Frankie recommends... Minbak - Ela Lee

Frankie says... A lyrically outstanding novel about the secrets a family can keep in the face of great personal and national upheaval, bring into the light an extremely dark part of Korean history. What was so impressive about Lee's writing is her ability to handle interiority with the weight of history, blending together compellingly complicated characters with their domestic and mundane position in what was an extremely fractious period of civil unrest. A reviewer said that this novel was 'quietly devastating' and I totally agree; you must have tissues nearby because you'll never read anything so moving, raw and unjust but with Lee's careful prose and tender hand you'll be passing this book to everyone you know. Just WOW! 

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Incheon, 1985. A nameless baby is born in a minbak in South Korea and vanishes nine days later.

London, 2008. When tragedy strikes, Hana faces ruin. She is forced to move her family – her teenage daughter Ada and ailing mother Youngja – into a single room with her, converting the rest of their home into a minbak, in a painful echo of her past life.

In the confined space of their shared room, there is nowhere to hide. As the past collides with the present, all three women are forced to face not only their family’s dark history, but that of an entire country.