A deceased friend's request sends a young Korean man on an odyssey of discovery in War With Pigeons (aStoryTelling, 2010), the debut novel by TaeHun Kim '92. A story of love, loss and hope, War With Pigeons has been hailed as“an intriguing and fascinating novel” by Midwest Book Review.

“Love and loss are parts of every person's life,” says Kim, a history major at Haverford who was born in Ichon, Korea and immigrated to the United States in 1971.“They come in many different forms, whether it's a mother's love for a child and the grief she encounters upon his premature death, or the love shared between childhood friends that dissipate as their paths in life diverge, or the ill-fated affair between lovers that ends in tragedy. Buried within the pain of loss, it's difficult for people to imagine that there still exists hope—but hope will never end unless you allow it to.”

Kim says that his Haverford experience contributed“immeasurably” to his writing.“I've always had a love for literature,” he says.“My experience at Haverford allowed me to develop that love as well as develop the skills to be a thoughtful writer.”

He credits Haverford's English department, and its commitment to both the traditional canons of English literature and to literary diversity (Asian-American and African-American literature and gender studies) with giving him the perfect background to write War With Pigeons. “Books such as Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and William Faulkner's Go Down Moses, which I read in [Emeritus] Professor [Joanne] Hutchinson's first year English class, the Prominent Women Writers in American Literature course I took with visiting professor Helene Elting, and Professor Kim Benston's Shakespeare course have all significantly influenced me as a writer. I think elements of that influence are discernible when you read the book.”

When he's not writing, Kim is senior vice president at HSBC Bank USA in New York City and lives in Englewood, N.J. with his wife and three children.