Concerning My Daughter

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The expectations and ambitions, possibilities and hopes concerning my daughter - they still remain and torment me no matter how hard I work to get rid of them. To be rid of them, how skeletal and empty do I have to be? Concerning My Daughter is a work that is unafraid of the human body in all its contradictions, at once philosophical and practical in its treatment of the aging body, the gendered body, the body’s capacity for acts of caretaking, protest, and love. Urgent, timely, tender.” The synopsis says: “Told in a brutally honest voice that at times simmers with impotent rage, Kim Hye-jin's novel taps into the complexities of mother-daughter dynamics, but also the systemic issues and obstacles that LGBTQ communities face in heteronormative societies. Kim Hye-jin lays bare our most universal fears on ageing, death, and isolation, to offer finally a paean to love in all its forms.” And then, her only daughter, now in her thirties, has to move in with her, as she's broke and can't find a permanent job. She shares her room with her long-term partner, another woman.

The Bookseller - Rights - Picador bags Hye-jin’s Korean

Why can’t you just accept me for who I am? I’m not asking you to agree with me on every little thing. Weren’t you the one who told me that there were all kinds of people in the world? Who live different lives? You said different wasn’t bad! You’re the one who taught me all that. How come these things never apply to me?But when Green turns up with her long-term girlfriend in tow, her mother is enraged and unwilling to welcome their relationship into her home. Having centered her life on her husband and child, her daughter's definition of family is not one she can accept. Green's involvement in a campus protest against unfair dismissals of gay colleagues throws her into deeper shambles. Jamie Chang is a literary translator. She has translated Kim Ji-young, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-joo. She lives in Korea with her wife and dog. We are experiencing delays with deliveries to many countries, but in most cases local services have now resumed. For more details, please consult the latest information provided by Royal Mail's International Incident Bulletin.

Concerning My Daughter by Kim Hye-jin - Pan Macmillan

This is an intriguing book, very simple in narrative and premise (traditional, homophobic mother struggles with how to deal with daughter), but also powerful in how it shows the impact society and tradition can have on viewpoints, and the intersection of different kinds of crises (in this case, care of the elderly and homophobia). It can be painful to read at times, repeating the protagonist's obsession with her daughter not having a 'real' relationship, and the depiction of the care of the elderly can be brutal, but there's also tenderness underneath, for example the glimpses of Green and Lane's relationship even only through the eyes of someone who won't accept it.Her daughter’s involvement in a case of unfair dismissal involving gay colleagues from the university where she works is similarly strange to her.

Concerning My Daughter by Kim Hye-Jin | Goodreads

I was born and raised in this culture where the polite thing to do is to turn a blind eye and keep your mouth shut, and now I’ve grown old in it,” explains the unnamed protagonist of Kim’s English-language debut. A widow in her early 70s, the narrator earns a modest income by caring for a dementia patient named Jen, a journalist and activist who never married or had children and has no relatives to care for her in her old age. Despite the pressure from her boss to cut corners and the suspicion that her co-workers are able to successfully “leave all sentiment and anything like it at home,” she is deeply troubled by the societal belief that the elderly—especially those who are alone—are disposable. She is less successful at challenging the societal beliefs that affect her own child. Green, a college lecturer in her 30s, has become involved in a labor dispute at the local university and is struggling to pay her bills. When Green and her longtime girlfriend, Lane, accept the narrator’s invitation to come live with her for a while, the narrator is forced to confront her self-imposed ignorance about her daughter’s sexuality. Kim is unsparing in her depictions of the indignities of old age, the corrosiveness of homophobia, and the piercing loneliness that comes from living in a culture of silence. Sobre mi hija” es un libro breve en tamaño pero enorme en profundidad, uno de esos en los que se puede subrayar cada frase, cada palabra, que logra hablar sobre muchísimos temas, todos ellos entrelazados, y lo hace con tanto acierto que consigue agitar irremediablemente al lector. Entre los temas que toca, podemos destacar la homofobia, la precariedad laboral, el edadismo, la falta de empatía o las relaciones familiares y la dificultad para comunicarse y entenderse entre los miembros de una familia. Despite its short length Concerning my Daughter is by no means a breeze to read. It is a candid and stark study of a fraught mother-daughter relationship. In Concerning my Daughter Kim Hye-Jin examines generational differences, cultural conservatism, and the realities of being an lgbtq+ person living in a heteronormative and traditionalist society. An admirably nuanced portrait of prejudice. . . . one that boldly takes on the daunting task of humanizing someone whose prejudice has made her cruel.” The story is told from the perspective of a middle-aged woman, a widowed careworker and mother to Green, who is now in her thirties. When Green asks her to rent out a room to her, she reluctantly obliges and is horrified to discover that Green will be joined by her long-term girlfriend, Lane. The mother wants her daughter to be happy, but her vision of contentment does not align with Green’s. The narrator longs for Green to lead a ‘normal’, expected, life: husband, children, a house. But here she is in her thirties and living with her. Worst, she is 'unapologetically' and 'unabashedly' gay, and has no intention of hiding her relationship from the prying eyes of others. In fact, Green is fighting for lgbtq+ rights, protesting the discrimination and unfair dismissal faced by members of her community at the university where she was employed at.

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Una lectura que toca diversos temas, pero el foco principal está en la idea de aceptación, tanto en el sentido orientación sexual, como sobre la vejez, los cambios, entre otras cosas. La novela me gustó muchísimo, y creo que mi parte favorita es la narración en primera persona por parte de la madre. Ver todo a través de sus ojos puede ser doloroso, triste y también terrorífico: se trata de una mujer en sus 70 que tiene que aceptar una realidad que no le agrada en lo absoluto. El desarrollo de su personaje y su vínculo con la hija me conmovió muchísimo.