Miss Kim knows and other stories
Title of the book: Miss Kim Knows and other stories Author: Cho Nam Joo (trans Jamie Chung)
Publisher: Live right
Publishing Date: 2024
ISBN: 978-1-324-09531-6
Summary:
From the international best-selling author of Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, a collection exploring the intimacies of contemporary Korean womanhood.
A woman is born. A woman is filmed in public without consent. A woman suffers domestic violence. A woman is gaslit. A woman is discriminated against at work. A woman grows old. A woman becomes famous. A woman is hated, and loved, and then hated again.
Written in Cho Nam-joo’s signature razor-sharp prose, Miss Kim Knows follows eight women, ranging from preteens to octogenarians, as they confront how gender shapes and orders their lives. In “Under the Plum Tree,” Mallyeo feels existential as she bears witness to her sister’s final days; in “Dear Hyunnam Oppa,” a college graduate musters the courage to leave her partner; and in “Grown-Up Girl,” a mother finally confronts her generational biases for the sake of her daughter. “Despite her characters’ hardship and disappointments, there is mischief and glee to be found in these pages” (Hephzibah Anderson, Observer), resulting in another riveting read from an essential voice in world literature.
(From goodreads)
Associated Names:
* 조남주 (Korean)
* Cho Nam-Joo (English)
* 趙南柱 (Chinese)
* โชนัมจู (Thai)
* チョ・ナムジュ (Japanese)
Cho Nam-joo is a former television scriptwriter. In the writing of Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 she drew partly on her own experience as a woman who quit her job to stay at home after giving birth to a child.
Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 is her third novel. It has had a profound impact on gender inequality and discrimination in Korean society, and has been translated into 18 languages.
Under the plum tree
Dead set
Runaway
Miss Kim Knows
Dear Hyunnam Oppa
Night of Aurora
Grown up girl
Puppy love, 2020
Personal Opinion:
Told in eight viginettes, Miss Kim Knows by Cho Nam Joo focuses on women's experiences at different stages of life, from time of girlhood to time of death and in between. These are not straight forward stories where it is revealed as to what is wrong, but in a lot of them I had to dig deeper. Relationships between men and women are full of complexities, and from reading a few, I can definitely understand the male and the female point of view. One of the stories that was very personal for me is Dear Hyunnam Oppa, where a woman writes a Dear John letter to her boyfriend and on why she is breaking up with him. It is personal because I had a quite similar experience with my son's Chinese father. ( it felt as if he wanted to shape me into someone not quite myself, and it felt as if he refused to do anything to show he cared for me.) But the male character seriously reminded me of my Korean soulmate, how he showed he cared if not verbally then by actions. ( very very long story) I should perhaps discuss this on another medium.
This was given for review
4 out of 5
(0: Stay away unless a masochist 1: Good for insomnia 2: Horrible but readable; 3: Readable and quickly forgettable, 4: Good, enjoyable 5: Buy it, keep it and never let it go.)
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