**The story begins 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 had been separated from her sister during the Korean War.
It's not an uncommon story--the peninsula was split across 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 of
four fled south. On the road, while breastfeeding and changing her
daughter, Gwija was separated from her husband and son.
Then seventy 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 the Korean by the award-winning translator
Janet Hong, The Waiting is the devastating followup to Gendry-Kim's
Grass, which appeared on best of the year lists from the New York
Times, The Guardian, Library Journal, and more.
