Chang-Rae Lee was born in Korea and moved to the United States when he was a small child. He later attended Yale University and is currently a professor at the University of Oregon. Lee became the first Korean-American novelist to be published by notable American press with his novel, Native Speaker. The novel was awarded the Heminway Foundation PEN Award. In 2014, he made The New York Times Best Seller List for his title On Such a Full Sea.