Min Jin Lee Still Believes in Truth

Years ago, in my MFA program, I wrote a short story, which was butchered in my workshop. Looking back, I now understand that the story had many flaws, but at that time, as a foreigner struggling to write in English, I attributed my failure to my use of omniscient narration. It seemed to make sense, given that nearly all of my classmates wrote in a close-third limited perspective. Yet when I started using this perspective, I found that despite my best efforts to present different characters’ perspectives, my fictional world grew narrower.

So you can imagine my excitement when I discovered the novels of Min Jin Lee, which use the omniscient point of view, allowing for numerous perspectives, much like the best works by Dostoevsky. These novels confront us with the diverse beliefs and values of a community of people—often in conflict with each other—and help us to understand why people do the things they do. In our moment of polarization, Lee’s writing has value because it shows us a thorny road to understanding, rather than a smooth one.

I spoke with Lee about omniscient narration, the pursuit of truth, and the purpose of education.

Jianan Qian: I want to start by expressing how much your novels have inspired me to appreciate the use of an omniscient narrative perspective. Nowadays, many MFA programs encourage their fiction students to write in a close third-person perspective, which often ends up sounding like a disguised form of first person. But your writing opened my eyes to the value of using multiple voices. Would you speak more to your choice of omniscient narration?

: I love omniscient narration. I do it because nearly all the books that I loved and grew up with—nineteenth-century European