  | Book Details Title: The Magical Language of Others: A Memoir |
Book DescriptionReview “Koh’s book is a tremendous gift. We’re so fortunate to have this literary reckoning from a tremendously talented writer. The Magical Language of Others is a wonder.” – The San Francisco Chronicle“A haunting, gorgeous narrative…lushly told. Brilliant.” – The Star Tribune“Magnificent. … This is a memoir that needs to be read more than once.” – Seattle International Examiner“The Magical Language of Others is a masterpiece, a love letter to mothers and daughters everywhere.” – Shelf Awareness, starred review“A powerful look at family, culture, language, and selfhood.” – Book Riot“The Magical Language of Others is an exquisite, challenging, and stunning memoir. E. J. Koh intricately melds her personal story with a broader view of Korean history. Through these pages, you are asked to experience one family’s heartbreak, trauma, and complex love for each other. This memoir will pierce you.” – Crystal Hana Kim, If You Leave Me“In The Magical Language of Others, E.J. Koh writes of the boundary, between anonymity and naming, between absence and abandonment, between cruelty and safety for four generations of mothers and daughters, each speaking with an occupied heart and crossing narrative borders between Korea, Japan, and America. As a reader, you give yourself over to her narrative territory and the resetting of the borders of lineage, language, and lives lost.” – Shawn Wong, Homebase and American Knees“This memoir broke my heart. The tragedies that filled the lives of Koh’s mother and grandmothers are woven into mythic, magic tales in Koh’s hands. Only by Koh’s grace and mastery are we not crushed by the stories within The Magical Language of Others. I could read this book a thousand times over.” – Sarah Blake, Naamah“E.J. Koh’s The Magical Language of Others grapples with intergenerational loss and love between mothers and daughters across time, war, and immigration. Koh’s painful journey is bridged by her mother’s letters, which she translates, unfolding the language of mothering and tenderness. Koh remarkably and beautifully translates the language of mothers as the language of survivors.” – Don Mee Choi, author of Hardly War“Indisputably brilliant. I read The Magical Language of Others in a single sitting–all the while never wanting it to end.” – Jeannie Vanasco, Things We Didn’t Talk About When I Was a GIrl Read more About the Author E. J. Koh is the author of poetry collection A LESSER LOVE, winner of the Pleiades Editors Prize (Louisiana State U. Press, 2017). Her poems, translations, and stories have appeared in Boston Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, World Literature Today, among others. She is the recipient of The MacDowell Colony and Kundiman fellowships, 2017 ALTA Emerging Translator Mentorship, and is Runner-Up for the 2018 Prairie Schooner Summer Nonfiction Prize. Read more Customers Review: Magnanimity. It has been several years since a book compelled me to stay awake into the wee hours of the morning finishing it, and yet E.J. Koh’s extraordinary, magnanimous memoir, The Magical Language of Others, did just that. Eun Ji’s recounting of her relationship with her mother and family over the last 20 or so years exhibits power and grace in poetic (not surprising, given her experience and success as a poet) prose.I particularly enjoyed the description of Eun Ji’s recounting of her experiences persevering, coming of age, and ultimately triumphing. Her journey to forgiveness is a paradigm of magnanimity. Even more riveting, the parallels raised by her description of the lives of her grandmothers brought to mind the incredible writing and stories of Min Jin Lee (Pachinko), Krys Lee (Drifting House) and Crystal Hana Kim (If You Leave Me). I could not offer higher praise.One of Eun Ji’s mother’s letters offers the advice that “[w]hat we see changes according to what we look for.” In The Magical Language of Others, I was looking for a moving story. The book beautifully offers that and then some. It will undoubtedly touch common elements in each reader’s experience, while at the same time providing a poignant context of one woman’s (and one family’s) history, experience, love and compassion.Finally, a note on the audiobook (I so wanted to finish the book to see what became of the Koh family that I purchased it as well): E.J. Koh’s reading of her own memoir is heartbreaking at times, calming at others, and riveting throughout. Highly recommend, and I’m overjoyed that this was my first read of 2020. | |
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