Simple Heart - by Cho Haejin (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

In this moving exploration of dual identities reminiscent of Past Lives, a Korean writer's pregnancy raises questions about her own childhood abandonment.

Nana, a Korean playwright, was adopted as a child by a French couple. Before she was Nana, she was Esther Pak, a girl growing up in a Korean orphanage. And before she was Esther Pak, she was Munju, an infant abandoned on the railway tracks of Cheongnyangni station in Seoul.

Pregnant with the child of her ex-boyfriend, Nana receives a request from a Korean filmmaker who wishes to make a documentary about her life. Following a sudden compulsion to learn more about her own roots, she heads to Seoul as she prepares to bring a new life into the world. There, through unexpected encounters, the dark threads of her memory gradually begin to unravel.

Simple Heart delves into profound questions about identity and belonging, with a focus on family connections and motherhood that recalls Kyung-Sook Shin's Please Look After Mother. It also shines a necessary light on issues such as international adoption and the historic US military presence in Korea.

About the Author

Cho Haejin is the recipient of several literary awards, including the Shin Dong-yup Prize for Literature, the Yi Sang Literature Award, the Lee Hyo-seok Literary Award, and the Hyeongpyeong Literary Prize. Her novels are celebrated for bearing witness to the lives of those on the margins of Korean society: people with disabilities, foreigners, North Korean defectors, and overseas adoptees. Cho's novel I Met Loh Kiwan was adapted into a feature film and released on Netflix in 2024. She won Korea's prestigious Daesan Literary Award for Simple Heart.

Jamie Chang is an award-winning literary translator. Her translation of Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 was long-listed for the 2020 National Book Award for Translated Literature. She is the recipient of the Daesan Foundation Translation Grant and a three-time recipient of the Literature Translation Institute of Korea Grant. She lives in Ontario, Canada.