In this moving exploration of dual identities reminiscent of Past Lives, a Korean writer's pregnancy raises questions about her own childhood abandonment. Nana, a Korean playwright, was adopted as a child by a French couple. Before she was Nana, she was Esther Pak, a girl growing up in a Korean orphanage. And before she was Esther Pak, she was Munju, an infant abandoned on the railway tracks of Cheongnyangni station in Seoul.
Pregnant with the child of her ex-boyfriend, Nana receives a request from a Korean filmmaker who wishes to make a documentary about her life. Following a sudden compulsion to learn more about her own roots, she heads to Seoul as she prepares to bring a new life into the world. There, through unexpected encounters, the dark threads of her memory gradually begin to unravel.
Simple Heart delves into profound questions about identity and belonging, with a focus on family connections and motherhood that recalls Kyung-Sook Shin's
Please Look After Mom. It also shines a necessary light on issues such as international adoption and the historic US military presence in Korea.
Sprache
Verlagsort
Produkt-Hinweis
Maße
Höhe: 203 mm
Breite: 133 mm
Gewicht
ISBN-13
978-1-63542-581-9 (9781635425819)
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Schweitzer Klassifikation
Cho Haejin began her writing career through the literary magazine
Munye Joongang in 2004, after receiving an MA in Korean Literature from Ewha Womans University. Since then, she has won several important literary awards in South Korea, including the Shin Dong-yup Prize for Literature, Yi Sang Literary Award, Daesan Literary Award, and Hyeongpyeong Literary Prize. Her novels are celebrated for bearing testimony to the existence and lives of those on the margins of Korean society. Her other novels include
My Name Is Loh Kiwan, a film adaptation of which was released on Netflix in 2024.
Jamie Chang is an award-winning literary translator. Her translation of
Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 was long-listed for the 2020 National Book Award for Translated Literature. She is the recipient of the Daesan Foundation Translation Grant and a three-time recipient of the Literature Translation Institute of Korea Grant. She lives in Ontario, Canada.
