이창래의 『네이티브 스피커』는 반세기 이상의 歷史를 지닌 在美 韓人들의 소설들 가운데 가장 두드러진 작품들 중의 하나다. 작가는 舞臺인 뉴욕을 바벨탑에 비유했고, 이 속에서 自我를 찾아가는 주인공의 葛藤, 挫折, 그리고 希望을 그려냈다. 私設 探偵所에서 일을 하며 영국인 여인을 아내로 둔 주인공은 성공한 韓國系 移民 존 쾅의 뒷조사를 하다가 자아에 눈을 뜨게 된다. 존 쾅의 뒷조사를 하면서 깨달은 것은 아무리 애써도 한국인의 테두리를 벗어날 수 없다는 점이었다. 특히 주인공은 자신의 언어 콤플렉스를 肯定的인 方向으로 돌려 自我 正體性의 發見에 도움 되는 방향으로 돌리는 데 성공했다. 마지막 場面, 아내가 아이들의 이름을 각각의 母國語로 정성스럽게 불러주는 모습을 통해 少數民族으로서 미국인이 된 자신의 정체성을 깨닫게 된다. 그런 점에서 이창래가 시도한 바벨탑에서의 자아 찾기는 얼마간 成功的이었다고 할 수 있다.

Lee, Chang-rae's Native Speaker is one of the most prominent novels by the Korean-American writers during the past half century in light of its literary level as well as the involved meanings. The hero spoke New York the stage of the novel figuratively as the Tower of Babel. Lee described the hero's conflicts, frustrations, and hope searching his self identity. The hero found out his own self identity in the course of doing a detailed investigation about John Kwang. The hero worked for an office of private detective and his wife was British-American woman. John was a successive Korean Immigrant. The hero was interested in the people's verbal language. The main stream of the USA is formed in the white race speaking English as their mother tongue. Non-white people weak in English never join the main society, only spin theirselves round the surroundings. The alienation like that was an essential problem that increased the confusion of the self identity. Especially, the hero succeeded to turn the lingual complex to the positive role for finding out his self identity. And in the last scene, he realized his self identity as minority in the USA through his wife calling her students' name in their mother tongues. In that point, we can say that Lee's searching for his self identity was successive.