Kyung-Sook Shin

In this novel by Man Asian Literary Prize winner Kyung-Sook Shin, a neglected young woman experiences the violence and isolation of contemporary Korean society. Set amidst the frenzied modernization of late-twentieth-century South Korea, Violets is the story of San--a protagonist so unsure, ostracized, and odd by society's ruthless standards that she barely registers as stumbling through life. Following a violent childhood rejection, San is set upon a troubling path of stifled desire and isolation. One hazy summer in 1990s Seoul, she finds work at a flower shop. There, she meets a curious cast of characters: the mute shop owner, her brash coworker, and sexually aggressive male customers. Fueled by a quiet desperation to jumpstart her life, San plunges headfirst into obsessing over a magazine photographer and spirals into danger. In her signature stark prose, bestselling author Kyung-Sook Shin explores psychic deterioration, misogyny, and marginalization, and lays bare the agony of erasure.

Violets

Kyŏng-suk Sin

In 1980s South Korea, 20-something Jung Yoon is forced to re-live the most intense period of her life, including the death of her beloved mother, first love and friendship, when she receives a distressing phone call from her ex-boyfriend after eight years of separation. Original.

A Novel

I'll be Right There

Set during the dramatic final years of the Korean Empire, the new novel from Man Asian Literary Prize winner Kyung-Sook Shin features a mysterious dancer caught up in the dizzying sweep of history.

The Court Dancer

Follows the efforts of a family to find the mother who went missing from Seoul Station and their sobering realizations when they recall memories that suggest she may not have been happy.

Please Look After Mother

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.

The Girl Who Wrote Loneliness

I Went to See My Father

Ibu Tercinta - Please Look After Mom

La novela que ya ha emocionado a 2.000.000 de lectores. El mayor éxito de la literatura coreana.

Por Favor, Cuida de Mama

"그 밤에 문득 나는 달에게 우리의 이야기들을 들려주는 짧은 형식의 글을 쓰고 싶어졌다. 그것은 지금까지와는 다른 것이었으면 하는 마음도 함께 일렁거렸다." "문득"이라 말했지만, 이 이야기들은 작가의 마음 한구석에서 꽃피울 날을 기다렸던 것 같다. "지금까지와는 다른" 글, "달이 듣고 함빡 웃을 수 있는 이야기" "달이 듣고 고개를 끄덕거리는 이야기"를 엮은 짧은 소설집 『달에게 들려주고 싶은 이야기』는 작가 신경숙의 작품들 가운데 가장 경쾌하고 명랑한 작품집이 아닐까 싶다.

달에게 들려주고 싶은 이야기

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.

I'll Be Right There

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.

Io ci sarò

Soon after losing her own daughter in a tragic accident, Hon returns to her childhood home in the Korean countryside after many years away. Her father, a cattle farmer, is elderly and requires her care. He is withdrawn, kind but awkward around his own daughter. As time passes however, Hon realises that her father is far more complex than she ever realised. The discovery of a chest of letters and conversations with his family and friends help Hon piece together the tumultuous story of his life. She learns of her father's experiences during the Korean War and the violence of the 19th April Revolution; of a love affair and involvement in a religious sect; of his sacrifice and heroism and of the phantoms that haunt him. As she unravels secret after secret, Hon grows closer to her father, realising that his lifelong kindness belies a past wrought in both private and national trauma. More than just the portrait of one man, I Went to See My Father opens a window onto humankind, family, loss and war. It asks us to look at the ones we love, uncover the secrets they keep, and finally see who they really are. Flawlessly rendered by award-winning translator Anton Hur, Kyung-Sook Shin has crafted a novel both affectionate and epic, joyous and lasting.

The Place Where the Harmonium Was = 풍금이 있던 자리

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 cult, 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 her country 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.

I Went To See My Father

«Questo romanzo ha la stessa bellezza di un ventaglio di seta.» NPR

La danzatrice di Seul

Primavera helada

The highly anticipated release of the most personal novel by Kyung-Sook Shin, who first burst on to the literary scene with the New York Times bestseller, Please Look After Mom. 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.

The Girl Who Wrote Loneliness: A Novel

Park So-nyo, 69 anos, mãe de cinco filhos, desapareceu. Ao chegar a Seul para visitá-los, saindo de sua aldeia com o marido, com quem é casada há mais de 50 anos, ela é deixada para trás em meio à multidão em uma plataforma da estação de metrô. Como fez a vida toda, ele simplesmente supôs que a esposa o seguia. Essa é a última vez em que Park é vista. Começa então a procura, liderada pelos filhos e o marido, que se transforma em uma exploração emocional repleta de remorso e marcada pela triste descoberta de uma mulher que ninguém nunca conheceu. Narrado pelas vozes de uma filha, de um filho, do marido e da própria mulher desaparecida, Por favor, cuide da Mamãe é, ao mesmo tempo, um retrato da Coreia do Sul contemporânea e uma história universal sobre família e amor.

Kyung-Sook Shin

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