Eugenia Kim's Blog, page 5

Ignatz, by Monica Youn

A collection inspired by the 1930s cartoon characters created by George Herriman, Krazy Kat and the mouse Ignatz, forever locked in a tortured and madcap love duel. Youn's second book of poems, a National Book Award finalist, investigate the meanderings and trickery of love and relationships, of belief and understanding/misunderstanding, with spare yet significant language Youn. This collection

Barter, by Monica Youn

A debut collection of poems that are both lyrical and at the same  time disturbing, the sounds rhythmic and sensory, the images brief, fleeting, evocative and immediate. Her voice is almost staccato at times, the words sometimes sounding too careful, but what lies beneath seems to touch an urgency and grasp at emotions too difficult to name.

The Queens of Ktown by Angela Mi Young Hur

Told from the vantage point of the main character Cora, at age 16 and in her late 20s, the themes of this story are familiar. Both a coming-of-age and search-for-identity story not unusual for children of immigrants, the story begins with Cora witnessing a suicide, and then the time shifts chapter to chapter, somewhat confusingly, to months leading up to that suicide, many years after, and

Please Look After Mom by Kyung-sook Shin

The story begins, "It's been one week since Mom went missing." What follows are narratives of or by each of the family members: two daughters, eldest son (there's a younger son who isn't given a voice), husband, and one other voice, beginning with the daughter who is a writer. Each narration covers the search efforts for Mom, and also reveals history between that narrator and Mom, showing more

Edinburgh, by Alexander Chee

I can't believe I haven't previously listed this prize-winning book, since I read it years ago shortly after its release in 2001, and have never forgotten it, especially that its prose was gorgeous. Edinburgh is a coming-of-age story about a Korean American twelve-year-old in Maine who is immersed in the culture of a boys' choral group that has a pedophile teacher. Homosexuality, music, art and

Talk Story web site

Just discovered the Talk Story blog, covering children's and youth literature for Asian Pacific Americans and American Indians/Alaska Natives, and which has a good list of Korean and Korean American picture books, chapter books, folk tales and nonfiction targeted to children, and YA. The list isn't comprehensive (I think Patti Kim's book, A Cab Called Reliable, should be included), but it's a

The Wings by Yi Sang

This slender volume of stories is by a famed Korean author from the colonial period, who died at age 27 with TB in Japan. He came to fame because his writing incorporated influences from French existentialism and Dadaism. As such, the stories are redolent of Cocteau and even Kafka, with an unreliable, not necessarily likable narrator, who merely reacts to the moment and lacks the traditions of

Mouth on fire for new PBS series: The Kimchi Chronicles

Rarely have I been so excited about a new PBS series (though I do get excited about them often enough). This preview (courtesy NYT Video) entices with shots of lots of red food, and extensive culinary travels in South Korea by series host, Korean American Marja Vongerichten, wife accompanying host, chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten. Finally, a quality show about Korean cuisine.

Long for This World by Sonya Chung

This debut about a young woman grieving from multiple loss and tragedies delves into the lives of all the members of her extended family, and spans two continents (Korea, America) and multiple periods of time. The novel is structured in the manner of associative thinking patterns--from one point of view to another, from one time period to the past or the future, not strung together

An Ethnography of the Hermit Kingdom: The J.B. Bernadou Korean Collection 1884-1885, by Chang-su Cho Houchins

John Bernadou (1858-1908) was dispatched by the Smithsonian as a cultural attaché or special envoy to the American mission in Korea, and assembled this collection from March 1884 to April 1885. An amateur ethnologist, Bernadou systematically acquired a wide range of Korean cultural artifiacts during a birth of a period of unprecedented open exchange in the Joseon Dynasty. Included in the