In this moving exploration of dual identities reminiscent of Past Lives, a Korean writer's pregnancy raises questions about her own childhood abandonment.
Nana, a Korean playwright, was adopted as a child by a French couple. Before she was Nana, she was Esther Pak, a girl growing up in a Korean orphanage. And before she was Esther Pak, she was Munju, an infant abandoned on the railway tracks of Cheongnyangni station in Seoul.
Pregnant with the child of her ex-boyfriend, Nana receives a request from a Korean filmmaker who wishes to make a documentary about her life. Following a sudden compulsion to learn more about her own roots, she heads to Seoul as she prepares to bring a new life into the world. There, through unexpected encounters, the dark threads of her memory gradually begin to unravel.
Simple Heart delves into profound questions about identity and belonging, with a focus on family connections and motherhood that recalls Kyung-Sook Shin's Please Look After Mother. It also shines a necessary light on issues such as international adoption and the historic US military presence in Korea. Cho Haejin is the recipient of several literary awards, including the Shin Dong-yup Prize for Literature, the Yi Sang Literature Award, the Lee Hyo-seok Literary Award, and the Hyeongpyeong Literary Prize. Her novels are celebrated for bearing witness to the lives of those on the margins of Korean society: people with disabilities, foreigners, North Korean defectors, and overseas adoptees. Cho's novel I Met Loh Kiwan was adapted into a feature film and released on Netflix in 2024. She won Korea's prestigious Daesan Literary Award for Simple Heart.
Jamie Chang is an award-winning literary translator. Her translation of Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 was long-listed for the 2020 National Book Award for 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. She lives in Ontario, Canada.
