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3.5 

Violets

By Kyung-Sook Shin & Anton Hur
Violets by Kyung-Sook Shin & Anton Hur digital book - Fable

Publisher Description

By Man Asian Literary Prize winner Kyung-Sook Shin, "a moving delve into a lonely psyche" that follows a neglected young woman's search for human connection in contemporary Seoul (YZ Chin).

San is twenty-two and alone when she happens upon a job at a flower shop in Seoul’s bustling city center. Haunted by childhood rejection, she stumbles through life—painfully vulnerable, stifled, and unsure. She barely registers to others, especially by the ruthless standards of 1990s South Korea.

Over the course of one hazy, volatile summer, San meets a curious cast of characters: the nonspeaking shop owner, a brash coworker, quiet farmers, and aggressive customers. Fueled by a quiet desperation to jump-start her life, she plunges headfirst into obsession with a passing magazine photographer.

In Violets, best-selling author Kyung-Sook Shin explores misogyny, erasure, and repressed desire, as San desperately searches for both autonomy and attachment in the unforgiving reality of contemporary Korean society.

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11 Reviews

3.5
Loudly Crying Face“Violets is a haunting, deeply moving story about women who live in the background, often overlooked and unnoticed, just like tiny violet flowers mistaken for weeds. Through San, Kyung-Sook Shin brings voice to these quiet lives, showing us the world through her eyes and experiences. San’s life in the city is harsh and lonely, and after a traumatic event, she finds herself at a construction site, standing in front of an excavator in the dead of night. It’s a striking, almost surreal moment where an “ordinary” woman faces something much larger and immovable, a reflection of the violence and indifference around her. The book is a poetic, unsettling tribute to those who exist on the margins, with Shin’s words giving voice to the silent, persistent witnesses among us. Violets leaves an indelible impact, lingering long after you’ve turned the final page. 📚https://www.instagram.com/raikeehime 📖 https://fable.co/raireads-363412299738”

About Kyung-Sook Shin

Kyung-Sook Shin is one of South Korea’s most widely read and acclaimed novelists. She has been awarded the Man Asian Literary Prize, the Manhae Grand Prize for Literature, the Dong-in Literature Prize, the Yi Sang Literary Prize, and many others, including France’s Prix de l’Inaperçu. Shin is the author of multiple books, including The Girl Who Wrote LonelinessI’ll Be Right ThereThe Court Dancer, and the New York Times-bestselling Please Look After Mom, which has been published in over forty countries.

Anton Hur has won the PEN Translates and PEN/Heim grants for literary translation. His other work includes the English translations of Sang Young Park’s Love in the Big City (Grove) and Bora Chung’s Cursed Bunny (Honford Star). He resides in Seoul.

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