Kyung-Sook Shin – författare

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • 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?“A terrific novel that stayed with me long after I’d finished its final, haunting pages.” —Abraham Verghese, bestselling author of The Covenant of Water“A raw tribute to the mysteries of motherhood.” —The New York Times Book ReviewTold 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.“A suspenseful, haunting, achingly lovely novel about the hidden lives, wishes, struggles and dreams of those we think we know best.” —The Seattle Times

'A powerful, elegant page-turner' J.M. Lee'Gentle yet piercing' Kirkus ReviewsAfter losing her daughter in a tragic accident, Hon returns to her childhood home in the Korean countryside to look after her elderly father. There, the discovery of a chest of letters compels her to piece together the violent, vibrant story of his life.More than just a portrait of one man, I Went to See My Father asks us to look at the ones we love, uncover the secrets they keep, and finally see who they really are.Affectionate, epic, joyous and lasting, this is the perfect follow-up to beloved classic Please Look After Mother.Translated by Anton Hur

FROM THE 2 MILLION-COPY BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF PLEASE LOOK AFTER MOTHEROn the Eve of Goodbye is an unforgettable novel from one of Korea's most loved authors, weaving together the lives of three artists to explore creativity and human connection. Set against key moments in history - the assassination of Park Chung Hee, Korean American immigration, a Korean artist's life in Germany, and the global pandemic - the novel unfolds in three parts.In Time Under Seal, an older Korean American woman is sitting in her New Jersey home during Hurricane Sandy, her electricity and water cut off. She lights candles against the dark and recounts the events of her life in a letter to a younger Korean artist in New York. In What the Boat Carries, the River Does Not Know, this younger artist - now a writer - pens a letter to a dying friend, a poet and archaeologist. Finally, in On the Eve of Goodbye, eight years later, the younger artist finally writes back to the author of the first letter, connecting past and present in a poignant exploration of time, memory and the creative process.TRANSLATED FROM KOREAN BY ANTON HUR

WINNER OF THE MAN ASIAN LITERARY PRIZE'An authentic, moving story that brings to vivid life the deep family connections that lie at the core of Korean culture'Gary Shteyngart'Kyung-Sook Shin's tale... has hit a nerve'Guardian'A raw tribute to the mysteries of motherhood'New York Times'The most moving and accomplished, and often startling, novel'Wall Street JournalWhen 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 Mother?Told through the piercing voices and urgent perspectives of a daughter, son, husband, and mother, PLEASE LOOK AFTER MOTHER is at once an authentic picture of contemporary life in Korea and a universal story of family love.With an introduction by Banana YoshimotoA W&N Essential

'Dreamy, immersive and evocative' TLS'Darkly beautiful' Frances Cha'Strange and gripping' GuardianSan is twenty-two and alone when she happens upon a job at a flower shop in Seoul's bustling city centre.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.But over the course of one summer, San meets a curious cast of characters: the nonspeaking shop owner, a brash co-worker, aggressive customers and an enigmatic magazine photographer. Fuelled by a quiet desperation to jump-start her life, she dares, briefly, to dream of connection in an unforgiving world.Translated by Anton Hur

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.

Homesick and alone, a teen-aged girl has just arrived in Seoul to work in a factory. Her family, still in the countryside, is too impoverished to keep sending her to school, so she works long, sun-less days on a stereo-assembly line, struggling through night school every evening in order to achieve her dream of becoming a writer.Korea’s brightest literary star sets 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 war. But it was girls like Shin’s heroine who formed the bottom of Seoul’s rapidly changing social hierarchy, forgotten and ignored. Richly autobiographical, The Girl Who Wrote Loneliness lays bare the conflict and confusion Shin faces as she confronts her past and the sweeping social change of the past half-century. Cited in Korea as one of the most important literary novels of the decade, this novel cements Shin’s legacy as one of the most insightful and exciting writers of her generation.