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Sign up todayAmerican Seoul
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Learn moreShe was everything everyone else wanted her to be. Until she followed her own path.
Helena Rho was six years old when her family left Seoul, Korea, for America and its opportunities. Years later, her Korean-ness behind her, Helena had everything a model minority was supposed to want: she was married to a white American doctor and had a beautiful home, two children, and a career as an assistant professor of pediatrics. For decades she fulfilled the expectations of others. All the while Helena kept silent about the traumas—both professional and personal—that left her anxious yet determined to escape. It would take a catastrophic event for Helena to abandon her career at the age of forty, recover her Korean identity, and set in motion a journey of self-discovery.
In her powerful and moving memoir, Helena Rho reveals the courage it took to break away from the path that was laid out for her, to assert her presence, and to discover the freedom and joy of finally being herself.
Helena Rho is a three-time Pushcart Prize–nominated writer whose work has appeared in numerous publications, including Slate, Sycamore Review, Solstice, Entropy, 805 Lit + Art, and the anthologies Rage and Reconciliation and Silence Kills. A former assistant professor of pediatrics, Helena received her doctor of medicine in 1992 and has practiced and taught at top-ten children’s hospitals: Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, the Johns Hopkins Hospital, and Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. She earned her MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of Pittsburgh. For more information, visit www.helenarho.com.
Reviews
“A poignant, personal, sometimes painful chronicle of self-awareness and understanding.” —Kirkus Reviews
“As she takes us across three continents, from childhood to middle age, Helena Rho shares the raw truth of what it’s meant to strive for decades to be a good daughter, sister, mother, wife, and physician, all the while navigating the contradictory demands of Eastern and Western cultures. This is a powerfully heartfelt story about seeking the gravity of a place to belong while overcoming regrets and losses along the way. Her honesty is searing and, in the end, inspiring.” —Julia Glass, author of Vigil Harbor and the National Book Award–winning Three Junes
“In her devastating memoir, American Seoul, Helena Rho underscores the central truth of being alive: that while we are often helpless to prevent our suffering at the hands of others, we are not helpless to reimagine ourselves, to invent ourselves anew. There are second acts in American lives, and Rho beautifully teaches us what living means after the anguish. She is among the rarest of memoirists who can alchemize experience into art.” —William Giraldi, author of The Hero’s Body
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