I Went To See My Father

By (author) Shin Kyung-Sook
Short description/annotation:
An instant bestseller in Korea and the follow up to the international bestseller, Please Look After Mother, this is a story of one woman''s efforts to reconnect with her aging father and a sweeping family saga that charts Korea''s tumultuous history
Description:

''A powerful, elegant page-turner'' J.M. Lee

''Gentle yet piercing'' Kirkus Reviews

After losing her daughter in a tragic accident, Hon returns to her childhood home in the Korean countryside to look after her elderly father. There, the discovery of a chest of letters compels her to piece together the violent, vibrant story of his life.

More than just a portrait of one man, I Went to See My Father asks us to look at the ones we love, uncover the secrets they keep, and finally see who they really are.

Affectionate, epic, joyous and lasting, this is the perfect follow-up to beloved classic Please Look After Mother.

Translated by Anton Hur

Review quote:
This is a book which reminds us that we all suffer from the same wounds, that no individual is free from the pains of their geography and that the greatest losses can only be healed where they all begin
Review quote:
A book that makes you hurt all over and smile at the same time. The experience being shared is so immediately relatable, so universal yet Korean, so beautiful and powerful at the same time
Review quote:
I Went to See My Father features the author''s hallmark emotional richness combined with a precision of language that pierces the soul. Just as Shin''s Please Look After Mother gives a voice to the forgotten mother, this novel vividly shows the father as a figure whom we often overlook. Shin guides us on a journey of heartache to literary catharsis
Review quote:
Shin threads together a lyrical family drama and the multi-layered spectrum of Korean history in a compelling epic. It is not only a story of love and pain between father and daughter, but of how memories can heal tragic wounds and restore damaged relationships. A powerful, elegant, page-turner
Review quote:
Gentle yet piercing . . . [I Went to See My Father is a] sensitively crafted family portrait that''s both specific and universal and, above all, humane
Review quote:
Once more, Shin masterfully glides between quotidian details and astounding feats of survival revealed through multiple voices (older brothers, their mother, a wartime friend) and formats (letters, recordings, long chat messages) to create another universally empathic masterpiece
Biographical note:
Kyung-Sook Shin is one of South Korea''s most widely read and acclaimed novelists. She has been honored with the Manhae Grand Prize for Literature, the Dong-in Literature Prize, and the Yi Sang Literary Prize, Mark of Respect Award (2012), and Ho-Am Prize for an Art (2013) as well as France''s Prix de l''Inaperçu and Man Asian Literary Prize (2011). She is the author of many prior works of fiction in addition to PLEASE LOOK AFTER MOTHER, which has been published in 41 countries, and was on the New York Times bestselling list. Shin was a visiting scholar at Columbia University from 2010 to 2011. She currently lives in Seoul.
Review quote: previous work:
Once more, Shin masterfully glides between quotidian details and astounding feats of survival revealed through multiple voices (older brothers, their mother, a wartime friend) and formats (letters, recordings, long chat messages) to create another universally empathic masterpiece - Booklist, starred review

This is a book which reminds us that we all suffer from the same wounds, that no individual is free from the pains of their geography and that the gr