 사인회를 가졌다.
한국 관련 전문가들의 모임인 코리아 클럽 공동창설자이자 브루킹스연구소 선임연구원인 오공단 박사의 사회로 열린 책 사인회에는 모두 50여명이 참석했다.
‘The Voice of Heaven’은 동족상잔의 비극인 1950년 6.25를 배경으로 한 가족의 삶을 통해 당시 상황을 풀어가는 이야기로 남녀차별로 힘든 세월을 보냈던 이 작가의 어린시절 아픔을 담은 소설이기도 하다.
이 작가는 “딸보다 아들을 선호하던 시절, 어머니가 아들을 낳지 못하자 아버지는 아들을 낳아줄 여자를 집으로 데리고 왔다. 그 후로 60 여년이 지난 지금도 남녀평등이 완전 현실화 되지 않았다”고 말한다.
그는 책 사인회에서 자신이 자라온 배경과 책에 대해서 참석자들의 질문에 답하는 시간을 갖기도 했다. ‘The Voice of Heaven’ 은 아마존 닷컴에서 구입할 수 있다.
이 작가의 ‘The Voice of Heaven’는 곧 한국어로도 출간될 예정이다. 작가가 직접 영어와 한국어 두 가지 버전으로 집필한 독특한 작품이 될 전망이다
이매자 1966년 서강대학교 영문학과를 졸업하고 캔사스 대학에서 영문학 석사학위를 취득한 후 이 대학에서 소설과 시 분야의 강사로 일해 오면서 다수의 단편을 발표했다. 영문 시집 ‘Long Works on Short Days’를 출판한 바 있다.
허태준 기자