My Father’s Liberation

by Jeong Ji-a, Anton Hur (Translator)

Over the course of a three-day funeral, a woman discovers new sides to her deceased father in this hilarious and heart-tugging masterwork from one of Korea's most fearless writers.

So, Father died. Slammed his head into a telephone pole. A very serious man had seriously come to the end of his very serious life by seriously slamming his head against a telephone pole.

Following her father’s sudden death, university lecturer Ahry returns to her rural hometown of Gurye to hold his funeral. As a child, she avidly listened to her father's stories about guerrilla warfare. But the older she got, the more ridiculous his revolutionary mindset seemed. A former communist partisan who fought in the Korean War, Sangwook remained a devout socialist in capitalist South Korea. Never wavering in his wish for an equal world, he lived by the rigid principle of “Serve the People,” a belief that only brought trouble to their doorstep. To Ahry, her father was a failed revolutionary who never got over his youthful dreams.

But as she discovers, Sangwook did serve the people—and. changed lives—in his own unique way. A colorful cast of characters gather at the funeral home to pay their respects, including Ahry's alcoholic and resentful uncle, her father's childhood best friend who holds very different political views, the children of former compatriots, a teenage dropout turned cigarette buddy, and the other Sangwook, a policeman her father saved from certain disaster. And as friends and comrades recount her father’s life—his glory days as a partisan, his fake treachery to protect his people, his tangled relationship with his family—Ahry realizes she has much to learn about her unforgettable father.

An unlikely bestseller ten years in the making, Jeong Ji-a's semi-autobiographical novel illuminates a part of Korea's overlooked history and its unsung partisan fighters. Translated by the award-winning Anton Hur, My Father’s Liberation is a witty and poignant tale of a passionate man and the impact of his decisions on his country, his family, and history itself.

Genres: Historical Fiction

224 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication January 12, 2027

Reviews

[Natasha Svobodina]

Я очень хорошо попала в целевую аудиторию этого романа, по мнению А. Чигадаева. Во-первых, я люблю читать, чтобы было немножко больно или тяжело, а в этой книге смерть, отец пьянчуга и сложные с ним отношения. Во-вторых, я из провинции из небогатой семьи с кучей родственников и всеми силами пыталась уехать оттуда подальше, в большой город или как-то жить по-другому (как говорим мы с Лешей - ели землю).

Интересно было читать такую подробную книгу про похороны, узнать как это устроено в Корее. Мое детство прошло с кучей поминок и на похоронах я тоже была много раз. И на кладбище обязательно, как минимум каждый год в родительский день. Эти традиции мне знакомы, что размещают в доме гроб, прощания, бабушки рыдают, меню поминального стола навсегда впечаталось в памяти (обязательно в начале трапезы нужно помянуть блинчиком или рисом с изюмом, потом испить киселя, только после этого можно наяривать картошку с котлеткой). Бывало на поминках после нескольких рюмок и речей в честь усопшего и запоют. А что, жизнь продолжается. Как это объяснить молодому поколению и моей дочери? Смерть часть жизни и уход из жизни имеет свои ритуалы, которые я кажется в эмиграции потеряю.

Поэтому книга прекрасная, как минимум тем, что она показывает этот процесс прощания с человеком очень подробно. А также то, что в момент смерти все внутри семейные разборки остановились. Как будто есть высший смысл, чем все недомолвки между нами.

Дочь раскрывает своего отца с новых сторон через десятки знакомых с ним людей, бывших красных партизанов, коллег, товарищей алкашей, родственников. Интересно, может мне бы тоже хотелось поговорить о моей маме с людьми и особенно об отце. Хорошая книга, как можно узнать человека даже после его смерти и с ним примириться.

[Yuqian Lin]

Read the Chinese copy.

I started it after watching the documentary Summer in Seoul and finished it bit by bit over the past six months. Along the way, I felt the idealism of socialist revolutionaries (their fervor and steadfastness), their simple kindness toward those they encountered in life, and the direct or indirect harm they brought to their families. There’s also the cold, understated dark humor that runs through both the author and her father.

At the end, I suddenly found myself in tears. Through the younger girl’s words, I finally came to feel, together with the author, just how much the father cared about and loved his daughters. And yet, all those years of separation slipped by, and the narrow, stifled time of the daughter’s adolescence was missed. At the same time, the father is also a typical East Asian father, whose emotions are all restrained and unspoken.

Very moving. A gift from a daughter to her late father.

[Ryan Brandenburg]

This was described in the blurb as hilarious and heart-tugging, yet I found this upcoming semi-autobiographical novel to be neither.

The writing felt quite disordered, and I could not fully relate to the central figure, university professor Ahry, or her father. Because this is a translated book, that factor may contribute to why it didn’t fully land for me. If it were any longer (224 pages), I definitely wouldn’t have invested the time to finish it.

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperVia for the advanced copy. This novel releases on January 12, 2027.

[Ronnica Fatt]

This is why I read translated fiction. This short novel explores grieving a idealistic father with traditions he didn’t believe in. How we don’t truly understand our parents and their experiences until they’re not around. The struggle of being a communist in South Korea