Chang-rae Lee's wife never saw him more content than during the five weeks he spent on Maui and the Big Island in 2004.

"She said I was never as happy, comfortable or calm," said Lee.

The attraction of the Islands was a strong lure in convincing Lee, director of the creative writing program at Princeton University, to take sabbatical to serve as Punahou School's 2007-08 scholar in residence.

Another reason for taking the Punahou post: "I'm completely not noticed here."

You might think Lee, 42, is talking about his literary celebrity. His first novel, 1995's acclaimed "Native Speaker," about a Korean industrial spy, won the PEN/Hemingway Award, and he followed that with another exploration of identity and intersecting cultures, 1999's "A Gesture Life." The work earned him a spot on The New Yorker's 1999 list of 20 best American writers under 40. His most recent novel, 2004's "Aloft," has been optioned by a big-name Hollywood producer as a possible film. He may be, after Amy Tan, the best-known Asian-American figure in literature.

But when Lee talks about blending in, he's referencing Hawai'i's mix of ethnicities — its "Asian-inflected culture," he calls it — within which his hapa daughters look out over a classroom of faces much like their own.

Lee was born in Seoul and he, his mother and sister joined his psychiatrist father on the East Coast in 1968. He spoke only Korean until starting elementary school. Although he grew up in the tony New York suburb of Westchester County and is the product of an elite education at Phillips Exeter and Yale, his starting point is Asian culture.

While at Punahou, the author will visit academy classes, and he is writing his fourth book. Novelists are notoriously tight-lipped about works in progress, but Lee had this to say about the post-war Korean story: "(They say) there are two kinds of stories, the Iliad and the Odyssey. This one is the Odyssey."

Things must be going well — he said he may even start his fifth novel during his stay.

Despite the schedule, Lee sure seems relaxed — though one suspects that's his natural state.

One of his golf buddies back home, Charles McGrath, former editor of The Times Book Review, described him in a 2004 column as "probably the most unwriterly writer I know. He's cheerful and well adjusted, a homebody, a 10-handicap golfer and a serious foodie."

One reason for his good cheer may be that Lee has found a sympathetic home at Princeton: Writers don't always have an easy fit in academia, he says, but, "Princeton — they absolutely get us."

During a chat in a tucked-away corner of Cooke Hall, Lee said he has yet to golf here — he's been too busy enjoying ocean activities with his family. But he has discovered the cuisine.

"Foraging for food," he said, "is fantastic."