Winner of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award and the Washington State Book Award in Biography/MemoirNamed One of the Best Books by Asian American Writers by Oprah DailyLonglisted for the PEN Open Book AwardThe Magical Language of Others is a powerful and aching love story in letters, from mother to daughter. After living in America for over a decade, Eun Ji Koh’s parents return to South Korea for work, leaving fifteen-year-old Eun Ji and her brother behind in California. Overnight, Eun Ji finds herself abandoned and adrift in a world made strange by her mother’s absence. Her mother writes letters in Korean over the years seeking forgiveness and love―letters Eun Ji cannot fully understand until she finds them years later hidden in a box.As Eun Ji translates the letters, she looks to history―her grandmother Jun’s years as a lovesick wife in Daejeon, the loss and destruction her grandmother Kumiko witnessed during the Jeju Island Massacre―and to poetry, as well as her own lived experience to answer questions inside all of us. Where do the stories of our mothers and grandmothers end and ours begin? How do we find words―in Korean, Japanese, English, or any language―to articulate the profound ways that distance can shape love?The Magical Language of Others weaves a profound tale of hard-won selfhood and our deep bonds to family, place, and language, introducing―in Eun Ji Koh―a singular, incandescent voice.
✔ Author(s): E. J. Koh
✔ Title: The Magical Language of Others: A Memoir
✔ Rating : 4.4 out of 5 base on (378 reviews)
✔ ISBN-10: 1951142276
✔ ISBN-13: 9781951142278
✔ Language: English
✔ Format ebook: PDF, EPUB, Kindle, Audio, HTML and MOBI
✔ Device compatibles: Android, iOS, PC and Amazon Kindle
Readers' opinions about The Magical Language of Others by E. J. Koh
Melody Blake
I couldn't stop raving about this book to my friends and family. It's a literary gem that deserves all the praise. I can't wait to dive into more works by this talented author.
Beata Shepard
The plot was incredibly well-crafted, with twists and turns that kept me hooked until the very last page. It was impossible to predict what would happen next.
Katherine Stevenson
I'm already planning to reread this book. It's one of those stories that you can revisit again and again, discovering new layers of meaning each time.
