East Goes West

One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years. “A wonderfully resplendent evocation of a newcomer’s America” (Chang-rae Lee author of Native Speaker) by the father of Korean American literature. A Penguin Classic. Having fled Japanese-occupied Korea for the gleaming promise of the United States with nothing but four dollars and a suitcase full of Shakespeare to his name the young idealistic Chungpa Han arrives in a New York teeming with expatriates businessmen students scholars and indigents. Struggling to support his studies he travels throughout the United States and Canada becoming by turns a traveling salesman a domestic worker and a farmer and observing along the way the idealism greed and shifting values of the industrializing twentieth century. Part picaresque adventure part shrewd social commentary East Goes West casts a sharply satirical eye on the demands and perils of assimilation. It is a masterpiece not only of Asian American literature but also of American literature.. Celebrate Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month with these three Penguin Classics:   America Is in the Heart by Carlos Bulosan (9780143134039) East Goes West by Younghill Kang (9780143134305) The Hanging on Union Square by H. T. Tsiang (9780143134022)