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Li-Young Lee Discusses His Childhood and Poetry.

Poet Li-Young Lee. He was born into a family of political refugees from China. They traveled throughout Asia for years to escape persecution. In the mid-60's his family moved to Pennsylvania. Lee's poems reflect his struggle with his Chinese heritage - a heritage to which he is bound but in which he never lived. His poems also reflect Lee's attempt to come to terms with the powerful and mythic figure of his father, who was alternately imprisoned and revered for his beliefs. Lee is one of the poets to be featured in Bill Moyer's poetry series, "Bill Moyers: The Power of the Word," on PBS.

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Other segments from the episode on September 21, 1989

Fresh Air with Terry Gross, September 21, 1989: Interview with Cynthia Ozick; Review of Bob Dylan's "Oh, Mercy"; Interview with Li-Young Lee; Commentary on children's names.
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22:39

Cynthia Ozick Discusses Her Fiction.

Writer Cynthia Ozick. In 1981 and 1984, Ozick's two stories, "The Shawl" and "Rosa" won the O. Henry Prize award. Both stories appear in Ozick's new book, called The Shawl. In it, Ozick looks at what it means to `survive' the Nazi concentration camps, telling the story of Rosa, who witnesses the murder of her infant daughter in the camps. Later, living in Miami, Rosa imagines her daughter alive and married to a doctor in the United States.

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15:38

Poet Li-Young Lee on His Family's Escape from Mao's China

Lee has written two volumes of poetry, Rose and The City in Which I Love You. He's won many awards for his work, including the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. He's just completed a memoir about his family's refugee experience in America, The Winged Seed. Lee was born in Indonesia; his parents were from China, where his father had been private physician to Mao. After escaping Southeast Asia, the family ended up in a small town in Pennsylvania, where his father headed an all-white Presbyterian church.

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Gish Jen's 'The Love Wife'

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews The Love Wife by Gish Jen. The novel tells the story of Carnegie Wong, a second-generation Chinese American and his complicated family life.

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