Book Review of

Year of Impossible
goodbyes
Author-SOOK NYUL CHOI

This novel Year of Impossible Goodbyes is magnificently written

by Soon Nyul Choi. She has depicted the vivid images through this
novel during the time of freedom struggle in Korean Peninsula.
There is no doubt to say as a writer of this novel Soon Nyul Choi
has successfully drawn the dilemma of a common man in the time
of social, political and economic trifle of a country. While it is just
a war between the two opposite ideologies yet it is common man
who suffers a lot. In other words it is more appropriate to say that
the gun of two politically opposite people is shot from the
shoulder of an innocent man.
The story of this novel opens up when the World War II was at the
end. Sookan and her family members live outside of Pyongyang
where Japanese Soldiers are ruling them. Since the beginning till
almost middle of the story states the constant terror of Captain
Narita, the Japanese officer who represents the Japanese Empire
and Our Heavenly Emperor.
He comes to scheduled routine check in the sock factory. Any
wrong word could cause the family to be separated or even
worse. Special punishments would be devised to break their spirit.
Food rations would disappear. Food distributed might be a bag of
rice half-filled with sand.
One of the most sentimental scenes is one of the first impossible
goodbyes. Sookan and her cousin Kisa have special bonds with
the sock girls, the girls who work in the factory Sookans mother
manages. Captain Narita arrives to take the sock girls away to the
front lines where they will be comfort women who will give the
soldiers special spirit to fight.

During the Japanese colonization period in Korea women were

forcefully taken to serve as Comfort women to the army soldiers
in the name of serving the Japanese Empire and Our Heavenly
Emperor. They used to threaten them to be taken as Comfort
Women if they do not serve them well. They used to find faults in
them so that they can send them as Comfort Women. In that very
fear the girls woking in the factory worked very hard day and
night but it was just a matter of time that they were still taken as
Comfort Women.
Sooken was sent to the Japanese school where Captain Naritas
wife used to teach there she was beaten up brutally. She was
given a Japanese name too. This part of the novel describes how
Japanese forced to forbid Koreans to follow their culture including
their language too.
On the top of that they are given the Japanese name as well.
During this period no one could speak in Korean in public places
and if they dare to do so they were punished even a child too.
When Japan surrenders, the Russians arrived in Northern Korea,
and they know just how to indoctrinate the terrified Koreans.
Mother and Aunt Tiger are skeptical, but Sookan reacts positively
to the friendly Russians with their festivities, songs, and huge
meals.
But soon she experiences the daily labor of a proletariat does
Sookan realize that her country has traded one captor for another.
Her family learns of the 38th Parallel too late. If they are to plan
an escape to the South, they will need to be extra careful.
The last third of the book chronicles how the family faces the
decisions about whether or not to try to flee. The resolution gives
a solid account of what happens to every character, a decision by

the author that would endear her to middle school students who
are not fond of ambiguous endings.
While there are numerous impossible goodbyes in this story, the
overall message about the perseverance of the human spirit is
worthwhile and uplifting.
Thanks!