“The Voices of Heaven” by Maija Rhee Devine is now available for purchase
“Dozens of daughters and granddaughters in folktales walked on frozen ground to buy dried centipede and toad vials to cure their ill elders. They cut their wrists and drained blood into the throats of their dying family members to save them.”
– an excerpt from the book
Author Reputation Press has published “The Voices of Heaven” by Maija Rhee Devine. As how the AAUW, Kansas City, Missouri, 36th Thorpe Menn Literary Excellence Award Committee puts it, “Maija Rhee Devine’s narrative style is spellbinding as she captures the rules and mores of an ancient (and more contemporary) culture both in its injustices and its tenderness. Her use of language brings to life the very smell of the food she describes and invites the reader into a deep understanding of the spiritual rituals, as such rituals accompany both the ordinary and the extraordinary events of the novel. Readers will come to care about what happens to these characters as the plot unfolds, but they will also notice the sheer poetry of Maija Rhee Devine’s descriptions.” The book is now available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and the ARP website.
Maija Rhee Devine, a Korean-born writer whose fiction, nonfiction, and poetry have appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, Boulevard, North American Review, The Kenyon Review, and anthologies, holds a BA in English from Sogang University in Seoul and an MA in English from St. Louis University. Writing honors include an NEA grant and nominations for a Pushcart Prize and an O. Henry Award. She is married to Michael J. Devine, the retired director of the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library in Independence, MO.
The author delivered a talk at TEDxTalks, which was aired on April 15, 2014. In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks videos and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded “TEDx,” where “x” = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.
In the mentioned event, Maija Rhee Devine shared “A message that ‘turns over’ our perception of sexuality: Maija Rhee Devine (이매자) at TEDxSinchon”. You may watch the full video below:
During the final years of the Japanese Occupation, when most Korean brides and grooms were married sight unseen, Gui-yong and Eum-chun struck gold by finding love as sweet as sticky rice. But their love for each other and for their secretly adopted daughter is not enough, as they must soon accept the impossible-a mistress moving in to bear Gui-yong, the male child deemed necessary in a society still smoldering in Confucianism.
After the Korean War drives the family apart, it falls on the shoulders of their adopted daughter, Mi-Na, to figure out how to keep her parents’ love burning through this life and into the next and ultimately make sense of the past. Flowing from her firsthand experience of growing up in Seoul during the Korean War, Maija Rhee Devine’s novel reveals uniquely Korean colors and sounds as she leads readers through an extraordinary love story that parallels the tragedies of the war.
“The Voices of Heaven” by Maija Rhee Devine is now available for purchase via ARP Bookstore: https://authorreputationpress.com/products/the-voices-of-heaven.