Grass (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9781770463622)

Appeared on best of the year lists from The New York Times, The Guardian, and more Winner of The Cartoonist Studio Prize for Best Print Comic of the Year

Grass is a powerful antiwar graphic novel, telling the life story of a Korean girl named Okseon Lee who was forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese Imperial Army during the Second World War--a disputed chapter in twentieth-century Asian history.

Beginning in Lee's childhood, Grass shows the lead-up to the war from a child's vulnerable perspective, detailing how one person experienced the Japanese occupation and the widespread suffering it entailed for ordinary Koreans. Keum Suk Gendry-Kim emphasizes Lee's strength in overcoming the many forms of adversity she experienced. Grass is painted in a black ink that flows with lavish details of the beautiful fields and farmland of Korea and uses heavy brushwork on the somber interiors of Lee's memories.

The cartoonist Gendry-Kim's interviews with Lee become an integral part of Grass, forming the heart and architecture of this powerful nonfiction graphic novel and offering a holistic view of how Lee's wartime suffering changed her. Grass is a landmark graphic novel that makes personal the desperate cost of war and the importance of peace.

Author: Keum Suk Gendry-Kim
ISBN-10: 1770463623
ISBN-13: 9781770463622
Publisher: Drawn & Quarterly
Language: English
Published: 08/27/2019
Pages: 480
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.85lbs
Size: 8.30h x 5.90w x 1.40d

Review Citation(s):
Publishers Weekly 04/29/2019
Booklist 10/15/2019 pg. 40
Library Journal 10/25/2019 pg. 1