Logo image
  • BookDragon
  • About
  • The Blogger
  • Review Policy
  • Smithsonian APAC
 
46473
post-template-default,single,single-post,postid-46473,single-format-standard,stardust-core-1.1,stardust-child-theme-ver-1.0.0,stardust-theme-ver-3.1,ajax_updown_fade,page_not_loaded,smooth_scroll

BookDragon Blog

17 Feb / Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo, translated by Jamie Chang [in Booklist]

*STARRED REVIEW
Already an international bestseller, television scriptwriter Cho Nam-Joo’s debut novel has been credited with helping to “launch Korea’s new feminist movement.” The fact that gender inequity is insidiously pervasive throughout the world will guarantee that this tale has immediate resonance, and its smoothly accessible, albeit British English vernacular-inclined, translation by award-winning translator Jamie Chang will ensure appreciative Anglophone audiences.

Cho’s narrative is part bildungsroman and part Wikipedia entry (complete with statistics-heavy footnotes). She opens with “August, 2015,” immediately divulging the fragile mental state of her titular Kim Jiyoung, who now as a wife and mother has developed the disturbing tendency to suddenly become other people she’s known, both living and dead. Through four chronological milestones – childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, and marriage – Cho presents what happened in the prior 33 years that actuated Jiyoung’s “abnormal behavior”; each period is marked by gross misogyny, from microaggressions to bullying to abuse to unrelenting dismissal.

Cho’s matter-of-fact delivery underscores the pervasive gender imbalance, while just containing the empathic rage. Her final chapter, “2016,” written as Jiyoung’s therapist’s report – his claims of being “aware” and “enlightened” only damning him further as an entitled troll – proves to be narrative genius.

YA/Mature Readers: The exposure of gender inequity – from birth to adulthood – should provide resonating life lessons for mature teen readers.

Review: “Fiction,” Booklist, February 1, 2020

Readers: Young Adult, Adult

Published: 2016 (Korea), 2020 (United States)

By Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center in Adult Readers, Fiction, Korean, Repost, Translation, Young Adult Readers Tags > BookDragon, Booklist, Bullying, Cho Nam-Joo, Coming-of-age, Family, Gender inequity, Identity, Jamie Chang, Kim Jiyoung Born 1982
1 Comment
  • Pingback:Five More to Go: Cho Nam-Joo’s Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 [in The Booklist Reader] | BookDragon Reply

Post a Comment
Cancel Reply

Smithsonian Institution
Asian Pacific American Center

Capital Gallery, Suite 7065
600 Maryland Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20024

202.633.2691 | APAC@si.edu

Additional contact info

Mailing Address
Capital Gallery
Suite 7065, MRC: 516
P.O. Box 37012
Washington, DC 20013-7012

Fax: 202.633.2699

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram

SmithsonianAPA brings Asian Pacific American history, art, and culture to you through innovative museum experiences and digital initiatives.

About BookDragon

Welcome to BookDragon, filled with titles for the diverse reader. BookDragon is a new media initiative of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center (APAC), and serves as a forum for those interested in learning more about the Asian Pacific American experience through literature. BookDragon is inhabited by Terry Hong.

Learn More

Contact BookDragon

Please email us at SIBookDragon@gmail.com

Follow BookDragon!
  • Twitter
  • Facebook

Looking for Something Else …?

or