Kyung-sook Shin, one of Korea’s most acclaimed writers and author of the international bestseller Please Look After Mom, has written a seventh novel, I’ll Be Right There, a coming-of-age story set in South Korea’s turbulent 1980s. Following the June 3rd release of the English translation of I’ll Be Right There, Ms Shin visits The Korea Society to discuss her life and writing, as well as her latest book.
A reception and book signing will follow.
Thursday, June 5, 2014 | 6:30 PM
The Korea Society
950 Third Avenue, 8th floor
New York, NY 10022
You may pre-order a paperback copy of the book, I’ll Be Right There, for pick-up at registration on June 5. Books will also be on sale at the program for $15.
Members – ticket: Free
Book Only: $12
Nonmembers – ticket: $20
Nonmembers Plus Book: $32
Collaborating Organizations
Contemporary Culture programs are generously sponsored by CJ
Lovers of literature and history are invited to join a book discussion group reading three novels by some of Korea’s best known writers, each about a different time period in Korea’s modern history: the Japanese Occupation, the Korean War, and the post-War period.
The Korea Society and KoreanAmericanStory.org co-host a literary conversation and reception with three accomplished Korean-American writers: Catherine Chung, Eugenia Kim, and Yuliana Kim-Grant. These authors have written deeply personal and moving novels about loss, hope, and heritage and will share both their stories, as well as their characters’, with readings from their books. Each of these debut novels garnered critical acclaim:
James Church’s Inspector O novels have been hailed as “crackling good” (The Washington Post) and “tremendously clever” (Tampa Tribune), with Church himself embraced by critics as “the equal of le Carre” (Publishers Weekly). Now Church—a former Western intelligence officer who pulls back the curtain on the hidden world of North Korea in a way no one else can—comes roaring back with a new series featuring Inspector O’s nephew, Bing, the director of state security in a region in northeast China bordering North Korea. When clues point to a beautiful woman’s disappearance and Bing’s sensitive assignment to bring an agent across the North Korean border, O reluctantly helps him navigate an increasingly complex and deadly maze. James Church has crafted a beautifully spare prose and layered descriptions of a country and a people he knows by heart. Don’t miss this very special hour.
Join literary lion Young-ha Kim as he discusses the release of Black Flower. This powerful drama creates fiction from a little-known historical moment when a thousand Koreans flee war and the loss of their nation before colonial annexation. The travelers endure harsh seas for the promise of land in Mexico, but soon discover they’ve been sold into indentured servitude. Aboard ship, an orphan, Ijeong, falls in love with the daughter of a noble; separated when the various haciendados claim their laborers, he vows to find her. After years of working in the punishing heat of the henequen fields, the Koreans are caught in the midst of the Mexican Revolution. Some flee with Ijeong to Guatemala, where they found a New Korea amid Mayan ruins. A tale of star-crossed love, political turmoil, and the dangers of seeking freedom in a new world, Black Flower is an epic story by the award-winning Kim.
In the wake of the Asia-Pacific War, Korean survivors of the “comfort women” system—those bound into sexual slavery for the Japanese military—lived under great pressure not to speak about what had happened to them. Joshua Pilzer’s Hearts of Pine provides a window into the lives of three such survivors: Pak Duri, Mun Pilgi, and Bae Chunhui. Over the course of ten years, the author worked with these elderly women: smoking with them, eating with them, singing and playing with them, and trying to understand and document their worlds of song.
