From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. This debut novel, inspired by the life of the author’s Korean mother, is a beautiful, deliberate and satisfying story spanning 30 years of Korean history. The tradition-bound aristocratic calligrapher Han refuses to name his daughter because she is born just as the Japanese occupy Korea early in the 20th century. When Han finds a husband for Najin (nicknamed after her mother’s birthplace) at 14, her mother objects and instead sends her to the court of the doomed royal Yi family to learn refinement. Najin goes to college and becomes a teacher, proving herself not only as a scholar but as a patriot and humanitarian. She returns home to marry, but her new husband goes without her to study in America when she is denied a visa. As the Japanese systematically obliterate ancient Korean culture and the political climate worsens, so do Najin’s fortunes. Her family is reduced to poverty, their home is seized and Najin is imprisoned as a spy while WWII escalates. The author writes at a languorous pace, choosing not to sully her elegant pages with raw brutality, but the key to the story is Korea’s monumental suffering at the hands of the Japanese. (Aug.)
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From School Library Journal
Adult/High School�In 1910 Gaesong, Korea, a female child is born to a learned scholar and calligrapher and his wife. The child, unnamed by her father, who is despondent over the recent annexing of Korea by Japan, names herself Najin. She proceeds to forge her own destiny, struggling to be an obedient daughter in the Confucian tradition of her father and the Christian faith embraced by her mother. To escape an arranged marriage, Najin goes to the emperor’s palace to be a companion to the princess. With the collapse of the Joseon dynasty, she loses her position. She finds ways to further her studies in education and medicine and helps support her parents and younger, shiftless brother with work as a teacher and physician. When her father arranges another marriage, to a student minister, Najin agrees. Immediately she is left with his family to act as a servant while he studies in the U.S. Accused of spying after she returns to her own now-impoverished family, Najin spends months in prison. The novel, based on the life of the author’s mother, comes to a satisfying conclusion with the surrender of Japan and the reunion of the couple. Descriptive imagery communicates Najin’s philosophical musings, dreams, and appreciation of nature. Readers are left with greater understanding of the horrors of Japanese occupation and of the cultural, political, and religious upheaval that Korean families faced as they negotiated the modern world. Delicate black-and-white illustrations complement the prose. A compelling narrative about an intellectually curious and brave heroine.�_Jackie Gropman, formerly at Fairfax County Public Library System, Fairfax, VA_
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