Nora Okja Keller and the Silenced Woman: An Interview Y ouog-Oak Lee Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/melus/article/28/4/145/1291655 by guest on 29 September 2021 Sungkyunkwan University Nora Okja Keller (1965- ) is a writer based in Hawaii. She was born in Seoul, and her family moved to the United States when she was three. After studying English and Psychology at the University of Hawaii, she earned her master's degree in American literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her first book, Comfort Woman (1997), is inspired by the tes­ timony of Keum-ja Hwang, who had the courage to break the silence of half a century and talk about what the colonizer did to her and to her country during World War II. In 1941, Hwang, at the age of twenty, was tricked into the Japanese military scheme of mobilizing Korean young girls, as many as 200,000, as sex objef;ts for soldiers. Keller's novel evoked a sensational response from readers in many countries and served as a catalyst for addressing issues ofcolonialism, patriarchy, sexuality, and gender. Keller's second novel, Fox Girl, was published in April 2002 by Viking and shows Keller's continued interest in the silenced status of women. Using the Korean legend of the fox girl, Keller directs our attention to women who struggle to survive at the lowest rung ofthe social ladder as prostitutes. This interview is an integration of an email interview with an in-person interview, when Keller came to Berkeley to give a reading of Fox Girl on April 30, 2002., I have merged these parts into a continuous flow/of conversation. MEL US. Volume 28, Number 4 (Winter 2003) 146 YOUNG-OAK ,LEE Lee: You say that being raised by your Korean mother involved a lot of absorption of Korean sensibilities and culture. Could you be more specific about this? For instance, do you mean that she helped shape the world of your imagination by telling you stories or folktales? Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/melus/article/28/4/145/1291655 by guest on 29 September 2021 Keller: Not so much my mother, but my older brother and older sister, told me very many folktales and stories before so I grew up with those types of stories in my mind. Of course, there's always food. There's always customs .... Lee: And the way you make a judgment on things, the way you shape up your opinions? Keller: Perhaps, but that's hard to say if that comes from my mother's Korean upbringing. That's hard to say, because I'm a mixture of very many things, so I cannot say, "Oh, this part is Korean, this part is American, this part is from Hawaii." It's all woven together, so I couldn't pick it apart. Lee: Where would you call your home? . Keller: Hawaii. Even though I was born in Korea, I left there when I was three, so I started elementary school in Hawaii and grew up there. Lee: Was it a mixed place when you were growing up? Keller: One of the best things about Hawaii is that the majority of people are mixed race in some way or another, so I grew up where that was the norm. And I think I would have had a very different experience if I had grown up in either Korea or in the Midwest, say, in the States. It would be very different. In both places I think I would have been noticeably different, whereas in Hawaii I was very much accepted as a local girl. Lee: So you heard stories mostly from your brothers and sisters? INTERVIEW WITH NORA OKJA KELLER 147 Keller: Yes, because my mother was working so much, I didn't see her at that time, so my brother and sister would tell us all these stories. Lee: And when you were listening to those stories, did you. think that you would like to tell stories someday yourself? Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/melus/article/28/4/145/1291655 by guest on 29 September 2021 Keller: No, I just enjoyed listening to the stories; nobody I knew was a writer of any kind. Lee: When did you find yourself wanting to write? Keller: Well, I have always loved books. I love to read. Lee: What kind of books did you read? Keller: Growing up, I read all sorts of things: from science fiction to the traditional canon. I didn't read very many books written by Asian Americans, however, because they weren't available to me. I only became aware of an Asian American literary tradition in college; it caused me to reflect upon my identity and profoundly changed my writing. I gained a greater sense of history and a greater respect for my own family's experience, in particular my mother's struggle as a single-parent immigrant. And then from a very early age I wrote little things-poems or stories, but I never thought I would write a book or anything like that. And even when I was working on Comfort Woman, I didn't think of it as a novel. I thought of it just as little short stories at a time, and that grew into a bigger piece. Lee: Fox Girl was different? Keller: Oh, Fox Girl I knew right away that it was a novel, and that's partly why the structure of the two books is so different. I went in right away knowing that it was a novel and considered things like plot, how I was going to structure it, very conscious of the choices that an author makes. 148 YOUNG-OAK LEE Lee: Did you take courses in creative writing while at college? Keller: Not really. I took one when I was an undergraduate, but I didn't really feel like I got a lot out of it. So it was just one, and I took it for fun, not really considering that that was going to be my career. After that first one I concentrated more on my academic course requirements. For an undergraduate it was Psychology and Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/melus/article/28/4/145/1291655 by guest on 29 September 2021 English. And then in graduate school I just took all academic courses in literature. Lee: How long have you been working with the Bamboo Ridge workshop? Keller: I first met them when I was an undergraduate at the University of Hawaii. But I was too young then, and so intimidated by their work and them as people. Like, these are real writers. I'm not really a writer. So, I didn't really feel like I belonged in that group. It wasn't until many years later, probably six or seven years after I first met them, that I went back to the group and started writing. Lee: And how does it work in a group? Keller: Every month we meet, and then we talk about each other's work. We also talk about writing in general. We talk about other works that are coming up in the Asian American community or in Hawaii's community. So we try to keep up with what's happening. Lee: How many are there usually? Keller: There are about twelve people, but in any given month there might be six people who show up, sometimes ten, sometimes four, you know [laughs]. Lee: When you come to a meeting, do you have to share some­ thing? INTERVIEW WITH NORA OKJA KELLER 149 Keller: No, if you want to, if you have something, you can. So when I was writing the book, I would try to: that would be my goal each month. I'm going to try to fulfill my goal to complete one chapter, one draft of ,a chapter, so I have something to bring. So that gave me sort of a deadline to work with, to work for. Lee: That's a nice mechanism. To put pressure on you so that. .. Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/melus/article/28/4/145/1291655 by guest on 29 September 2021 Keller: Right. So once a month I'm going to try to get a chapter done. And then they're just such good readers. They give such good criticism. And, you know, you have to trust the people that you show an earlier draft to. Lee: Right. Are there other writers who started publishing since joining that group? Keller: Oh, sure! Lois Ann Yamanaka, Cathy Song, Marie Hara, , Wing Tek Lum ... just about everybody has a book out. Lee: They're all based in Hawaii? Keller: Yes. Because the Bamboo Ridge Press is in Hawaii. Lee: Right. Was Maxine Hong Kingston one of them? Keller: No, no. She was in Hawaii in the 70s. And, you know, Hawaii is a small literary community, so a lot of people at that time knew Maxine, had met her and talked with her. But that was before I started writing and joined the group. Lee: So you haven't met her yet? Keller: I've never met her at all. No, I met her just once at a book signing where I asked her to sign my book. I was in graduate school at the University ,.of California, Santa Cruz, and I asked her to sign my book. That's: the only time I've met her. I didn't meet her in Hawaii. I was still in high school when she was there.