The subject matter is distressing, as it centers around sex slavery during the War, which often traumatized girls as young as eleven or twelve. The result is Grass, a graphic novel now out in an English translation by Janet Hong. But after several interviews, Gendry-Kim realized Lee’s personal story warranted a book of its own. Gendry-Kim hoped to learn about social class and gender disparity during World War II and write a book about this subject.
Gwija is now an elderly woman and Jina can't stop thinking about the promise she made to help find her brother.Įxpertly translated from the Korean by the award-winning translator Janet Hong, The Waiting is the devastating followup to Gendry-Kim's Grass, which appeared on best of the year lists from the New York Times, The Guardian, Library Journal, and more.Some years back, graphic novelist Keum Suk Gendry-Kim interviewed an elderly Korean woman named Lee Ok-sun. On the road, while breastfeeding and changing her daughter, Gwija was separated from her husband and son.
Japan fell, Korea gained its independence, and the couple started a family. When Gwija was 17 years old, after hearing that the Japanese were seizing unmarried girls, her family married her in a hurry to a man she didn't know. The Waiting is the fictional story of Gwija, told by her novelist daughter Jina. Her mother's story inspired Gendry-Kim to begin interviewing her and other Koreans separated by the war that research fueled a deeply resonant graphic novel. As many fled violence in the north, not everyone was able to make it south. It's not an uncommon story-the peninsula was split across the 38th parallel, dividing one country into two. Keum Suk Gendry-Kim was an adult when her mother revealed a family secret: She had been separated from her sister during the Korean War. sisters permanently separated by a border during the Korean War.
The story begins with a mother's confession.
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