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

The Voices of Heaven showing the Finalist USA Best Book Awards Sticker.

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)

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.

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

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

Author, poet, and Writing for Peace Adviser, Maija Rhee Devine, visited Fort Collins High School last week to read from her debut novel, Voices of Heaven. The novel was first written as a memoir about her experiences as a young girl during the Korean War. As the North Korean and Chinese armies invaded, Devine’s family fled along with thousands of others through snow and freezing temperatures, carrying their possessions in bags on their heads. Some men, she said, balanced mattresses on their heads in hopes that the extra padding would protect them from flying bullets. Students in Mitch Schneider’s language arts classes listened with rapt attention as Devine described how her mother would cover her eyes when they came upon bombing victims, or as people beside them were struck by sniper bullets. They boarded a boxcar without windows or seats where desperate men clung to the outside of the cars, until they froze and fell to their deaths.

Devine explained the Confucian culture that made boys necessary to families, not only for the security of elderly parents, but to perform the ceremonial feasts that ensured the well-being of three generations of ancestors in the afterlife. A man and wife who were unable to produce a male heir would commonly secure a mistress, either maintaining a second household, or bringing her into the home. This was the case in her family, when fifteen harmonious years of marriage failed to produce a male heir. Her novel opens with her family preparing for the arrival of the new mistress amid rumors of war.

Devine said the process to transform her memoir into a novel had taken ten years, but ultimately had freed her to explore voices of other characters within the story. She read about the arrival of the new mistress from her own perspective as a little girl, as well as her mother’s, father’s, and the mistress herself. Devine challenged Schneider’s students to think back to an emotional event in their own lives and write about it in the voice of another character.

Fort Collins High School sophomore, Margarita Gutierrez, and visiting author, Maija Rhee Devine.

Kellan McTague, a junior at Fort Collins High School, shared that his grandfather had been a veteran of the Korean War. “Your grandfather saved my life,” said Devine.

Fort Collins High School student, Erik Garcia Arellano, and visiting author, Maija Rhee Devine.

Maija Rhee Devine, a Korean-born writer whose fiction, non-fiction, and poetry have appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, Boulevard, North American Review, and The Kenyon Review, and in various anthologies, holds a B.A. in English from Sogang University in Seoul, and an M.A. in English from St. Louis University. Writing honors include an NEA grant and nominations to Pushcart Prize and O. Henry Awards. Maija Rhee Devine is a member of the Writing for Peace Advisory Panel.