I had no idea what to expect from this book, but it was so beautifully done and really made me contemplate several things. The writing (or translation should I say) was beautiful and in a style that I personally really connect and engage with. But when Green turns up with her long-term girlfriend in tow, her mother is enraged and unwilling to welcome their relationship into her home. Having centered her life on her husband and child, her daughter's definition of family is not one she can accept. Green's involvement in a campus protest against unfair dismissals of gay colleagues throws her into deeper shambles.

Concerning My Daughter by Kim Hye-jin - Daunt Books Concerning My Daughter by Kim Hye-jin - Daunt Books

Jamie Chang is a literary translator. She has translated Kim Ji-young, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-joo. She lives in Korea with her wife and dog.

I can't help but be moved by a story about women meeting, fighting, helping each other, looking after one another, and raising their voices against the prejudice and criticism they are subject to.” I liked the growth that this book and the characters in it had. As its so character focused, the plot is quite minimal but it remains engaging. The mundane day-to-day life of these characters was made to feel interesting and I actually cared about what was happening to them. It’s written in quite a raw way, and the long stretches of internal monologue are great for really getting inside someone's head and seeing how they’re perceiving events and how it’s having an impact on them. Catherine Taylor, Irish Times An admirably nuanced portrait of prejudice . . . one that boldly takes on the daunting task of humanizing someone whose prejudice has made her cruel.

Concerning My Daughter by Kim Hye-jin - Pan Macmillan

The narrator is a woman in her seventies, her daughter in her mid-30s. The narrator rents out the top floor of her modest home and her daughter, in needs of cash, suggests that the mother converts the tenants from paying monthly rent (월세) to the traditional Korean jeonse (전세) system where the tenant pays a large upfront deposit in lieu of rent, something the narrator is reluctant to do as the house is the only thing she has to show for all her many years of work, and she needs the rent to supplement her meagre income. As the mother’s understanding of her daughter grows, she finds she is unable to resist Lane’s unwavering patience and caring attention. The mother’s aches and pains are debilitating and her appetite is gone. Lane, who has also been wounded amidst the chaos of the protests, brings herbal tea and muscle relaxant patches for the mother and herself. They tend to each other’s wounds, creating a moment of communion that recalls the Last Supper. This is a transcendent moment of mutual care. Lane becomes the mother’s business, marking a clear turning point in the novel. New Book Announcement: “The Inscription of Things: Writing and Materiality in Early Modern China” by Thomas Kelly I was born and raised in this culture where the polite thing to do is to turn a blind eye and keep your mouth shut, and now I’ve grown old in it,” explains the unnamed protagonist of Kim’s English-language debut. A widow in her early 70s, the narrator earns a modest income by caring for a dementia patient named Jen, a journalist and activist who never married or had children and has no relatives to care for her in her old age. Despite the pressure from her boss to cut corners and the suspicion that her co-workers are able to successfully “leave all sentiment and anything like it at home,” she is deeply troubled by the societal belief that the elderly—especially those who are alone—are disposable. She is less successful at challenging the societal beliefs that affect her own child. Green, a college lecturer in her 30s, has become involved in a labor dispute at the local university and is struggling to pay her bills. When Green and her longtime girlfriend, Lane, accept the narrator’s invitation to come live with her for a while, the narrator is forced to confront her self-imposed ignorance about her daughter’s sexuality. Kim is unsparing in her depictions of the indignities of old age, the corrosiveness of homophobia, and the piercing loneliness that comes from living in a culture of silence.

The expectations and ambitions, possibilities and hopes concerning my daughter - they still remain and torment me no matter how hard I work to get rid of them. To be rid of them, how skeletal and empty do I have to be? Her experiences with this patient lead to some depressingly bleak questions about mortality and ageing that at times came across as a wee bit too predictable. But when Green turns up with her girlfriend, Lane, in tow, her mother is unprepared and unwilling to welcome Lane into her home. In fact, she can barely bring herself to be civil. Having centred her life on her husband and child, her daughter’s definition of family is not one she can accept. Her daughter’s involvement in a case of unfair dismissal involving gay colleagues from the university where she works is similarly strange to her.