... [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.

... sublime.

An engaging, literary take on language and its role in the diaspora of a scattered family, The Magical Language of Others speaks from—and to—the heart.

Koh captures their pasts, and her own, with the lack of straightforwardness memory evinces as sentiments echo across generations: daughters will someday have daughters just like themselves; one day, a daughter will be her mother’s mother. Both creative tribute and personal reckoning, this is a finely wrought, linguistically rich, provocative memoir..

A poignant transgenerational story of trauma and recovery in South Korea, Japan, and America..

... [the letters] read like an extended, fussing hand, hoping to hold onto that mother-daughter bond across an ocean of distance.

Koh takes her readers on a wonderfully written, if sobering, journey through the history of the women of her family and her own journey to being the author of this memoir.

The author includes her translations of some of her mother’s letters as well as the originals. Her bewilderment regarding her mother’s decision is deeply evident, as are her gradual perceptions about how the move affected her mother.