Co-presented with the WASHINGTON CENTER FOR THE BOOK AT THE SEATTLE PUBLIC LIBRARY. Award-winning novelist Chang-rae Lee, who has read with Elliott Bay for each of his three highly acclaimed novels, makes this welcome Seattle return for his much-anticipated new novel, The Surrendered (Riverhead). Good as Native Speaker (winner of the PEN-Hemingway Award), A Gesture Life, and Aloft, his earlier novels were, The Surrendered signals a major leap, in every way. "The odyssey of a Korean War refugee becomes first the subject of, then a haunting overture ... In its ineffably quiet way, there really is something Tolstoyan in this searching fiction's determination to understand the characters specifically as members of families and products of other people's influences ... A major achievement, likely to be remembered as one of the year's best books." - Kirkus Reviews. "Lee's masterful fourth novel bursts with drama and human anguish as it documents the ravages and indelible effects of war ... traumas reverberate throughout the characters' lives, determining the destructive relationship that develops ... as the plot rushes forward and back in time, encompassing graphic scenes of suffering, carnage, and emotional wreckage. Powerful, deeply felt, compulsively readable and imbued with moral gravity, the novel does not peter out into easy redemption. It's a harrowing tale: bleak, haunting, often heartbreaking—and not to be missed." - Publishers Weekly. Free admission is on a first-come, first serve basis. Special $5 parking coupons for the Central Library garage are available on a limited basis for those attending the program. The Microsoft Auditorium of the Seattle Public Central Library is at 1000 Fourth Avenue (between Madison and Spring). For more information on tonight, please call Elliott Bay at (206) 624-6600, The Seattle Public Library at (206) 386-4636, or see www.spl.org.