NORA OKJA KELLER

La historia de una hermosa amistad que crece en medio de la sordidez y de la dureza de la prostitución cuartelaria, con el trasfondo de la guerra de Corea y el irrelizable sueño americano. Jyun Jin y Sookie son dos ingenuas adolescentes, dos de tantas victimas olvidadas que han nacido fruto de la union entre soldados americanso y nativas del pais asiatico. Jyun Jin , rechazada por su familia, y Sookie, a quien su madre abandona cuando la destinan a un burdel en las afueras de la ciudad, se veran abocadas a ejercer la prostitucion. A partir de ese momento ambas jovenes inician un calvario de sufrimientos que culminara en un ironico viaje a la Tierra Prometida, reclutadas por una madame para trabajar en un burdel hawaino. Un relato conmovedor sobre la amistad, la supervivencia y las crueles consecuencias de cualquier guerra.

Un relato intenso y conmovedor sobre la vida de Akiko, una extrabajadora sexual coreana obligada a prostituirse para los tropas japonesas durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial, y sobre la difícil relación que mantendra con su hija, nacida en Estados Unidos, e ignorante de su doloroso pasado. Distanciada de su madre por diferencias culturales y generacionales, tras la muerte de Akiko, la joven descubrira al fin el terrible secreto de su pasado, comprendera la lucha de su madre por sobrevivir, sus fantasmas, y se reconciliara con su memoria.

Nora Okja Keller, the acclaimed author of Comfort Woman, tells the shocking story of a group of young people abandoned after the Korean War. At the center of the tale are two teenage girlsHyun Jin and Sookie, a teenage prostitute kept by an American soldierwho form a makeshift family with Lobetto, a lost boy who scrapes together a living running errands and pimping for neighborhood girls. Both horrifying and moving, Fox Girl at once reveals another layer of wars human detritus and the fierce love between a mother and daughter.

"Powerful...a poignant and powerful debut." -- The Los Angeles Times Possessing a wisdom and maturity rarely found in a first novelist, Korean-American writer Nora Okja Keller tells a heartwrenching and enthralling tale in this, her literary debut. Comfort Woman is the story of Akiko, a Korean refugee of World War II, and Beccah, her daughter by an American missionary. The two women are living on the edge of societyand sanityin Honolulu, plagued by Akikos periodic encounters with the spirits of the dead, and by Beccahs struggles to reclaim her mother from her past. Slowly and painfully Akiko reveals her tragic story and the horrifying years she was forced to serve as a "comfort woman" to Japanese soldiers. As Beccah uncovers these truths, she discovers her own strength and the secret of the powers she herself possessedthe precious gifts her mother has given her. A San Francisco Chronicle bestseller In 1995, Nora Okja Keller received the Pushcart Prize for "Mother Tongue", a piece that is part of Comfort Woman.