Graphic Novel Book Club: Grass
Each month we host a Graphic Novel Book Club, open to all, during which we hang out and informally discuss a featured graphic novel. Our pick for September is GRASS by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim.
We will meet at La Petite Librairie Drawn & Quarterly (176 Rue Bernard Ouest) on Tuesday, October 15th at 7 p.m. Join us for refreshments and collective insights!
Hosting the club will be Librairie Drawn & Quarterly Bookseller Liane Décary-Chen.
ABOUT:
Grass is a powerful anti-war graphic novel, offering up firsthand the life story of a Korean girl named Lee Ok-sun who was forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese Imperial Army during the second World War – a disputed chapter in 20th century Asian history.
Beginning in Lee’s childhood, Grass shows the leadup to World War II from a child’s vulnerable perspective, detailing how one person experienced the Japanese occupation and the widespread suffering it entailed for ordinary Korean folk. Keum Suk Gendry-Kim emphasizes Lee’s strength in overcoming the many forms of adversity she experienced. Grass is painted in a black ink that flows with lavish details of the beautiful fields and farmland of Korea and uses heavy brushwork on the somber interiors of Lee’s memories.
Cartoonist Gendry-Kim’s interviews with Lee become an integral part of Grass, forming the heart and architecture of this powerful non-fiction graphic novel and offering a holistic view of how Lee’s wartime suffering changed her. Grass is a landmark graphic novel that makes personal the desperate cost of war and the importance of peace.
Grass is translated from Korean by Janet Hong, an award-winning writer and translator based in Vancouver, Canada. Her translations include Ancco’s Bad Friends (Drawn & Quarterly, 2018), Han Yujoo’s The Impossible Fairy Tale (Graywolf Press, 2017) and Ha Seong-nan’s The Woman Next Door (forthcoming from Open Letter Books in 2019). She is currently long listed for the 2018 PEN Translation Prize.
***We are offering a 20% discount on GRASS from now until the meeting date!***