Native Speaker

Native Speaker (1995) by Chang-rae Lee is an immensely popular novel that jumpstarted Chang-rae Lee’s illustrious career as a novelist. The novel won the PEN/Hemingway Award for Best Novel, and it is still included in contemporary lists of best novels about New York City. Chang-rae Lee teaches creative writing at Stanford University and has since published numerous bestsellers, including the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Surrendered.

Native Speaker criticizes American culture’s pressure on immigrants and ethnic minorities to assimilate into versions of Americans that are comfortable for white Americans, versions that often damage a person’s belief in their humanity. As a piece of literary fiction, Native Speaker uses first-person point of view to give readers in-depth access to the psyche of a man struggling to find himself in an America threatened by racism, xenophobia, and capitalist degradation. Native Speaker challenges long-held beliefs of what it means to become and be an American.

This guide refers to the 1996 Riverhead Books reprint edition of Native Speaker.

Content warning: This guide contains quoted racial slurs directed against Asian Americans that appear in the source text.

Plot Summary

The story takes place in present-day (1995) New York City.