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Katherine Chen (b. July 31, 1990) is the 18-year-old author of the novel, Hippocrene.

Early Life

Chen was born in Wayne, New Jersey, the daughter of Yu Pei Yu and Ray Chen, a printing supervisor at American Fuji Seal, Inc. Though Chen was born in the United States, her mother took her back to Shanghai for eight to nine months in order to live with her grandparents. Chen began writing at an extremely early age, though she had difficulty accurately pronouncing English words since Mandarin Chinese qualified as her first spoken and understood language. She also initiated studies in piano at the age of 4, though by that time, she had already written and completed her first picture book. Chen would use the printer paper her father would bring home for her to create volumes of stapled picture books that contained 1-2 sentences on each page and then an illustration. Chen began to read when she was 2 years old.

Chen attended and graduated from Wayne Hills High School with highest honors in English. She cites her relationship with her high school as "not being particularly positive or memorable," making an exception for the few people who did support her in her later years as a junior and senior. Chen was president and officer of numerous organizations within her high school.

Chen will be attending Princeton University in the fall as a freshman.

Personal Life

Chen recalls her childhood and adolescent years as being difficult and constantly on the fine line of being physically abusive. There were several life-changing moments which occurred in Chen's life, including the "accidental" death and suffocation of her second dog. Chen's relationship with her parents, however, remains generally a healthy one. Chen took over the role as the sole breadwinner of her household after her father was diagnosed with colon cancer in August 2007. She used her money working as an instructor's assistant at Kumon Learning Center and an essay revisor at AIC Education in order to temporarily pay off several of her parents' bills.

Publication of Hippocrene

Chen's debut novel, Hippocrene, follows the journey of a brilliant but misguided young scholar who believes that there is something terribly wrong with the world and with all mankind. The scholar's name is Hippocrene, a poetic prodigy struggling with a troubled past, a scathing upbringing, and a lifetime's worth of unfortunate circumstances and events. His conviction that the world can be saved only through the peaceful means of art and literature collapses, in the course of one day, into tragedy and lunacy, as he realizes the price such enlightenment demands. Throughout the novel, the question remains whether he will take the challenge and make what is considered the ultimate sacrifice or retreat into the bliss of ignorant conformity that plagues the rest of his kind.

Hippocrene was published in 2008 in China, Korea, and Japan. It received critical acclaim and quickly became a cultural phenomenon among Chen's wide audience of readers. It will arrive at U.S. bookstores in 2009.

Trivia

Chen has garnered various prestigious awards for her endeavors in piano. She has performed in the course of her 13-year musical career at Carnegie Hall, CAMI Hall, and Steinway Hall in New York.

Chen enjoys watching Broadway shows, listening to opera, and frequenting art museums. Her two favorite museums are the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Chen's favorite writers include Shakespeare, Dante, and James Joyce. She cites James Joyce as being the sole source of inspiration for her most developed work, Hippocrene.