2023.8.15 New Arrivals

Kang Kyeong-ae (1906–1944), one of Korea’s great modern authors, wrote her stories during the Japanese occupation of Korea. Kang’s work is remarkable for its rejection of colonialism, patriarchy and ethnic nationalism during a period when such ...

The Underground Village

Author: Kang Kyeong-ae Publisher: Honford Star

Kang Kyeong-ae (1906–1944), one of Korea’s great modern authors, wrote her stories during the Japanese occupation of Korea. Kang’s work is remarkable for its rejection of colonialism, patriarchy and ethnic nationalism during a period when such views were radical and dangerous. With an expert commentary by Sang-kyung Lee, a professor of modern Korean literature at KAIST, and beautifully translated by Anton Hur, this collection of Kang’s work displays her sensitivity, defiance, class consciousness and deep understanding of the oppressed people she wrote about.

Born in what is now North Korea to an impoverished family, as a young woman, Kang was a teacher in Manchuria, where she witnessed fierce infighting between Korean nationalists and communists and the persecution of ethnic Koreans by Manchurian warlords. It was in Manchuria that Kang started writing her stories, which were shaped by her life experiences and left-wing political views.

Miss Kim Knows and Other Stories

Author: Cho Nam-joo Publisher: Scribner UK

A woman is born. A woman is filmed in public without consent. A woman suffers domestic violence. A woman is gaslighted. A woman is discriminated against at work. A woman grows old. A woman becomes famous. A woman is hated, loved and hated again.

Written in Cho Nam-Joo's masterful, razor-sharp prose, "Miss Kim Knows" brings together the lives of eight Korean women aged 10 to 80. Each of these biographies contains a microcosm of contemporary Korea and the challenges and injustices that women face from childhood to old age. As with "Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982" (2016) from her previous work, the fates of these eight women are the fates of women the world over. And under Cho Nam-Joo's precise, unveiled gaze, nothing and nobody escapes scrutiny — not even herself.

The Sister: The extraordinary story of Kim Yo Jong, the most powerful woman in North Korea Author:Sung-Yoon Lee Publisher:Pan Macmillan UK

Recent years have seen the dramatic rise of a young woman called Kim Yo-jong in North Korea. Stomping the world stage from the shadows of her secretive state, she makes headlines and fevered speculation about her role and her future. She is the sister of North's leader Kim Jong Un and, as her murderous regime's chief propagandist, internal administrator and foreign policymaker, she is the most powerful woman in North Korea's history. Cruel but charming, she threatens and insults foreign leaders with sardonic wit. A princess by birth with great expectations for her macabre kingdom, she was brought up to believe it is her mission to reunite North Korea with the South or die trying. She's pretty, she seems demure, she is cold, and she's incredibly dangerous.

"The Sister," written by Sung-Yoon Lee, a professor of Korean studies at Tufts University's Fletcher School and a North Korea expert, is a fascinating, authoritative account of the mysterious world of North Korea and its ruling dynasty — a family whose lust for power entails torturing and starving its people into submission, killing dissenters and threatening nuclear war.

The Apology

Author: Jimin Han Publisher: Little Brown

In Korea, a 105-year-old woman receives a letter, and 10 days later, she is thrust into the afterlife, fighting to head off a curse that will otherwise devastate generations to come.

Hak Jeonga has always shouldered the burden of upholding the family name. When she sends her daughter-in-law to America to cover up an illegitimate birth, she is simply doing what is needed to preserve the reputations of her loved ones. How could she have known that decades later, this decision would return to haunt her — threatening to tear apart her bond with her beloved son, her relationship with her infuriatingly insolent sisters and the future of the family she has worked so hard to protect?

Part ghost story and part family epic, "The Apology" is an incisive tale of sisterhood and diaspora, reaching back to the days of Japanese colonialism and the Korean War and told through the singular voice of a defiant, funny and unforgettable centenarian.

TONGBANG