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W&N has acquired I Went to See My Father by South Korean author Kyung-Sook Shin, the first female winner of the Man Asian Literary Prize for her book, Please Look After Mother (W&N).
Lettice Franklin, publishing director, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights to the new novel from Barbara Zitwer at The Barbara Zitwer Agency. I Went to See My Father will be published spring 2023 in translation by Anton Hur.
The synopsis reads: "In the wake of a personal tragedy, Hon, a novelist, goes back to her childhood home in the Korean countryside to take care of her ageing father. She soon discovers, through the testimonies of his loving family and friends, how his lifelong kindness belies a past wrought in both private and national trauma.
As Hon pieces together her father’s past, we learn of the massacres that occurred during the Korean War, the violence of the 19th April Revolution, and the phantoms that haunt the man who lived through it all."
The novel has sold more than 200,000 copies in South Korea since publication according to W&N.
Franklin said: “Richly told and profoundly moving, I Went to See My Father is a story of love, sacrifice and the power of the past in shaping who we become. Following on from our reissuing of Please Look After Mother on the W&N Essentials list and publication of Violets this year, we are all so excited to have a new novel from Shin, one of South Korea’s most widely read and acclaimed novelists.”
Zitwer added: “I waited 12 years for a new novel from Kyung-Sook Shin and it was well worth the wait! In a sense a bookend to Please Look After Mother, now Shin takes on the subject of the father… One father and every father and the secrets they hold from their families that, if we are lucky enough to discover, allow us to discover who they really are. Shin has given us a true gift.”