Eugenia Kim's Blog

Riding a crest of enormous praise, this debut novel by an American man about a North Korean citizen is a worthy achievement, and one I couldn't put down for two days straight. Despite twists of plot that in fiction often seem too coincidental, the reader's sympathy and alignment to the protagonist is so rich and deeply felt that these happenstances feel believable, and are forgivable. The book

With stunning prose and a sensitive eye for detail, Mun unfolds five years from age 14 in the gritty and difficult life of a young Korean American runaway on the urban streets. Not only does Joon quickly lose her innocence and succumb to the seemingly soothing beguile of drugs, leading to heroin addiction, she must fight for a lost identity as she attempts to reconcile being the daughter of an

Ch'ae Man-shik (or Man-sik), who wrote stories and novels during the colonial period, is considered one of the greats of Korean modern literature. Like his other work, these three stories hone in on individuals who face the dilemmas of their times, those dilemmas of culture and historical circumstance which offer a tragi-comedy of errors. His renown rises from targeting the common man, not the

The famed South Korean writer imagines meeting his North Korean brother after the death of his father--a defector to the North in the narrator's youth (a fact that parallels the author's life). The narrator, a professor of history who has suffered as a result of his father's defection, joins a tour group to Yenji, a chinese border town from which groups are allowed to see the famed Mt. Baektu and

In a beautifully illustrated and bound bilingual edition, famed writer Yi Mun-yol's story of the last encounter of an affair presents as allegory of ancients and modern mixed together, with a coda that changes all that primordial prehistoric metaphor into something altogether different. The title of the story and its writing parallel each other with a constant shifting of sides and views, past

Richard E. Kim's book THE MARTYRED, a 1965 National Book Award Finalist, became a Penguin Classic book in May 2011 (pictured left). The introduction is by Heinz Insu Fenkl, with a Foreword by Susan Choi. This Korean War story follows Captain Lee who investigates the murders and kidnappings by North Korean Communists of Christian ministers and priests. As Lee investigates the depths of this

The Kyopo project by artist Cindy Hwang is a five-year photography and textual endeavor that explores and exposes the breadth and individual depth of people "of Korean ethnic descent and living outside of Korea," from which the acronym derives. Several of CYJO's KYOPO photographs are on exhibition as part of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery's "Asian American Portraits of Encounter,"

Loved these poems. My review: http://bookoblate.blogspot.com/search...

This Burns My Heart captures you with a heroine who is both irresistible and flawed, and will engross with increasing twists in a triangle of love and sacrifice. The story explores how a fateful choice colors a decade of marriage, and challenges a young woman's ambition already constrained by traditional Korean culture. Sam Park paints all the flavors of post-war Korea in this vivid debut, and

The name of the book is taken from the name of the store owned by the parents of the main character, Dae Joon (David). Father has been in America five years without his family setting up a business, and the book begins a month after the arrival of Mother, Dae Joon and his noona (older sister, In Sook--Sue). Struggling with language and assimilation, the reunion of the family, and the teenaged