Umma's table
Record details
- ISBN: 1770463860
- ISBN: 9781770463868
-
Physical Description:
print
358 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm - Edition: First edition.
- Publisher: [Montreal, Quebec] : Drawn & Quarterly, 2020.
- Copyright: ©2020
Content descriptions
General Note: | "First published in 2015 by Woorinabi Publishing Co., Korea"--Copyright page. |
Language Note: | Translated from the Korean. |
Search for related items by subject
Genre: | Domestic comics. Graphic novels, Korean. |
Available copies
- 1 of 1 copy available at BC Interlibrary Connect. (Show)
- 1 of 1 copy available at Castlegar Public Library.
Holds
- 0 current holds with 1 total copy.
Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Holdable? | Status | Due Date |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Castlegar Public Library | GN FIC HON (Text) | 35146002213130 | Graphic Novel Fiction | Volume hold | Available | - |
- Booklist Reviews : Booklist Reviews 2020 May #2
*Starred Review* For artist Madang Bae, life is divided into two opposing spheres, "The world I've worked so hard to leave behind . . . and the world I've worked so hard to build." The former is dominated by his abusive, alcoholic father and his beloved, long-suffering mother. The latter is the haven he's created with his wife and baby son, recently relocated to a bucolic village where a garden, chickens, and kind neighbors nourish the family. But Madang's aging parents are trapped in a stifling basement apartment in Seoul, his mother's health rapidly failing. Caring for this frail version of his mother brings back youthful memories of her unconditional devotion: to feed was to love, with "Umma's Table" always feast-ready despite difficult circumstances. As he struggles to provide comfort during her inevitable demise, Madang must also confront his own complicity in her decades of isolated neglect. As if to allow some semblance of distance from the raw vulnerability, Hong (Uncomfortably Happily, 2017) presents his characters as anthropomorphized felines in his sophomore anglicized title; kudos to award-winning Janet Hong, who also translated the Korean graphic classics-in-the-making, Bad Friends (2018) and Grass (2019). Wrenchingly relevant, Hong presents a piercing examination of the sandwich-generation impossibly caught between multigenerational responsibilities, navigating labyrinthine sociomedical systems, and enduring the torment of never being able to do enough. Copyright 2020 Booklist Reviews. - Publishers Weekly Reviews : PW Reviews 2019 December #3
In this mature and nuanced follow-up to Hong's graphic memoir
Copyright 2019 Publishers Weekly.Uncomfortably Happy , the artist and his wife are still living a poor but mostly contented life in the South Korean countryside. They now have a baby, Iwan, and Hong imagines the home they've built together as a tiny, idyllic private planet; all the characters are represented as cartoon cats. But the larger world intrudes in the form of Hong's aging parents, who share a grim basement apartment in Seoul and are starting to require constant care. Having worked hard to escape his father's alcoholic abuse and his mother's depression, Hong feels that "only beyond my parents' reach is my world free to grow." But he comes to appreciate how the work he does to support his wife and childâcooking, gardening, raising chickens, making kimchi for the winterâgrows from an urge to nurture passed down from his mother. "Almost every memory I have of my mother begins with her cooking," he reflects, and food provides a link between Hong's two worlds. In Hong's cheerful drawings, the countryside bursts with life, and his culinary escapades are a jubilant theatrical sequence. But even as the narrative grows darker, the simple, friendly art remains surprisingly effective. This moving story about being both a parent and a child represents a creative leap forward for one of Korea's up and coming contemporary comic artists. (Mar.)