PETALUMA, Calif., April 26, 2005 (PRIMEZONE) -- Four talented sisters compete for the attention of their adored father. They were educated in different international schools in Shanghai and treat each other with the colonial arrogance acquired from their schoolmates. When the Communists sweep through China, their family flees to Korea. Within months, the Korean War begins. Accustomed to wealth and privilege, the Lees become penniless refugees. Paul Selinger's Trigrams is a sweeping portrayal of a family caught in a whirlpool of fierce passions within and beyond itself. This book, which garnered first honorable mention in the 2001 American Women's PEN novel writing contest, grips the reader from the first sentence till the end.
Ai-li, seventeen years old when the book begins, narrates the story of her family in the midst of and after the war. Korean by blood, the four sisters and their three younger brothers were born and raised in China. They were aliens in their own country where they stood out as foreigners. When the war starts, they must set aside their differences in order to survive the upheavals, enduring forced labor, the threat of violent death, rape, betrayal, infidelity, revenge, political intrigue, and murder.
Paul Selinger successfully writes in the voice of a young Korean woman who learned English as a fourth language. His narrator opens the reader to the ancient and proud culture of the Korean people, for instance to the I Ching, an ancient Chinese and Korean oracle of divination, which the young Ai-li turns to in her search for answers. At the same time, the story Selinger tells is universal. The underlying crosscurrents of jealousy, envy, and competition on one hand and of love and loyalty on the other occur in any family.
Trigrams is book three of the Dragon's Wake Trilogy. The first volume, In the Dragon's Wake, tells the story of a Korean minister at the Qing court in Peking who saves the life of a beautiful French woman during the Boxer Rebellion. She forsakes all to remain with him during a lifetime of upheaval as he evolves to become a liberation fighter and secret arms buyer. Book two, Shadow of the Rising Sun, follows the story of their son who dedicates his life to fighting for freedom against the Japanese and the warlords. He marries a haughty woman with whom he has the four gifted daughters of Trigrams.
About the Author
Paul Selinger has more than thirty years experience in Asia, including living there for ten years. He became an internationally recognized artist in 1969 while living in Hong Kong. He made his first trip to Korea in the sixties, and since then has traveled throughout Asia, even trekking on horseback into the remote mountains of western Mongolia with local nomads. He had the privilege once of working for a week in Beijing's Forbidden City palaces.
Selinger graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, and earned an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. He continues to work as an artist and writer.
Trigrams By Paul E. Selinger
Book Three of the Dragon's Wake Trilogy
Trade Paperback; $22.99; 342 pages; 1-4134-5524-7
Cloth Hardback; $32.99; 342 pages; 1-4134-5525-5
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