Eugenia Kim

Eugenia Kim's new novel is The Kinship of Secrets.

From her Q&A with Deborah Kalb:

Q: You write that the The Kinship of Secrets was inspired by your own family's story. At what point did you decide to write this novel?

A: When I went to Korea in 2010, my second time, I did some book events for The Calligrapher’s Daughter. My sister, Sun, joined me there and while I had some vague idea of writing a continuation to The Calligrapher’s Daughter, I was somewhat resistant and I wasn’t sure what the story might be.

We took a train to Busan, to look at the neighborhood where my sister spent the war years, and on that train ride I asked her what it was like for her to have come to America at age 11.

I was 6 when she came to the U.S., so I wasn’t aware of why she’d been separated from the family (the Korean War and problems with U.S. immigration) for 10 years. I had assumed that she, like many immigrants, were eager to come to America.

But her answer to my question was, “It was the blackest day of my life,” and...[read on]

Visit Eugenia Kim's website.

--Marshal Zeringue