Helie Lee

Helie Lee "is the author of Still Life with Rice (Scribner 1996) in which she depicts the concerns and conflicts that shaped a woman’s search for home. Her memoir In The Absence of Sun (Harmony Books 2002) recounts her Korean-American family’s risky attempt to rescue her uncle from North Korea. The story has been featured on Nightline, CNN, the Associated Press and Los Angeles Times. Cosmopolitan Magazine selected Ms. Lee out of thousands of women nominated for their “1999 Fun Fearless Female” competition as a “Freedom Fighter.” She has also been published in Mademoiselle, Essence, KoreAm Journal, and has been included in an anthology, “Becoming American: Personal Essays by First Generation Immigrant Women” (Hyperion). Ms. Lee is a member of the Asian American Writers Workshop, PEN, a community of writers defending freedom of expression and building a literary culture, and Visual Communications, a nonprofit organization that promotes Asian Pacific media arts for the American public. She lectures around the country on her bicultural heritage and human rights issues for North Korea refugees."

He is a director of the U.S. Committee for Human Rights in North Korea.