Cho Nam-joo is a former television scriptwriter. In the writing of this book she drew partly on her own experience as a woman who quit her job to stay at home after giving birth to a child. Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 is her third novel. It has had a profound impact on gender inequality and discrimination in Korean society, and has been translated into 18 languages. Jamie Chang is an award-winning translator and teaches at the Ewha Womans University in Seoul, South Korea.
‘An all-too-familiar tale of a smart woman being slowly crushed by
constant, inescapable sexism […] beneath the analytical detachment
is a rolling rage that compellingly captures Kim Jiyoung’s
frustrations’
*Daily Mail*
‘Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 is a novel of education, in more ways than
one. Riffing with the bildungsroman form, Cho has created a heroine
who, as her life progresses does not so much develop as unravel.
The author’s particular achievement is in blending political and
stylistic concerns in a cool tone carefully captured in Jamie
Chang’s translation. […] In a culture which places the importance
of the category “woman” over that of the individual “person”, we
are invited to see Kim Jiyoung’s identity-erasing “insanity” as
radical protest. Cho’s moving, witty and powerful novel forces us
to face our reality, in which one woman is seen, pretty much, as
interchangeable with any other. There’s a logic to Kim Jiyoung’s
shape-shifting: she could be anybody’
*Daily Telegraph*
‘A ground-breaking work of feminist fiction’
*Stylist*
‘A touchstone for a conversation around feminism and gender […] The
character of Kim Jiyoung can be seen as a sort of sacrifice: a
protagonist who is broken in order to open up a channel for
collective rage. Along with other socially critical narratives to
come out of Korea, such as Bong Joon-ho’s Oscar-winning film
Parasite, her story could change the bigger one’
*Guardian*
‘A treatise and a howl of anger […] it describes experiences that
will be recognisable everywhere. It’s slim, unadorned narrative
distils a lifetime’s iniquities into a sharp punch. The books
demonstrates the unfairness of the female experience and the sheer
difficulty of improving it.’
*The Sunday Times*
'Enthralling and enraging'
*Sunday Express*
'Jiyoung is no raging feminist, rather a passive vessel, which
makes her eventual breakdown all the more powerful, while the calm,
matter-of-fact prose style adds to the reader’s growing sense of
disquiet.'
*Metro*
'All the more harrowing for the dry manner in which it is told'
*i*
'To read the book is to imagine being a restive, aggrieved
millennial and to trace her path through everyday misogyny.'
*New York Review of Books*
'I loved this novel. Kim Jiyoung’s life is made to seem at once
totally commonplace, and nightmarishly over-the-top. As you read,
you constantly feel that revolutionary, electric shift, between
commonplace and nightmarish. This kind of imaginative work is so
important and so powerful. I hope this book sells a million more
copies.'
*Elif Batuman, author of The Idiot (shortlisted for The Women's
Prize)*
'After reading Kim Ji-young, Born 1982, I started to think about
things in a way I hadn’t thought about them before. It reminded me
of the unfair treatment I had experienced being a woman and I felt
like I was caught off guard.'
*Soo-young, member of Girls' Generation*
'A book with unique implications; I was so impressed.'
*RM, BTS*
'Written with unbearably clear-sighted perspective, Kim JiYoung,
Born 1982 possesses the urgency and immediacy of the scariest
horror thriller — except that this is not technically horror, but
something closer to reportage. I broke out in a sweat reading this
book.'
*Ling Ma, author of Severance*
'A fierce and powerful look at modern day Korean society through
the lens of a refreshingly new protagonist. Born in 1982, Kim
Jiyoung wins us over with her tolerance and strength. She is every
one of us who has been invisible.'
*Weike Wang*
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