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ISBN
9788937422881
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Author
Kim Soom김숨
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Publisher
MINUMSA Publishing Group민음사 출판그룹
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Year Published
2025
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Category
Literary Fiction 소설
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Updated: 2026-03-02
- Posted by HAN Agency Co. on 2026-03-02
- Updated by HAN Agency Co. on 2026-03-05
Description 작품 소개
1. Basic Information
Original Title: 간단후쿠
English Title: Kantanfuku
Author: Kim Soom
Publisher: Minumsa
Genre: Literary fiction/historical fiction
Length (words/pages): Korean original: 285 pages / English: approx. 55,000 words
Publication Status (published(year)/ forthcoming / manuscript): Published 2025
2. Logline (1–2 sentences)
A gripping, intimate portrayal of Korean “comfort women” through the eyes of a young Korean girl forced into sexual slavery in Manchuria, Kantanfuku tells an all-too-relevant story about the horrors of war played out on the bodies of women.
3. Synopsis (approx. 600 words)
Fourteen-year-old Gaenari, known as Yoko, lives in a Japanese-run brothel in Manchuria with nine other Korean girls, who all wear simple, crude garments called kantanfuku. It is during WWII and they are forced into servicing Japanese soldiers. Their day-to-day existence in the vast, frozen plains of Manchuria unfolds in short, poetic, powerful chapters, illuminating the filthy, ramshackle structures they live in, the bland oatmeal porridge they eat at every meal, their wash days at the river where they clean their clothes, reusable condoms, and bodies, and their brutal treatment at the hands of dozens of soldiers each night.
We learn that many of the girls were led to believe that they were leaving home for economic and educational opportunities. Their desire to make a better life for themselves and their families brought them to Manchuria, where they belatedly discovered they were now military sex workers. Others were violently wrenched away from their homes and handed over to the brothel system by government officials, neighbors, and even their own family members. In ensuing chapters, interspersed with the horrors the girls face, we learn about each of the girls, including a blind girl known as Hanako, who was taken along with her sister, called Nanako.
Once a fortnight, girls from many brothels are taken to a nearby military base for examinations and are treated for infections and disease. Gaenari/Yoko finds herself looking around at the other girls, and she is torn between hoping to spot girls with whom she had traveled to Manchuria and shamefully wishing she will never see any of them.
Gaenari/Yoko witnesses what happens when one girl fights a soldier; the girl is brutally punished. Another girl contracts a sexually transmitted disease, and while she is out of commission, the other nine girls have to service more soldiers. Sometimes a girl has a miscarriage, sometimes a girl misses home, sometimes a girl becomes dejected and depressed, sometimes a girl becomes an opium addict, sometimes a girl kills herself. Sometimes a girl has a baby and the baby is taken away; none of the girls knows what happened to the infant.
We learn that Gaenari/Yoko is pregnant, but she tries to keep it a secret. One day, Yoko and a few girls are sent to a military unit closer to the front for a “comfort tour” and services the soldiers stationed there. They are then sent to yet another unit even farther away; it is so close to the front that they come under fire. Nanako is killed in the battle, so once the girls return to the brothel they all take turns helping her sister Hanako with chores. Yoko is forced to keep sleeping with soldiers even as her pregnancy progresses.
As Yoko prepares to give birth, she finds herself hoping the baby will die. One of the girls kills herself. Yoko wonders who would remember her if she dies. The novel ends with Yoko wondering what she would write to her mother if she could, and determines that she would only write: please don’t write back.
4. Themes & Target Audience (2–3 sentences)
Kantanfuku is the latest in Kim Soom’s work that gives voice to the words, experiences, and pain of “comfort women,” all based on many years of research. Kim is unsparing in her indictment of not only the Japanese colonial government but everyday Japanese and Koreans acting in their own self-interest; war, greed, and profit, she suggests, victimizes all of humanity, in particular poor women, and she demands that we bear witness. For anyone interested in the WWII period in East Asia, politics of colonization, feminist literature, and poetry.
5. Tone & Style (1 sentence)
With poetic language filled with imagery both ethereal and brutal, Kim reveals the casual terror and dehumanization the girls endure in short, elliptical, fragmentary chapters written in the first person.
6. Author Information
Kim Soom was born in Ulsan, South Korea, in 1974, and has published more than a dozen works of fiction. She has written extensively about “comfort women,” and One Left (2016), the first in this series, has been translated into many languages. A recipient of the prestigious Yi Sang Literary Award, Hyundae Literary Award, Daesan Literary Award, and more, Kim is known for her compassionate portrayals of marginalized voices in Korean history and society.
7. Translation Status
Sample English translation available.
8. Additional Information
Acquired by Akoya (UK) and Restless Books (US).
Author Bio 작가 소개
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