By Man Asian Literary Prize winner Kyung-Sook Shin, "a moving delve into a lonely psyche" that follows a neglected young woman's search for human connection in contemporary Seoul (YZ Chin). San is twenty-two and alone when she happens upon a job at a flower shop in Seoul’s bustling city center. Haunted by childhood rejection, she stumbles through life—painfully vulnerable, stifled, and unsure. She barely registers to others, especially by the ruthless standards of 1990s South Korea. Over the course of one hazy, volatile summer, San meets a curious cast of characters: the nonspeaking shop owner, a brash coworker, quiet farmers, and aggressive customers. Fueled by a quiet desperation to jump-start her life, she plunges headfirst into obsession with a passing magazine photographer. In Violets, best-selling author Kyung-Sook Shin explores misogyny, erasure, and repressed desire, as San desperately searches for both autonomy and attachment in the unforgiving reality of contemporary Korean society.
An instant bestseller in Korea and the follow up to the international bestseller, Please Look After Mom; centering on a woman’s efforts to reconnect with her aging father, uncovering long-held family secrets. Two years after losing her daughter in a tragic accident, Hon finally returns to her home in the countryside to take care of her father. At first, her father only appears withdrawn and fragile, an aging man, awkward but kind around his own daughter. Then, after stumbling upon a chest of letters, Hon discovers the truth of her father’s past and reconstructs her own family history. Consumed with her own grief, Hon had been blind to her father’s vulnerability and her family’s fragility. Unraveling secret after secret and thanks to conversations with loving family and friends, Hon grows closer to her father, who proves to be more complex than she ever gave him credit for. After living through one of the most tumultuous times in Korean history, her father’s life was once vibrant and ambitious, but spiraled during the postwar years. Now, after years of emotional isolation, Hon learns the whole truth, from her father’s affair and involvement in a religious sect, to the dynamic lives of her own siblings, to her family’s financial hardships. What Hon uncovers about her father builds towards her understanding of the great scope of his sacrifice and heroism, and of his generation as a whole. More than just the portrait of a single man, I Went to See My Father opens a window onto humankind, family, loss, and war. With this long-awaited follow-up to Please Look After Mom—flawlessly rendered by award-winning translator Anton Hur—Kyung-Sook Shin has crafted an ambitious, global, epic, and lasting novel.
WINNER OF THE MAN ASIAN LITERARY PRIZE When sixty-nine-year-old So-nyo is separated from her husband among the crowds of the Seoul subway station, her family begins a desperate search to find her. Yet as long-held secrets and private sorrows begin to reveal themselves, they are forced to wonder: how well did they actually know the woman they called Mom? Told through the piercing voices and urgent perspectives of a daughter, son, husband, and mother, Please Look After Mom is at once an authentic picture of contemporary life in Korea and a universal story of family love.
When a novice French diplomat arrives for an audience with the Emperor, he is enraptured by the Joseon Dynasty’s magnificent culture, then at its zenith. But all fades away when he sees Yi Jin perform the traditional Dance of the Spring Oriole. Though well aware that women of the court belong to the palace, the young diplomat confesses his love to the Emperor, and gains permission for Yi Jin to accompany him back to France.A world away in Belle Epoque Paris, Yi Jin lives a free, independent life, away from the gilded cage of the court, and begins translating and publishing Joseon literature into French with another Korean student. But even in this new world, great sorrow awaits her. Betrayal, jealousy, and intrigue abound, culminating with the tragic assassination of the last Joseon empress—and the poisoned pages of a book.Rich with historic detail and filled with luminous characters, Korea’s most beloved novelist brings a lost era to life in a story that will resonate long after the final page.
The Girl Who Wrote Loneliness is a stark and lyrical work that follows a teen-aged girl who has just arrived in Seoul to work in a factory while struggling to achieve her dream of finishing school and becoming a writer. Shin sets the this complex and nuanced coming of age story against the backdrop of Korea’s industrial sweatshops of the 1970's and takes on the extreme exploitation, oppression, and urbanization that helped catapult Korea’s economy out of the ashes of the war.Millions of teen-aged girls from the countryside descended on Seoul in the late 1970's. These girls formed the bottom of the city's social hierarchy, forgotten and ignored. Richly autobiographical, the novel lays bare the conflict and confusion Shin goes through as she confronts her past and the sweeping social change that has taken place in her homeland over the past half century. The Girl Who Wrote Loneliness has been cited in Korea as one of the most important literary novels of the decade, and cements Shin's legacy as one of the most insightful and exciting young writers of her generation.
