The Waiting
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- $18.99
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
The story began with a mother's confession...sisters permanently separated by a border during the Korean war
Keum Suk Gendry-Kim was an adult when her mother revealed a family secret: she was separated from her sister during the Korean War. It’s not an uncommon story—the peninsula was split down the 38th parallel, dividing one country into two. As many fled violence in the north, not everyone was able to make it south. 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.
The Waiting is the fictional story of Gwija, told by her novelist daughter Jina. 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. Japan fell, Korea gained its independence, and the couple started a family. But peace didn’t come. The young family—now four—fled south. On the road, while breastfeeding and changing her daughter, Gwija was separated from her husband and son.
Then 70 years passed. Seventy years of waiting. Gwija is now an elderly woman and Jina can’t stop thinking about the promise she made to help find her brother.
Expertly translated from Korean by award-winning Janet Hong, The Waiting is the devastating followup to Gendry-Kim’s Grass, which won the Krause Essay Prize, the Slate Cartoonist Studio Prize, the Harvey Award, and appeared on best of the year lists from the New York Times, The Guardian, Library Journal, and more.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Gendry-Kim (Grass) returns with an arresting portrayal of what happened to the families that were split apart during the frenzied migration of refugees from North to South Korea after WWII. Gendry-Kim's considerable powers as a graphic storyteller breathe life into the tragic tale of Song Gwija, who grew up during the war in what would later become North Korea under constant threat from invading Japanese soldiers. Gwija, now in her old age, begs her adult daughter Jina to help locate her lost son, and Gendry-Kim brilliantly articulates the exasperation and sense of duty that characterizes their relationship. Their present-day narrative frames Gwija's recollections of the war. In one of the most impactful artistic sequences, she watches a group of refugees crossing the country and realizes she and her family must flee as well. From tension with other migrants to the confused horror when American jets turn their guns on the caravan, Gwija's exhaustion is palpable. The inevitable moment she is separated from her husband and son, and her subsequent panic and loss, hits powerfully. Back in the present, Gwija's hope hinges on a program in which select families, separated by the division of the country, can win a lottery to be reunited—if only for a limited time. Throughout, Gendry-Kim's inky brushwork evokes a rich sense of place, from the hostile, scrubby landscape of North Korea to the crowded alleyways of modern-day Seoul. Much like Thi Bui's The Best We Can Do, this family portrait reveals in heartbreaking detail the impacts of colonization and political upheaval that reverberate for generations.
