Margins
I Went To See My Father book cover
I Went To See My Father
A Novel
2021
First Published
3.71
Average Rating
304
Number of Pages

An instant bestseller in Korea and the follow up to the international bestseller, Please Look After Mom; centering on a woman's efforts to reconnect with her aging father, uncovering long-held family secrets. Two years after losing her daughter in a tragic accident, Hon finally returns to her home in the countryside to take care of her father. At first, her father only appears withdrawn and fragile, an aging man, awkward but kind around his own daughter. Then, after stumbling upon a chest of letters, Hon discovers the truth of her father's past and reconstructs her own family history. Consumed with her own grief, Hon had been blind to her father's vulnerability and her family's fragility. Unraveling secret after secret and thanks to conversations with loving family and friends, Hon grows closer to her father, who proves to be more complex than she ever gave him credit for. After living through one of the most tumultuous times in Korean history, her father's life was once vibrant and ambitious, but spiraled during the postwar years. Now, after years of emotional isolation, Hon learns the whole truth, from her father's affair and involvement in a cult, to the dynamic lives of her own siblings, to her family's financial hardships. What Hon uncovers about her father builds towards her understanding of the great scope of his sacrifice and heroism, and of her country as a whole. More than just the portrait of a single man, I Went to See My Father opens a window onto humankind, family, loss, and war. With this long-awaited follow-up to Please Look After Mom—flawlessly rendered by award-winning translator Anton Hur—Kyung-Sook Shin has crafted an ambitious, global, epic, and lasting novel.

Avg Rating
3.71
Number of Ratings
1,136
5 STARS
24%
4 STARS
35%
3 STARS
30%
2 STARS
8%
1 STARS
2%
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Author

Kyung-sook Shin
Kyung-sook Shin
Author · 10 books

Associated Names: * Shin Kyung-sook * 신경숙 * 申京淑 Kyung-Sook Shin is a South Korean writer. She is the first South Korean and first woman to win the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2012 for 'Please Look After Mom'.

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