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53
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
32/100Critics
74/100Scholars
Author:
E.J. Koh
Publisher:
Tin House Books
Date:
January 7, 2020
After living in America for over a decade, Eun Ji Kohâs parents return to South Korea for work, leaving fifteen-year-old Eun Ji and her brother behind in California. Overnight, Eun Ji finds herself abandoned and adrift in a world made strange by her motherâs absence. Her mother writes letters, in Korean, over the years seeking forgiveness and loveâletters Eun Ji cannot fully understand until she finds them years later hidden in a box.
What The Reviewers Say
... [a] profound literary memoir of intergenerational wounds.
[Koh's] final lines are as heartbreakingly beautiful as the entire book deserves. The Magical Language of Others is a masterpiece, a love letter to mothers and daughters everywhere..
E.J. Koh’s memoir, The Magical Language of Others, is a haunting, gorgeous narrative that is lonely but lushly told. A coming-of-age story, it brings us through scenes that read like elegant fairy tales.
[A] stunning memoir.
