Description

Longlisted for the 2025 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction

Born in Korea, raised in the American South, and trying her best to survive British academia, SJ Kim probes her experiences as a writer, scholar, and daughter to confront the silences she finds in the world. With curiosity and sensitivity, she writes letters to the institutions that simultaneously support and fail her, intimate accounts of immigration, and interrogations of rising anti-Black and anti-Asian racism. She considers the silences between generations especially within the Asian diaspora in the West as she finds her way back to her own family during the pandemic lockdown. Embracing the possibilities and impossibilities of language, Kim rejoices in the similes of Korean, her mother tongue, and draws inspiration from K-dramas and writers who sustain her, including Yusef Komunyakaa, Don Mee Choi, Toni Morrison, and Theresa Hak Kyung Cha.

Publisher Review

‘Rather than drawing readers into the discrete and measured intimacy of many memoirs, Kim leans into the inaccessibility of one’s full experience as interpreted by another. The author’s quiet absences sharpen the edges of her inspection of entrenched, implied superiority and easy erasure in discussions of race and in the expectations of immigrants…Kim materialises as a teacher who takes her role seriously as she calls herself and her readers to action.’ Kirkus (starred review) ‘Throughout, Kim’s astute observations reveal the varied meanings of silence, whether she’s discussing her struggle to connect with her parents or holding her tongue after a white interlocutor’s racially insensitive comment. Probing and deeply felt, this entrances.’ Publishers Weekly