Ty Pak

Ty Pak (born Tae-Yong Pak in 1938) is a writer and speaker on Korean/Asian American affairs and literature.^[1][2]

Biography[]

Born in Korea shortly before World War II, Pak witnessed Japanese colonial rule, Korea's liberation from Japan in 1945, its division during subsequent U.S. and Soviet occupation, and the trauma of the Korean War in his early childhood and adolescent years, receiving his law degree from Seoul National University in 1961. In 1957 he started working as a reporter for The Stars and Stripes, and in 1958 for the Korean English dailies The Korean Republic and The Korea Times, until 1965 when he emigrated to the United States.

After earning his Ph.D. in English from Bowling Green State University, Ohio, in 1969 he taught in the English Department at the University of Hawaii from 1970 to 1987. His first collection of short stories, Guilt Payment (1983), has been widely adopted as textbook at many US colleges. His other books include Moonbay (1999), Cry Korea Cry (1999), A Korean Decameron (1961, reissued 2019), Dear Daughter: On the Eve of Her Wedding (2018), and The Polyglot: Union of Korea and Japan (2018), amazon.com, serialized in English and Korean by the Korean New York Ilbo Daily since Jun 1, 2019. His recent novel, The SEE Creed: Sex Equality and Emancipation (2021), amazon.com, champions the matronymic surnaming of children to alternate with patronymic. His latest pamphlet, The Global Federalist Manifesto (2021), amazon.com, calls on all sovereign states to surrender their sovereignty, a toxic relic, to the United States of the World.

Currently he writes a blog, typakmusings.com, followed by a wide spectrum of readers who find intellectually stimulating and entertaining his unique point of view and satire on politics, economy, and life in general, especially as races and cultures interface in America and worldwide.

Married with three children and seven grandchildren, Pak lives in Norwood, New Jersey.

Selected publications[]

In addition to his numerous articles and reviews in Semiotica, Journal of Formal Logic, Language, and other academic journals, his fiction appears in the following anthologies:

"Reflections as a Korean American Writer," Fides, (2020, Alum Journal of Seoul National University, Law College), 146-159.

"Guilt Payment," Pow Wow (2009, Da Capo Press), 319-329.

"Exile," Honolulu Stories (2008, Mutual Publishing), 489-497.

"The Water Tower," Kori (2001, Beacon Press), 186-208.

"The Court Interpreter," LA Shorts (2000, Heyday Books), 239-257.

"The Tiger Cub," Amerasia Journal (1992, Vol. 18, #3), 51-60.

"Mercy Home," Amerasia Journal (1990, Vol 16, #1), 223-243.

"A Fire," Asian Pacific Literature (1981, State of Hawaii Department of Education), 443-450.

Books

• A Korean Decameron, 1961 (reprinted in 2019 by Bo-Leaf Books under a Harvard grant)^[3]
• Guilt Payment (short story collection), Bamboo Ridge Press, 1983, ISBN 0-910043-01-9
• Moonbay (short story collection), Woodhouse Inc, 1999
• Cry Korea Cry (novel), 1999, ISBN 0-9667458-0-9
• Dear Daughter: On the Eve of Her Wedding, Amazon.com, 2018
• The Polyglot: Union of Korea and Japan, Amazon.com, 2018
• The SEE Creed: Sex Equality and Emancipation, Amazon.com, 2021
• The Global Federalist Manifesto, Amazon.com, 2021

References[]