![]() The best anyone can hope for, Gendry-Kim seems to conclude, is to say, collectively, “This happened.” Despite occasional moments of disjointed plotting, Gendry-Kim tells Ok-sun’s powerful story with grace, artfulness, and humility it deserves witness. by Keum suk Gendry-Kim (Author, Artist) Format: Kindle Edition 218 ratings Part of: Grass See all formats and editions Kindle 14.99 Read on any device Kindle & Comixology Paperback 25.89 1 New from 25. ![]() After the war, Ok-sun finds relative peace, but it’s clear that politicians lack the power and will to enact true healing. At the Chinese outpost where Japanese soldiers rape her regularly, there is no “comfort,” just a dirty work camp where her visitors, up to forty a day, are “all the same.” When Ok-sun describes her first rape, Gendry-Kim draws six black panels with Ok-sun’s terrified face bursting out of the frame. Ok-sun-depicted as a wrinkly old woman in the present day and a round-faced, triangle-nosed girl in her youth-is sold twice as a child into domestic work (though promised she was going to school) in poverty-stricken, occupied Korea before Japanese forces kidnap her. In telling the difficult, moving story of Korean former “comfort woman” Granny Lee Ok-sun, Gendry-Kim faces a philosophical question as well as an artistic one: what can be redeemed in a life defined largely by cruelty? In swift black brushstrokes that feel both contemporary and, in key wordless pauses, classical, Gendry-Kim follows Ok-sun’s narration of her life (based on interviews) with minimal editorializing. ![]()
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