'The Liberators' details the lives of Korean-Americans grappling with the war

NPR's Book of the Day

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Arts, Books

4.2 • 672 Ratings

🗓️ 14 November 2023

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The debut novel by E.J. Koh is short in length, but extensive in time and place. The Liberators follows several generations of two Korean families, and encapsulates how different individuals reckon with the legacy of war, love and betrayal within their lineage. In today's episode, Koh speaks with NPR's Ari Shapiro about the importance of zooming into people's ordinary lives to understand the impact of historic geopolitical events, and why understanding her own family's history influenced how she wrote her characters.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's NPR's Book the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaung. I think anyone who's taken part in any
0:07.6	creative project, writing, music, painting, whatever, recognizes that point where it feels like you're
0:14.2	really digging into yourself. It's not really a fun process. I don't think I'd describe it as
0:19.1	feeling good necessarily, but it is one part of
0:22.7	the creative process. Today's author, E.J. Co. talks about that a bit. Her debut novel is called
0:28.1	The Liberators, and it's about family and immigration and the long reach of Korean history.
0:33.7	Coe's actually written a memoir before this, but she told NPR's R. Shapiro that even after she
0:38.7	excavated herself for that, there were still some lingering figures, characters, and ideas
0:44.9	that stuck with her for this book. That's after the break.
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1:25.2	The novel The Liberators is both slim and sweeping.
1:29.4	In just over 200 pages, the story covers generations, wars, and geopolitical upheaval.
1:34.8	Korea is divided in two.
1:36.6	Families immigrate to the United States.
1:39.0	Babies become parents, become elders.
	...

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