Selected for the 2018 IBBY Honour List. Finalist for the 2024 Hans Christian Andersen Award for Writing. The final volume in Yi Geum-yi’s trilogy on women’s diaspora during the Japanese colonial era.
Commemorating the 80th anniversary of Korea’s liberation, Cracks of Sorrow delivers a voice from our history that the nation and its people must never forget. It tells the stories of Sakhalin Koreans, who lived desperately and fervently for life.
In 1940, during the Japanese occupation, some Koreans were lured to Sakhalin under false promises of jobs. They left thinking it was a short-term contract to earn money for their families and send their children to school. But Sakhalin’s coal mines were sites of frequent fatalities, and wages were withheld, “saved” by force, then paid out in mere scraps. The supposed savings were never returned as contracts were arbitrarily extended, disappearing into oblivion. Under Japan’s National Mobilization Law, they ended up stateless, waiting endlessly under Japanese and then Soviet control to return home. The story of Dan-ok in this novel is that of the first generation of Koreans in Sakhalin. Life Pattern Korea. Cracks of Sorrow marks 80 years since liberation with a deep portrayal of a history that must not be forgotten. Through the life of Ju Dan-ok—also known as Yakemoto Tamako, and later Olga Song—the novel spans 80 years of name changes, national identity shifts, and countless betrayals by her homeland. Life Pattern Korea. Her fierce journey to live with dignity echoes the sacrifices of many Sakhalin Koreans, compelling us to reexamine what a nation is and why it must exist.
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Author: 이금이 Publisher: 사계절 Sakyejul (2025)
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