Based on the story of her own mother’s separation from her sister during the conflict, Keum rotates between past and present to demonstrate the horrors of war and the courage of the human spirit as aging folks desperately try to use the Red Cross’ reunification program to see their family one last time. The Waiting is a heartbreaking and important story about these family separations beautifully told and illustrated by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim and translated into English by Janet Hong. Families fleeing the war got split up in the chaos and confusion, with some making it to the South while their loved ones got trapped behind and as generations passed they have been unable to contact each other.

When Korea was divided along the 38th Parallel, many families were permanently separated from each other. Gwija is now an elderly woman and Jina can't stop thinking about the promise she made to help find her brother.Įxpertly 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. On the road, while breastfeeding and changing her daughter, Gwija was separated from her husband and son.

Japan fell, Korea gained its independence, and the couple started a family. 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. The Waiting is the fictional story of Gwija, told by her novelist daughter Jina. 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. As many fled violence in the north, not everyone was able to make it south.

It's not an uncommon story-the peninsula was split across the 38th parallel, dividing one country into two. 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. sisters permanently separated by a border during the Korean War. The story begins with a mother's confession.

Keum suk gendry kim the waiting