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Grass

by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim · 2017

This true story of a Korean comfort woman documents how the atrocity of war devastates women’s lives Grass is a powerful antiwar graphic novel, telling the life story of a Korean girl named Okseon Lee who was forced into… more

6 quotes ★ 4.54 (21,357) Nonfiction

Quotes from the Book

You need something like a lifeline that's connecting you to hope. So that you don't go crazy. So that you can keep breathing when one day feels like ten years. When basic instinct takes over instead of reason, maybe you need to believe in a concept like love to bear everything.
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It took me fifty-five years to return, and yet the flight was only two hours.
2
If she had sent me to school, I would have never left. Maybe I would have been able to have a normal life like other girls.
1
Frágiles ramas que tiemblan en las postrimerías del largo invierno. Dentro albergan la energía de una vida nueva que pronto brotará y abrirá grietas en la corteza La tierra despertará de su hibernación y los brotes tiernos se erguirán entre las hojas muertas, marchitas de frío. Son hierbas que resisten al viento y a todo lo que las pisotea. ES LA HIERBA que os SALUDARÁ con timidez, rozándoos suavemente las piernas
1
Cuando termine este frío tan duro, llegará del sur la carta de siempre. Una carta llena de luz con noticias de primavera. Frágiles ramas que tiemblan en las postrimerías del largo invierno. Dentro albergan la energía de una vida nueva que pronto brotará y abrirá grietas en la corteza. La tierra despertará de su hibernación y los brotes tiernos se erguirán entre las hojas muertas, marchitas de frío. Son hierbas que resisten al viento y a todo lo que las pisotea. Es la hierba que os saludara con timidez, rozándoos suavemente las piernas. Se repliega el invierno. Y de repente, en silencio, ese frío que parecía interminable se aleja en una promesa de primavera.
1
When this harsh winter passes, a sun-kissed letter will surely come from the south, bearing news of spring. Delicate springs are trembling at the end of a long winter. New life is struggling to emerge from within. The ground that had been slumbering wakes, and the young grass pokes out from between the dead withered leaves. Grass springs up again, though knocked down by the wind, trampled and crushed under foot maybe it will brush against your legs and whisper a shy greeting. Hello! This winter is over, and the cold that seemed to last forever is thawing. Spring has finally come.

About Keum Suk Gendry-Kim

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About the book

This true story of a Korean comfort woman documents how the atrocity of war devastates women’s lives

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 int

Book details

First published
2017
Goodreads rating
4.54 (21k ratings)

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