Nora Okja Keller, 27th Annual ODU Literary Festival

Nora Okja Keller was born in Seoul, Korea, and raised in Hawaii. Her most recent novels include: Comfort Woman (1997) and Fox Girls (2003). In 1995 she received the Pushcart Prize for a short story, Mother Tongue, which later became a part of Comfort Woman, her first novel and winner of the 1998 American Book Award. Her recently published second novel, Fox Girl, is set in Korea in the mid \u2760s. Keller’s novels are situated during and after World War II. The subject is the little-known history of the use of Korean women as prostitutes by Japanese soldiers and the abandoned children of American GI’s after the American occupation. She depicts a world of poverty and brutal survival. She also deals with themes of racism, heritage, Korean-American womanhood, child prostitution, and American consumerism. Nora Okja Keller lives in Hawaii with her husband and two daughters