Bora Lee Reed on "Song for Another Home"

When news hits in 1950 that the Americans have entered the war between North and South Korea, Oksoon and her family believe the conflict will soon end. But then China joins the war, and they decide to flee their home in Pyongyang despite the freezing temperatures and lack of food. Journeying from the barren, war-torn streets of the North in the winter to the seedy back alleys of the South Korean capital of Seoul in the summer, the family falls in with an unlikely group of miscreants. Meanwhile, far to the south, Oksoon’s cousin Junho seeks refuge at an orphanage for abandoned children. As the institution struggles to keep its doors open, Junho, with his elementary command of English, is tasked with drafting letters to American missionaries and benefactors to ask for money. When the enigmatic director brings her aristocratic niece to the orphanage, Junho finds himself caught between his impulse for survival and his growing affections for the young woman, even though his feelings put him at risk of being expelled from the only safe place he knows. Movingly rendered, Song for Another Home highlights the power of resilience, the tension between personal dreams and duty to family, and how choices made in a brief moment have consequences that reverberate across time and through generations. ABOUT BORA LEE REED: Bora Lee Reed has an MFA in creative writing from Warren Wilson College and an MA in theology from the Graduate Theological Union. She works as the Chief Communications Officer for UC Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy. In 2023, she was selected as a Reese's Book Club LitUp Fellow. She lives and works in Berkeley, CA. ABOUT PAUL KYUMIN LEE : Paul Kyumin Lee is a PhD student in peace studies and sociology focusing on intergenerational memory and trauma healing from the Korean War at the University of Notre Dame. Since 2016, he has led the organization Divided Families USA, through which he has engaged in various advocacy and storytelling efforts to support elderly Korean Americans separated from family members in North Korea. Paul earned an M.Phil in Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation at Trinity College Dublin and a BA in political science from Yale University.