FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

“Offerings is a beautifully wrought coming-of-age story of a young man torn between art and commerce, conscience and obligation, Korea and the United States. I loved it.“—Malcolm Gladwell, New York Times bestselling author of Talking to Strangers

“A potent combination of a financial thriller and a coming-of-age immigrant tale, Offerings is a great book. A thoughtful and engrossing read.”—Gary Shteyngart, award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of Lake Success

“Michael Kim writes with the authority of an insider on the intricate workings of Wall Street and the high stakes for Korea during the Asia Financial Crisis, but at its core Offerings is a moving love story—about a young man’s love for his home country, his father and his newfound soul mate. Offerings is an elegant poem on the redemptive power of love.”—Sandy Weill, former chairman of Citigroup and bestselling author of The Real Deal

OFFERINGS
A Novel by Michael ByungJu Kim
Debut Novel Explores Conflicts for a Man Bridging East and West

Korea could be key to saving the world economy. With the rapidly cascading Asian Financial Crisis threatening to go global and Korea in imminent meltdown, investment banker Dae Joon finds himself back in his native Seoul as part of an international team brought in to rescue the country from sovereign default. Born in Korea and educated in the United States, Dae Joon, Shane to his American friends, is establishing himself on Wall Street. For his Korean family, however, Dae Joon – also known as jangnam, or first-born son – has much more to prove. In his debut novel Offerings (Arcade Publishing, April, 2020, 978-1-950691-62-3, $24.99), Korean financier and philanthropist Michael ByungJu Kim explores the depth of cultural and moral conflicts of a person raised with Western sensibilities but bound by Eastern family traditions.

As he and his fellow bankers work feverishly with Korean officials to execute a sovereign bond offering to raise critically needed capital, Dae Joon struggles with the knowledge that his own father is living on borrowed time, in the last stages of a degenerative disease known as the “family curse.” While trying to reconcile his career and moral traditions, Dae Joon meets a young woman from a prominent family who quietly shows him the way to a different future. And when his old friend Wayne, a scion of one of Korea’s largest chaebol, hires him for a mergers and acquisitions project that may save the conglomerate but also salvage a legacy of corruption, Dae Joon finds himself in personal crisis. He’s torn by conflicting loyalties, his identity tested. Whichever path he takes, Dae Joon knows that this choice will determine once and for all what kind of man he is destined to be.

About the Author
Michael ByungJu Kim is a financier, philanthropist, and author. He has more than thirty years of experience on Wall Street, in investment banking and private equity. Offerings is his first novel. He grew up in Seoul, Korea, was educated in the United States, and currently works in Seoul and Hong Kong. He has two sons working and studying in the US. He lives with his wife of twenty-eight years in Seoul.

OFFERINGS
A Novel
by Michael ByungJu Kim
Arcade Publishing
Publication Date: April, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-950691-62-3
Hardcover
Price:$24.99
Pages: 288

###