La Espera / The Waiting 2023 Paperback by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim

Description

MEJOR CÓMIC DEL AÑO The Washington Post / Forbes / Publishers Weekly
PREMIOS Freeman Awards / YALSA Book Award / Cartoonist Studio Prize / Prix BDGest’

FINALISTA Harvey Award / LA Times Book Prize

El esperado nuevo libro de la autora de Hierba: la emocionante historia de las familias separadas tras la división de Corea y la guerra de 1950

Gwija tiene 92 años y vive en Corea del Sur. Tras décadas de espera, desea reencontrarse con su hijo mayor. Lo perdió de vista en una columna de refugiados, huyendo del norte, mientras amamantaba al bebé que llevaba en brazos. En un encuentro auspiciado por la Cruz Roja, su amiga Jeong-Sun acaba de reunirse con su hermana pequeña después de sesenta y ocho años separadas. Gwija solo desea poder seguir sus pasos en una nueva edición.

En 1950, la guerra de Corea separó a familias enteras, que quedaron a uno y otro lado de una frontera infranqueable. A partir de las entrevistas que Keum Suk Gendry-Kim realizó a varios testimonios (entre ellos, su propia madre), La espera reconstruye el trauma de toda una generación de coreanos, ya casi olvidados, que siguen aguardando un reencuentro.

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

BEST COMIC OF THE YEAR The Washington Post / Forbes / Publishers Weekly

AWARDS Freeman Awards / YALSA Book Award / Cartoonist Studio Prize / Prix BDGest’

FINALIST Harvey Award / LA Times Book Prize

The long-awaited new book by the author of Grass the emotional story of families separated after the division of Korea and the 1950 war.

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; the 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.