Ten Thousand Sorrows:
The Extraordinary Journey of a Korean War Orphan
by Elizabeth Kim
List Price: $22.95
Pages: 224
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 0385496338
Publisher: Doubleday
They called it an "honor killing," but to Elizabeth Kim, the night she
watched her grandfather and uncle hang her mother from the wooden rafter
in the corner of their small Korean hut, it was cold-blooded murder. Her
Omma had committed the sin of lying with an American soldier, and producing
not just a bastard, but a honhyol, a mixed-race child considered
worth less than nothing. After spending time in a prisonlike orphanage,
Kim was adopted by a childless Fundamentalist pastor and his wife in the
United States. From here, her story continues as she struggles in a culture
that judges her and her Asian features as inferior.
After escaping her adoptive parents' home, only to find herself in an
abusive and controlling marriage, Kim finally made a break for herself
by having a daughter and running away with her to a safer haven--something
her Omma could not do for her.
Unflinching in her narration, Kim tells of her sorrow with a steady and
riveting voice, and ultimately transcends it by laying claim to all the
joys to which she is entitled.
Elizabeth Kim is a journalist in California.
Courtesy of Random House, Inc.
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