A01=Mi Jin Kim
Author_Mi Jin Kim
book prize
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Category=FYB
Creative Works
Creative Writing
diaspora literature
domestic literary fiction
East Asian literature
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Fiction
fiction by women
international literature
Japanese fiction
Korean American fiction
Korean diaspora literature
Literary Fiction
Literature
Male-female relationships
Prairie Schooner Prize
Prize Winning
relationships
Short Fiction
short stories
South Korean fiction
South Korean social fiction
Story Collection
women's fiction
women's literary fiction
Product details
- ISBN 9781496244345
- Dimensions: 140 x 216mm
- Publication Date: 01 Sep 2025
- Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Winner of the Raz/Shumaker Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction
In Invitation, men and women try and fail to connect to the people they want to be with. As they remember the first people who dominated their lives-parents, best friends, cousins, crushes-they find themselves repeating old patterns. A boy shares seemingly disturbing details about his mother’s disappearance with an aloof tutor. A man stalks an ex-girlfriend but finds her missing. A woman wakes up in an empty apartment-and to every mother’s worst nightmare. When a callous young man penetrates the bell jar of an elderly couple’s quiet life, their live-in assistant learns a cruel lesson about loyalty.
Why are we the way we are with one another? And what do our relationships ask us to become? In these stories, set mostly in South Korea, all must contend with the uncertainty and danger that comes with connection, real or imagined. These stories by Mi Jin Kim ask us to consider what it is we really want from the people we think we need.
In Invitation, men and women try and fail to connect to the people they want to be with. As they remember the first people who dominated their lives-parents, best friends, cousins, crushes-they find themselves repeating old patterns. A boy shares seemingly disturbing details about his mother’s disappearance with an aloof tutor. A man stalks an ex-girlfriend but finds her missing. A woman wakes up in an empty apartment-and to every mother’s worst nightmare. When a callous young man penetrates the bell jar of an elderly couple’s quiet life, their live-in assistant learns a cruel lesson about loyalty.
Why are we the way we are with one another? And what do our relationships ask us to become? In these stories, set mostly in South Korea, all must contend with the uncertainty and danger that comes with connection, real or imagined. These stories by Mi Jin Kim ask us to consider what it is we really want from the people we think we need.
Mi Jin Kim was born in Seoul and grew up in Los Angeles. A graduate of the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan, her fiction has appeared in A Public Space, Quarter after Eight, and swamp pink. She lives in rural South Korea with her family.
