Counsel Culture - Paperback

by Kim Hye-Jin (Author), Jamie Chang (Translator)

From prize-winning Korean author Kim Hye-jin comes the contemplative, superbly-crafted story of a woman scapegoated by sudden tragedy, and the unexpected paths she must wander in search of redemption.

Haesoo is a successful therapist and regular guest on a popular TV program. But when she makes a scripted negative comment about a public figure who later commits suicide, she finds herself ostracized by friends, fired from her job, and her marriage begins to unravel. These details come to the reader gradually, in meditative prose, through bits and pieces of letters that Haesoo writes and finally abandons as she walks alone through her city.

One day she has an unexpected encounter with Sei, a 10-year-old girl attempting to feed an orange cat. Stray cats seem to be everywhere; they have the concern of one other neighborhood woman and the ire of everyone else. Like Haesoo and Sei, the cats endure various insults and recover slowly. Haesoo, who would not otherwise care about animals or form relationships with children, now finds herself pulled back by degrees into the larger world.

Author Biography

Kim Hye-jin is an award-winning author from Daegu, South Korea. She won the JoongAng Literature Award in 2013 for Joongang Station, the Shin Dong-yup Prize for Literature in 2018 for Concerning My Daughter, and the Daesan Literary Award in 2020 for The Work of No.9. She was also the Special Award Laureate of the 4th Lee Hochul Literary Prize for Peace in 2020.

Jamie Chang is a literary translator. Her translation of Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 was longlisted for National Book Awards 2020 Translated Literature. She is the recipient of the Daesan Foundation Translation Grant and a three-time recipient of the Literature Translation Institute of Korea Grant.