I'll Be Right There

(Paperback)

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Set in 1980s South Korea amid the tremors of political revolution, I'll Be Right There follows Jung Yoon, a highly literate, 20-something-year-old woman, as she recounts her tragic personal history as well as those of her three intimate college friends. When Yoon receives a distressing phone call from her ex-boyfriend after eight years of separation, memories of a tumultuous youth begin to resurface, forcing her to re-live the most intense period of her life.

Reviews

[I'll Be Right Thereis] apage-turner, such is Shin's gift for storytelling, as well as her careful cultivation of motifs. New York Times Book Review

Shin writes wonderfully about intimacy and the longing of lonely people. ...I'll Be Right There is a hopeful work about the power of art, friendship and empathy to provide meaning to people's lives.LA Times

Tender and mournful, the latest novel from best-selling South Korean novelist Shin (Please Look after Mom,2011) considers young love and loss in an era of political ferment...Shin's uncomplicated yet allusive narrative voice delivers another calmly affecting story, simultaneously foreign and familiar. Kirkus

Shin can suggest profound implications in restrained detail, and though the story ends in tragedy, her frequent references to both Eastern and Western literature testify to the duty to hope and stay alive. Publishers Weekly

[I'll Be Right There]is full of beautiful and tragic moments between friends, a tender, complex exploration of shared stories, and, perhaps more important, the weight of a collective history on individual relationships. SF Gate

I'll Be Right Thereis as much about tender friendships as it is about the tragedies of a political uprising. The Huffington Post

Through one tender scene after another, Shin shows us the comfort human connection offers.Bookslut

Quivering, hopeful, and heartfelt. Bustle

In this inspiring novel, Kyung-sook Shin argues that, faced with treachery, the moral person can be carrier and Christ to others. Minneapolis Star Tribune

Ill Be Right Thereis a haunting story of adolescent entanglements that will speak to readers everywhere.The Independent

The shimmering, lucid tones and silver melancholy ofI'll Be Right Theregive readers a South Korea peopled with citizens fighting for honor and intellectual freedom, and longing for love and solace. Kyung-Sook Shins characters have unforgettable voicesits no wonder she has so many fans. Susan Straight,author ofBetween Heaven and Hereand National Book Award Finalist

The novel brilliantly uses European literature to familiarize Western readers with Eastern turmoil." Flavorwire

Shin's skill lies in her ability to transmute the specific into the universal. Shelf Awareness

A wonderful, heartbreaking story that lingered with me long after the last page was turned. As the powerful story unfolded, I enjoyed peeling away the complicated, dark layers of every character. Kyung-sook Shins beautiful depictions of love and sweet adolescent confessions will take you back in time to your first heartbreak. PP Wong, Editor-in-Chief,Banana Writers

Known for her beautiful imagery and lyrical proseinIll Be Right There,Shin utilizes vivid, searing imagerybalanc[ing] the gentle beauty of language with bold images throughout her writingShins passages are carefully crafted, as if they were from a book of poetryUltimately,Ill Be Right Thereis a story of hope. Korean Quarterly

An astounding meditation on living in time, both time lost and time gained, as well as...an expression of a philosophy of a way to live...I'll Be Right Thereimmediately stands out as a book that supports, perhaps even needs, multiple readings. Korean Literature in Translation

"Shin's perspective on relationships is nuanced; she doesn't shy away from what is complex, complicated or painful in everyday human connections...There is also vibrancy and richness in the lives of her characters, and an understanding of love and solitude that is universal. Electric Literature

Spectacular...Shins searing, immediate prose will remind readers of Nadeem AslamsThe Blind Mans Garden,Edwidge DanticatsThe Dew Breaker,and Aminatta FornasThe Memory of Love,and their stories of ordinary lives trapped in extraordinary sociopolitical circumstances. BookDragon

A searing, literate portrayal of the cost of survival in a time of chaos, Shin nevertheless evokes a surprising amount of hope.Philadelphia Weekly

Shin suggests that literatures most valuable task may be to refresh principles so basic as to seem banal, to render them graspable even in the harshest rapids of modernization and development.Public Books

Shins contemplative narrative...captures both the preciousness of life and a constant intermingling sorrow. Bookreporter

IllBe Right Thereis a gem of a novel, a quiet, masterful rendering of the emotional life of a young woman looking back on the formative years of her early twenties.Rosemary & Reading Glasses

A love story between friends. It is so well written. [Kyung-sook Shin] has this use of language that is just beautiful and poetic. Its a great book if youre looking to escape.Chelsea Handler, #1New York Timesbestselling author

Author Bio

Kyung-sook Shin, the author of seventeen works of is one of South Korea's most widely read and acclaimed novelists. Her best seller Please Look After Mom has been translated into more than thirty languages. She has been honored with the Man Asian Literary Prize, the Manhae Prize, the Dong-in Literary Award, the Yi Sang Literary Prize, and France's Prix de l'Inaper u, as well as the Ho-Am Prize in the Arts, awarded for her body of work for general achievement in Korean culture and the arts. Sora kim-Russell is a poet and translator originally from California and now living in Seoul, South Korea. Her work has appeared in Words Without Borders, Azalea- A Journal of Korean Literature and Culture, Drunken Boat, Pebble Lake Review, The Diagram, and other publications. She teaches at Ewha Womans University.