Angela Mi-Young Hur is a Korean American

Korean American

Korean Americans are Americans of Korean descent, mostly from South Korea, with a small minority from North Korea...

 writer. Since 2010, she has lived in Stockholm

Stockholm

Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...

, Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

, where she works as an editor for the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. She is currently working on a second novel.

Early life and education

Raised in Gardena

Gardena, California

Gardena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The population was 58,829 at the 2010 census, up from 57,746 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Gardena is located at ....

, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

, Hur graduated from Phillips Academy

Phillips Academy

Phillips Academy is a selective, co-educational independent boarding high school for boarding and day students in grades 9–12, along with a post-graduate year...

, an Andover

Andover, Massachusetts

Andover is a town in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States. It was incorporated in 1646 and as of the 2010 census, the population was 33,201...

, Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

 boarding school

Boarding school

A boarding school is a school where some or all pupils study and live during the school year with their fellow students and possibly teachers and/or administrators. The word 'boarding' is used in the sense of "bed and board," i.e., lodging and meals...

, in 1998. She remained in Massachusetts to continue her education after high school, enrolling at Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

, where she majored in English. While an undergraduate, she became involved in student theater, but realized that she was more drawn to writing than acting during a project with renowned playwrights Ping Chong

Ping Chong

Ping Chong is an American contemporary theater director, choreographer, video and installation artist. He was born in Toronto and raised in the Chinatown section of New York City...

 and Michael Rohd, then in residence at Harvard as Peter Ivers Visiting Artists. In lieu of a senior thesis, she wrote a novel about a woman having her mother's diaries translated from Korean to English, and the love triangle among her, her mother, and the translator. Her major literary influences included Henry James

Henry James

Henry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....

, Aimee Bender

Aimee Bender

Aimee Bender is an American novelist and short story writer, known for her surreal plots and characters.-Biography:Bender received her undergraduate degree from the University of California at San Diego, and a Master of Fine Arts from the distinguished creative writing MFA program at University of...

, Haruki Murakami

Haruki Murakami

is a Japanese writer and translator. His works of fiction and non-fiction have garnered him critical acclaim and numerous awards, including the Franz Kafka Prize and Jerusalem Prize among others.He is considered an important figure in postmodern literature...

, Marguerite Duras

Marguerite Duras

Marguerite Donnadieu, better known as Marguerite Duras was a French writer and film director.-Background:...

, and Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock

Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...

. She received her bachelor's degree in 2002. Later, she entered the Master of Fine Arts

Master of Fine Arts

A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...

 program at Notre Dame

University of Notre Dame

The University of Notre Dame du Lac is a Catholic research university located in Notre Dame, an unincorporated community north of the city of South Bend, in St. Joseph County, Indiana, United States...

 in South Bend

South Bend, Indiana

The city of South Bend is the county seat of St. Joseph County, Indiana, United States, on the St. Joseph River near its southernmost bend, from which it derives its name. As of the 2010 Census, the city had a total of 101,168 residents; its Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 316,663...

, Indiana

Indiana

Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...

, where she was a recipient of the university's Sparks Fellowship; she graduated in 2005.

Career

After receiving her MFA, Hur spent one year writing what would be her first published novel, The Queens of K-Town, which was published in August 2007 by MacAdam/Cage

MacAdam/Cage

MacAdam/Cage is a small publishing firm located in San Francisco, California. It was founded by David Poindexter in 1998. As of 2003, it published around 30 to 45 titles per year, primarily fiction, short story collections, history, biography, and essays, and had twelve employees...

. Anne Wyman gave The Queens of K-Town a largely favourable review in the San Francisco Chronicle

San Francisco Chronicle

thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...

, while Adelle Waldman, writing for the Village Voice, praised Hur's writing as "evocative without being obtrusive" but criticised the novel as a whole for its self-indulgence and lack of coherence. Others compared The Queens of K-Town to Jeffrey Eugenides

Jeffrey Eugenides

Jeffrey Kent Eugenides is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and short story writer. Eugenides is most known for his first two novels, The Virgin Suicides and Middlesex . His novel The Marriage Plot was published in October, 2011.-Life and career:Eugenides was born in Detroit, Michigan,...

' The Virgin Suicides

The Virgin Suicides

The Virgin Suicides is the 1993 debut novel by American writer Jeffrey Eugenides. The story, which is set in Grosse Pointe, Michigan during the 1970s, centers on the suicides of five sisters. The Lisbon girls' suicides fascinate their community as their neighbors struggle to find an explanation for...

. Hur hopes to have The Queens of K-Town published in Korean

Korean language

Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...

 as well.

Hur lived in Long Beach

Long Beach, California

Long Beach is a city situated in Los Angeles County in Southern California, on the Pacific coast of the United States. The city is the 36th-largest city in the nation and the seventh-largest in California. As of 2010, its population was 462,257...

, California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

 when The Queens of K-Town was published. She later moved to Seoul

Seoul

Seoul , officially the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea. A megacity with a population of over 10 million, it is the largest city proper in the OECD developed world...

, South Korea

South Korea

The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...

 to take up a position as a lecturer of English at the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies

Hankuk University of Foreign Studies

Hankuk University of Foreign Studies is one of the leading universities in the Republic of Korea.HUFS has been consistently ranked as one of the most prestigious higher education institutes in Korea, especially being ranked as a top in the field of Foreign Language...

.