“A love story between friends. It is so well written. [Kyung-sook Shin] has this use of language that is just beautiful and poetic. It’s a great book if you’re looking to escape.” —Chelsea Handler, #1 New York Times bestselling author How friendship, European literature, and a charismatic professor defy war, oppression, and the absurd Set in 1980s South Korea amid the tremors of political revolution, I’ll Be Right There follows Jung Yoon, a highly literate, twenty-something woman, as she recounts her tragic personal history as well as those of her three intimate college friends. When Yoon receives a distressing phone call from her ex-boyfriend after eight years of separation, memories of a tumultuous youth begin to resurface, forcing her to re-live the most intense period of her life. With profound intellectual and emotional insight, she revisits the death of her beloved mother, the strong bond with her now-dying former college professor, the excitement of her first love, and the friendships forged out of a shared sense of isolation and grief. Yoon’s formative experiences, which highlight both the fragility and force of personal connection in an era of absolute uncertainty, become immediately palpable. Shin makes the foreign and esoteric utterly familiar: her use of European literature as an interpreter of emotion and experience bridges any gaps between East and West. Love, friendship, and solitude are the same everywhere, as this book makes poignantly clear.
La desaparición de una mujer en la Estación Central de Seúl provoca reacciones diferentes en su marido e hijos. Su búsqueda les revelará la verdadera importancia de la madre en sus vidas. La novela que ya ha emocionado a 2.000.000 de lectores. El mayor éxito de la literatura coreana. Park So-nyo, una humilde campesina, ha sido durante toda la vida una abnegada madre de familia, una mujer que siempre lo ha sacrificado todo para dar una educación a sus hijos. Ahora, tras haberse perdido en la estación central de Seúl cuando iba a visitar a sus hijos a la ciudad, su búsqueda desesperada se convierte en un encendido elogio de los lazos familiares lleno de emoción. Una novela que cautivará a todos los lectores por su sencillez, sinceridad y la honestidad de su mensaje universal que ensalza la figura materna. «Damos por descontado que nuestras madres están a nuestro lado para ayudarnos de forma incondicional y que siempre estarán ahí. Pensamos que han nacido para ser madres. Pero antes fueron niñas y mujeres como lo somos nosotras ahora. Con este libro quería dar voz a todas esas mujeres.» Kyung-sook Shin La crítica ha dicho... «Tierna, aguda y psicológicamente reveladora. Los lectores se verán reflejados en esta historia de familia, un best seller en Corea.» Publishers Weekly «Con una escritura sensible, una elegía a la intensidad de los vínculos familiares construidos y mantenidos por mujeres.» Kirkus reviews
Un pomeriggio qualsiasi in una stazione della metropolitana di un paese orientale, ma potrebbe essere ovunque, visto che la scena è ovunque la medesima: una grande ressa e la gente che si urta senza nemmeno scambiarsi un cenno di scuse... Una coppia di anziani si precipita verso il treno appena arrivato. L’uomo, la borsa della donna in mano, riesce a malapena a salire in carrozza. Non appena si volta, però, scopre con sgomento che i suoi occhi non vedono più la camicetta celeste, la giacca bianca e la gonna beige a pieghe della moglie. Della donna non vi è più traccia. Sparita, letteralmente inghiottita dalla folla.
Una joven coreana ve alterada su solitaria existencia cuando en la universidad conoce a otros dos estudiantes con quienes vivirá una intensa y trágica historia de amor y amistad. «Era la primera vez que él me llamaba en ocho años. Reconocí su voz al instante.» Ocho largos años de silencio. Pero, después de oír su voz, Yun no puede evitar que los recuerdos la embarguen y la transporten a la época en que era una joven y solitaria universitaria en Seúl. Pero esa soledad se trunca al conocer a una pareja formada por un chico de aspecto decidido y una muchacha que se esfuerza por esconder sus manos quemadas y ocultar las heridas de un pasado reciente. Esos jóvenes marcados por sus dolorosas historias familiares, la soledad, el dolor y la pérdida, ahora se refugian unos en otros, también unidos por la admiración que comparten por su viejo profesor de literatura. Después de su gran éxito Por favor, cuida de mamá, fenómeno editorial sin precedentes en Corea del Sur, Kyung-sook Shin nos vuelve a emocionar con esta cautivadora historia de amistad y de amores cruzados con un esperanzado final. Reseña: «Con Primavera helada, Shin Kyung-sook se confirma como una de las mejores cronistas de la moderna Corea del Sur.» The New York Times
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