The Foreign Student, Susan Choi
The Foreign Student, Susan Choi
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The Foreign Student
A Novel

Author: Susan Choi

Narrator: Daniel K. Isaac

Unabridged: 11 hr 14 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/21/2019

Synopsis

Highly acclaimed by critics, The Foreign Student is the story of a young Korean man, scarred by war, and the deeply troubled daughter of a wealthy Southern American family. In 1955, a new student arrives at a small college in the Tennessee mountains. Chuck is shy, speaks English haltingly, and on the subject of his earlier life in Korea he will not speak at all. Then he meets Katherine, 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.

About Susan Choi

Susan Choi is the author of several acclaimed novels, including Trust Exercise, which won the National Book Award. Her work has been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award and winner of the PEN/W.G. Sebald Award and the Asian-American Literary Award for fiction.

About Daniel K. Isaac

Daniel K. Isaac was born on December 5, 1988 in Fullerton, California. He is an actor and writer, known for Billions, Money Monster, and Too Big to Fail.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Emma Deplores Goodreads Censorship on April 06, 2011

I was initially attracted to this book because of the title; I've studied abroad myself and thought reading about a foreign student in America (especially 50 years ago when the population, at least in Tennessee where the story is set, was more homogeneous) would be fun. It has a some redeeming quali......more

Goodreads review by katherine on July 09, 2007

I loved this book. It is uplifting and heartbreaking. The two main characters, Chang and Katherine are amazing. The beginning is long and the writing style can try one's patience, but once the book is done you realize how attached you've become to each character. Chang is a very human and understand......more

Goodreads review by Lauren on October 21, 2021

I made it about halfway through this before moving on. It felt dull even though I was interested in the main romance that was (I assume) developing.......more

Goodreads review by Jack on March 21, 2020

A dear friend recommended Susan Choi's National Book Award winner TRUST EXERCISE. When I went to the New Haven library, it was, of course, out to another reader. In its stead, I picked up Choi's first novel, THE FOREIGN STUDENT, first published in 1998. It's a thrilling debut of an original voice. (......more

Goodreads review by Cleo on June 16, 2022

Some charming (and not so charming, I'm looking at you Fran and Charles) characters and some sobering insights into Korean wartime history, but my gosh this book could have used a more ruthless editor. 2.5 stars, read for class.......more

Quotes

“Susan Choi writes gracefully, insightfully, and with striking maturity.” Time

“Epic in its harrowing accounts of war and intimate in its charged descriptions of the unlikely love affair at its center.” New Yorker

“Elegantly wrought.” Vanity Fair

“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

“A novel of extraordinary sensibility and transforming strangeness.” Los Angeles Times Book Review

“Resonates with compassion-turned-ardor and an addictive melancholy vibrating beneath every line.” Houston Chronicle

Awards

  • Asian American Literary Award
  • Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers
  • Electric Literature
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