The Voices of Heaven
The Voices of Heaven is Maija Rhee Devine's autobiographical novel about Korea during and post-Korean-War era. The central characters are a man and the two wives he lives with under the same roof, because of the Confucian, patriarchal values Koreans lived with for 500 years of Joseon (Yi) Dynasty that required a male child per each family and because his first wife could not produce a boy baby. The man was the author's father; his first wife was the author's mother. The dynamic of the man and his two wives produce dramatic developments as the Korean War breaks out in 1950 and continues to traumatize the UN/US, S. and N. Korean and Chinese soldiers and civilians.
Maija gives power point talks on both The Voices of Heaven and on Comfort Women of WWII. Her poetry book is Long Walks on Short Days.
About Maija Devine (Kansas City, Missouri & Kansas Author)
A Korean-born author, Maija Rhee Devine earned a B.A. from Sogang University in Seoul and received a Fulbright award to complete an M.A. at St. Louis University in Missouri. She taught English as a Second Language at numerous universities in the U.S.A. as well as Asian culture courses at University of Kansas.
Her book won four book awards in 2014, and her short stories and poems have appeared in anthologies and literary journals including Michigan Quarterly, The North American Review, and The Kenyon Review. Her current projects include authoring a novel and a non-fiction historical narrative about Korean Comfort Women of WWII. Several of her op-eds on this topic have been published in “The Thoughts of the Times” of The Korea Times. She teaches a course on Comfort Women through the Osher Institute at University of Kansas.