Pandemic has changed my reading life. Now I borrow eBooks (or Audiobooks) from the County library. Kindle is my new friend along with my planner and journal. I love how easy it is to borrow ebooks with a click on OverDrive, the library app.
This post is to share some of my favorite books by Koreans in and out of diaspora that I read last year (since pandemic). Mostly novels, a few non-fiction.
Unfortunately my reading notes are all in my J blog, so it is just a list and a short comments.
Pachinko by Min Jin Lee
National Book Award Finalist for Fiction, and many more prizes
President Obama recommends Pachinko
A historical novel about the Korean immigrant experience in wartime Japan written by a Korean American. The story covers the Korean immigrant family of four generations from the early 1900’s.
The book is thick and long. It was surprising and refreshing to me that the story was award-winning and read by many Americans who wouldn’t be familiar with the Korean immigrants in Japan (Zainichi or 재일교포).
The book is also available in Japanese and Korean.
Finding My Voice by Marie Myung-Ok Lee
A story about a Korean high school girl in a white town in Minnesota.
While the story was somewhat common- being the only non-white kid in her school, having the strict parents who expect kids to enter into Harvard to be a doctor and never allow her to date with anyone until passing the exam, I liked the part where father tells his daughter after she passed the exam that the fact he, being an immigrant, couldn’t get as good job opportunities as he would deserve as a medical doctor and a Seoul University graduate, and the fact that most of his family are in North Korea and nobody knows how they live up there.
Based on his personal experience, he wanted his kids to be successful by holding the academic proof that nobody could look down. It was his form of love and security to his daughters.
I would definitely recommend this books to my Korean friends’ kids when they become teenagers who would struggle with their tiger moms LOL Oh and to those tiger moms, too!
Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam Joo
This novel is from Korea. Bestseller in Japan and the US, too.
Although the story is on Korea’s traditional roles of women and burdens of expectation, we all share this type of things no matter what community you belong to. Ironically it is universal.
It is so smart that this author spelled out the facts and data in the novel to show how inequality still deeply exists in the society and family in the 21st century. And we are sick of it.
The Girl with Seven Names by Hyeonseo Lee
Read this book. Non-fiction. Real story. Memoir by a North Korean defector.
The story is like a movie. How she smartly pretended to be a Chinese citizen to avoid captivity from the Police. How she eventually got a real ID card and worked for a Korean company to save enough to fly into Seoul. How her mother and brother got captured by police in Laos on the way of escape from North Korea to unite with her. It is worth reading it.
It is available in multiple languages.
In Order To Live by Yeonmi Park
Another non-fiction book by a North Korean defector. In her story, she flee from North Korea with her mother. It is heartbreaking how her mother sacrificed herself to save her daughter. Why these women and kids need to go through hell-like situations just because they were born in the other side of the border? This book eventually became a supportive push to be part of a non-profit to help save North Korean defectors.
This one is also available in Japanese and Korean among others.
The Last Story of Mina Lee
This was the first novel I read by a Korean American author and I liked it. In an apartment in Koreatown LA, the protagonist will discover her mother dead. Slowly she start to learn about her mother’s stories untold.
Let me know your favorite and recommendations!