Liberators
About This Book
At the height of South Korea's military dictatorship, Insuk is wed to Sungho in a match their families have arranged. The couple then settles in San Jose, California, bringing their infant and Sungho's domineering mother-in-law. Adrift in an unfamiliar country and cut off from her past and her divided homeland, Insuk mourns what she has lost, and an illicit affair draws her into a chain of events that reverberates for generations. The novel moves across decades and places, from the Gwangju Massacre to the 1988 Olympics, with flashbacks to Korea's repatriation after the Japanese surrender and to the Sewol ferry accident. E. J. Koh builds the story from finely observed portraits and a chorus of testimony from guards, prisoners, perpetrators, and liberators. Together these voices trace four generations of two Korean families across continents, shaped by choices made in love and war long before. The book is concerned with memory, trauma, and empathy, and with how the consequences of the past pass down through a family.
ISBN: 9781959030157
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