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A01=Keum Suk Gendry-Kim
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Product details
- ISBN 9781770468221
- Dimensions: 150 x 211mm
- Publication Date: 27 Oct 2026
- Publisher: Drawn and Quarterly
- Publication City/Country: CA
- Product Form: Paperback
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Award-winning cartoonist Keum Suk Gendry-Kim contemplates and explores the long shadow North Korea casts over Korean society. On an island located an hour from Seoul, North Korea sits visible from cartoonist Keum Suk Gendry-Kim s home and studio. The specter of the infamous dictatorship and nuclear power looms over daily life. Artillery fire, helicopters, and sirens from a nearby military base paint the acoustic landscape. In her award-winning books Grass and The Waiting, Gendry-Kim documents the pain and heartbreak of Korea s history. In My Friend Kim Jong-Un, she looks to the present to the man currently responsible for upholding the national divide created after World War Two. While the rest of the world partakes in the popularity of Korean culture, a certain unease and anxiety hangs in the air in South Korea as its people still grapple with the distrust and anger of one culture split into two distinct societies. Gendry-Kim explores the life of the supreme leader, searching for commonalities to make sense of the daily fear: from his birth to his international education, his hobbies, and his relationships. She weaves her personal accounts and includes interviews with former South Korean president Moon Jae-in, North Korean defectors, researchers, journalists, and even Kim s former chef. Translated by the award-winning Janet Hong, My Friend is a cautionary tale on what makes a dictator, at a time when these lessons are more relevant in the West than ever.
Keum Suk Gendry-Kim was born in Goheung in Jeolla Province. She has cartooned the graphic novels Grass, The Waiting, La saison des pluies, Jiseul, Jun, The Naked Tree, and Alexandra Kim, a Woman of Siberia; the autobiographical comic The Song of My Father; the three-volume children s comic Coquinette; the picture books The Baby Hanyeo Okrang Goes to Dokdo and A Day with My Grandpa; and the children s book My Mother Kang Geumsun. Grass (Drawn & Quarterly, 2019) appeared on Best of the Year lists from the New York Times and the Guardian, and received the Cartoonist Studio Prize for the Best Print Comic of the Year, the Big Other Book Award for Best Graphic Novel in 2019, the Harvey Award for Best International Book, and the Krause Essay Prize in 2020.
