Chi-young Kim

April 4, 2012 Novelist Julie Otsuka returns with a tale of Japanese "picture brides" in the U.S., while Kyung-sook Shin explores the life of a Korean mother. Plus singer Shania Twain's account of overcoming poverty and divorce to hold her own as a country music star, actress Shirley MacLaine's ruminations on politics and life, and writer Wendy McClure's immersion in the life of Laura Ingalls Wilder.

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April 5, 2011 A blockbuster Korean novel has just been translated into English, in which a mother from the country goes missing in Seoul. Fresh Air's Maureen Corrigan says the book delves deeply into traditional values, putting the mother's melancholy squarely on the shoulders of her grown (unappreciative) children.

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On Fresh Air from WHYYPlaylist

September 30, 2010 Young-ha Kim's latest thriller, Your Republic Is Calling You, is about a North Korean spy living covertly in Seoul for two decades — when he's suddenly called to return to Pyongyang. Critic John Powers says the suspenseful novel offers a gripping look inside modern Korean culture.

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On Fresh Air from WHYYPlaylist

August 4, 2009 Chef Ji-won's life turns sour after she catches her boyfriend with one of her cooking students. Tongue, the English debut of best-selling South Korean author Kyung-ran Jo, is filled with food and restaurant trivia, but it's really about moving on from disappointment.

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