[Hybrid Lecture]

MiJa Book Launch. An ordinary Korean family blighted by the Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times.”

SPEAKER: Mark Atkinson

DATE: Tuesday. December 13, 2022. 7:30PM (Seoul)

ADMISSION (Online & In-person): Free for Members & Student (*Student ID required); W10,000 for Non-members

• If you would like to attend online Zoom, please RSVP by Monday (December 12). We will email you the link on Tuesday.
• To attend in-person, RSVP is not required

SUMMARY:

Mun-gyeong, 1935. Choi MiJa is getting ready for her first day at the Elementary Good Citizen School in Japanese Occupied Korea. The Choi family are wealthy landowners and have been for nineteen generations, but all that is about to change. Their privileged lifestyle will soon disappear forever, and burgeoning love is put on hold as the family have to endure the hardship and loss of the Japanese Occupation, the Second World War, and the Korean War.

When peace finally arrives, there is great hope for the future and Korea has a chance to build a fair and just society. Will it succeed?

MiJa is a timeless story that sweeps the reader from the gated town of Mun-gyeong, a mountain pass so high that even the birds cannot fly through it, to the besieged war-torn city of Pusan where they have to live in the shantytown of Ami Dong built from reused gravestones.

Eventually MiJa find herself in the remote fishing port of Mukho on the border with North Korea where she joins the Hae-nyeo: a group of matriarchal fisherwomen.

MiJa is a tale of un-blossomed love and female sacrifice. It describes how a family’s hopes and dreams are crushed by the weight of historical events that still resonate in modern-day Korea.

BIO: 

MARK ATKINSON was born and raised in York, England but has spent much of his life living, studying and working in Southeast Asia, and has spent over a decade in South Korea. It took him four years to research and write his first novel, MiJa. You can find more about the author, join his book-club, and download a Korean language version by visiting: www.bookmark-publications.com