'A richly emotional portrait of a family that had me spellbound from page one' Cheryl Strayed, bestselling author of Wild

The night before Janie's sister, Hannah, is born, her grandmother tells her a story: Since the Japanese occupation of Korea, their family has lost a daughter in every generation, and Janie is told to keep Hannah safe.

Years later, when Hannah cuts all ties and disappears, Janie goes to find her. It is the start of a journey that will force her to confront her family's painful silence, the truth behind her parents' sudden move to America twenty years earlier, and her own conflicted feelings toward Hannah.

Weaving Korean folklore with a modern narrative of immigration and identity, Forgotten Country is a gripping story of a family struggling to find its way out of silence and back to one another.

About the Author
Catherine Chung is the author of The Tenth Muse and Forgotten Country, for which she won an Honorable Mention for the PEN/Hemingway Award. She has been a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, a Granta New Voice and a Director's Visitor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and was the recipient of a Dorthy Sargent Rosenberg Prize in poetry. She has a degree in mathematics from the University of Chicago, and worked at a think tank in Santa Monica before receiving her MFA from Cornell University. She has published work in the New York Times and Granta, and is a fiction editor at Guernica Magazine. She lives in New York City.

Reviews
In Forgotten Country, Catherine Chung tells an inexpressibly beautiful story about a Korean family with a complex history... The story builds quietly, meticulously, and Chung does a masterful job of weaving the past with the present, incorporating mythology and memory in ways that both captivate and haunt * Roxane Gay, at The Rumpus *
Luminous and surprising.... Chung brings a gentle, special gravity to this Korean family's tale of endurance... Forgotten Country is an impressive, memorable debut * San Francisco Chronicle *
In her gorgeous debut, Chung offers a heartbreaking story about sisters, family, and keeping traditions alive * People magazine *
Catherine Chung's wonderful first novel is a moving and deeply personal story of a family caught between two very different countries and very different lives * Alison Lurie *
It is a rare novel - debut or otherwise - that can sing at once with such tenderness and ferocity, with such intense feeling and exquisite restraint. Forgotten Country is just that book, poetically crafted, shimmering with hard-won emotion, and wholly absorbing. A superb performance * Chang-rae Lee *
A heartbreaking debut novel that will leave you quietly shattered in its wake. Forgotten Country is an exquisitely rendered account of a Korean immigrant family divided by two sisters, two countries and a curse that spans generations. Catherine Chung has written a haunting meditation on family loyalty and the lingering legacy of war * Julie Otsuka, author of The Buddha in the Attic *
Chung delves with aching honesty and beauty into large, difficult questions - the strength and limits of family, the definition of home, the boundaries (or lack thereof) between duty and love - within the context of a Korean experience. Chung's limpid prose matches her emotional intelligence. * Kirkus Reviews (starred) *
In this beautiful debut novel...Woven with tender reflections, sharp renderings of isolation, and beautiful prose...Chung simultaneously shines light on the violence of Korean history, the chill of American xenophobia, and the impossibility of home in either country * Publishers Weekly, starred review *
Chung indelibly portrays a Korea viciously divided but ever bound to history, myth, and hope * O, The Oprah Magazine *
A] lovely, elegiac novel . . . both heartbreaking and redemptive * Boston Globe *
Published in the UK for the first time, this debut novel by Catherine Chung, author of The Tenth Muse, weaves together folklore and family ties. When Janie is a child, her grandmother tells her a story: since the Japanese occupation of Korea, their family has lost a daughter every generation. Years later, her sister Hannah disappears. Janie is left to unpick the truth about the brooding resentment and unspoken sacrifices that have led to history repeating itself * Herald (30 best beach and holiday books) *



Book Information
ISBN 9780349144054
Author Catherine Chung
Format Paperback
Page Count 304
Imprint Abacus
Publisher Little, Brown Book Group
Weight(grams) 240g
Dimensions(mm) 196mm * 126mm * 24mm