Susan Choi Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Picture Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Susan Choi is a renowned American writer of the Korean descent, who is famous for writing fiction stories. She is particularly popular for writing the standalone books, A Person of Interest and American Woman. Choi was born in 1969 in South Bend, Indiana, the United States to a Jewish mother and a Korean father. She completed her schooling by studying in public schools. Following the divorce of her parents when Choi was 9 years old, she shifted to Houston, Texas along with her mother. She obtained her Bachelor of Arts degree in 1990 from the Yale University in Literature. Later, she joined the Cornell University and earned an MFA. After earning the graduate degree, Choi started working as a fact checker for The New Yorker. It was during this job that she met her future husband named Pete Wells, who now works as a restaurant critic for the NY Times.

Author Choi wrote and published her first book, The Foreign Student, in 1998. This book succeeded in winning the Asian-American Literary Award and was also a finalist for the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Authors Award. Choi gained more recognition and success with her second book called American Woman. This 2003 novel was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in literature. After this, she went on to write a few more novels in her writing career. In 2010, Choi was awarded the PEN/SG Sebald Award for her other bestselling novel, A Person of Interest. She has collaborated with writer David Remnick for editing the short fiction anthology called Wonderful Town. The latest novel written by Choi is the 2013 book called My Education.

Along with writing novels, author Choi is also involved in teaching creative writing to the student at Yale University. She is a former fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Arts Endowment. As of today, Choi resides in Brooklyn, New York along with her husband and their kids. In addition to writing fiction stories, Choi has penned a few nonfiction works that have featured in publications like Tin House, The NY Times, and Vogue, as well as in anthologies like Brooklyn Was Mine and Money Changes Everything. Author Choi says that whenever she sits down to write any novel, she takes inspiration from various media like kidnapping news, historical events, court cases, etc. However, she was inspired by a youthful passion to write her recent novel, My Education. This novel revolves around the life of a graduate student named Regina Gottlieb, who gets involved in a very inappropriate and very sexual relationship with a married lady.

In spite of depicting numerous graphic scenes in the novel, Choi says that she did not select the topic merely for the sexual elements. She further adds that it was not her intention to write an erotic story. She wanted to write something based on youth and making mistakes under the effect of youthfulness, which eventually enabled her to involve love & sex. Choi carried out a lot of research for writing her previous books, but she didn’t do even a little bit of research for writing My Education. She says that she enjoys the idea of researching for a topic and it gives her immense pleasure to visit different exciting places. Whenever Choi is developing a new story, she worries about making mistakes, but that was not the case with My Education. She wrote its first draft very quickly and made it available for editing. Choi is very much pleased with the amount of success she has received in her literary career. She believes that it has made her self-dependent and confident to take on any challenge in life. She is grateful to her fans for being supportive of her and praising her work with all sincerity. Their genuine reviews have helped her bring improvement in her writing over the years.

A very popular book written by author Susan Choi is entitled ‘American Woman’. It was released by the Harper Perennial publication in 2004. Choi has done the story’s setting in New York and California. The central characters mentioned by her in the book include Jenny Shimada, Rob Frazer, Pauline, Yvonne, Juan, etc. This novel begins by introducing Jenny Shimada as a 25-year-old lady living in Hudson Valley in New York. She knows Rob Frazer as a shadowy figure from an account in her past life and doesn’t wish to meet him. But, when she comes out of the train station in Rhinecliff, Rob Frazer crosses her path and asks for a favor. He asks her to look after 3 fugitives whom he has driven out of San Francisco, California. At first, Jenny hesitates but agrees to do this job.

One of the fugitives, Pauline, is the granddaughter of a rich newspaper owner from San Francisco. It turns out that she has become a celebrity in the country. After her kidnapping by a revolutionary group, Pauline embraces the ideology of her captor, denounces class and family, gives up every connection with her past life, and enlists in the radical cell of the revolutionary group. The events that follow next in the story end up changing the lives of Jenny and all the three fugitives. This novel is immensely suspenseful, wickedly comic, and provocative. It explores the beliefs and psychology of young radicals like Pauline, who don’t seem to have any idea about the dangers they land themselves into.

Another interesting novel by author Choi’s career is known as ‘A Person of Interest’. It was published in 2008 by the Viking publication. The novel consists of the primary character in the form of Professor Lee, who is joined by several others to carry the story forward. At the book’s start, it is described that Professor Lee is a professor of mathematics. He is Asian-born and has very less time left for his retirement. He doesn’t do anything in life to attract the FBI attention, but something happens and his life is suddenly turned upside down. When a popular colleague of Lee becomes a serial bomber victim, the FBI begins to suspect him because of his detached response & maladroit behavior. Even his neighbors and the news media start seeing him with suspicion.

In the middle of the widespread grief in the campus over his colleague’s murder, a coded message is delivered to Lee. He finds that the letter was sent to him by a man from his past. In the letter, Lee finds that the sender has mentioned many shortcomings of his life, including his deceased wife, a denounced son, and an estranged daughter. Professor Lee finds himself caught between the murder investigation’s scrutiny and his own guilty recollections. When nothing seems to be going his way, he decides to take the matter in his own hand and face the tormentor as well as exonerate himself. His journey brings him face to face with the sad events of his past and allows him the chance to win redemption.