Gebruiker:Yanniekm/Kladblok
Frances Cha is an American-Korean author and journalist. She wrote the short story As Long As I Live (2019) and the novel If I Had Your Face (2020).
Early Life and Education[bewerken | brontekst bewerken]
Frances Cha was born in St. Paul, Minnesota. She lived in the United States until she moved to Asia with her family when she was eight. Around this time, she began taking an interest in writing as a child. She grew up between Gyeonggi-do, Hong Kong and the United States. After graduating from Dartmouth College with a BA in English Literature and Asian Studies, she went on to study MFA Creative Writing at Columbia University where she attained a Dean's Fellowship.[1]
Career[bewerken | brontekst bewerken]
After graduation, Cha worked as an assistant managing editor of Samsung Economic Research Institute's business journal in Seoul and as a travel and culture editor for CNN International in Seoul and Hong Kong. At CNN, she began writing professionally. Her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, V Magazine, WWD and The Believer among other publications. She has also taught Media Studies at Ewha Womens University, creative writing at Columbia University and Yonsei University and lectured at Seoul National University.[1]
As Long as I Live[bewerken | brontekst bewerken]
In September 2019, Frances Cha's short story As Long As I Live was published in the Korean-language anthology New York Story which tells six stories by six authors on the stage of New York. New York Story is the third anthology in the Nobel Bagh series of themed novels which have the ambition to create a place where the region, culture and people harmonise through encounters with different cities and writers around the world. As Long As I Live is about protagonist Dahye who was forced to leave school and earn a living because of his father's bankruptcy. Dahye, who studied jewellery design, started to work as a tutor and babysitter. When he meets Alex, he gets to know a famous jewellery designer and gets the opportunity to submit a portfolio.[2]
If I Had Your Face[bewerken | brontekst bewerken]
Frances Cha's debut novel If I Had Your Face (published on April 21, 2020) is centered around four female narrators, who live in the same apartment building, and do not come from wealth or status, and try to pursue their dreams and ambitions in the fiercely competitive city of Seoul. Their interlocking stories are about the agony of potential motherhood, escaping unsavory pasts, and the inevitable commodification of physical beauty under capitalism.[3] The book covers the detailed rituals of k-beauty, which has been covered by beauty media as well as magazines in the United States, but also that of plastic surgery, which is relatively prevalent in Korea more so than other countries.[4]
If I Had Your Face falls into the genre realistic fiction. It is not autobiographical but parallels Cha's life. Cha finds fiction and non-fiction important in terms of experiencing other cultures and empathy for people who are not like yourself. This understanding of the power of fiction and identification with fictional characters is seen as one of the strengths of her writing and success of If I Had Your Face on the anglophone reading market.[5] The book is written in English with the aim to have an American reader with absolutely no context of Korea to be able to not be alienated by the setting[3]. With her novel, Cha wants to dispel western misconceptions about the reasons South Korean women go under the knife.[6]
Influences[bewerken | brontekst bewerken]
The lack of representation for Korean protagonists in English Literature inspired Cha to write If I Had Your Face. As a reader herself she had always found Korean characters only in Korean literature. The novel The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan was the first novel she read in English that had Asian characters and opened up to her the possibility of writing about Korean protagonists. Another source of inspiration has been Korean manhwa comic books, such as Lineage, Princess and The Four Daughters of Armenian, which interwoven and intricate storylines and their epic nature have influenced her writing. [7]
Awards and Nominations[bewerken | brontekst bewerken]
If I Had Your Face was featured in NPR's Book Concierge 2020[8], The 100 Must-Read Books of 2020 by TIME and nominated for the Goodreads Choice Awards in the category Best Fiction 2020 where it ended up on place 12[9][10].
References[bewerken | brontekst bewerken]
- ↑ a b (en) Frances Cha. Frances Cha. Geraadpleegd op 3 januari 2021.
- ↑ (ko) 박생강 (박진규)|프란시스 차|SOOJA|파트리샤 박|강민선|홍예진|신명희, 소설 뉴욕.
- ↑ a b (en) Frances Cha Goes Beyond the Gloss. Interview Magazine (24 april 2020). Geraadpleegd op 4 januari 2021.
- ↑ (en) Seligson, Hannah, Author Frances Cha on Achieving the Feminine Ideal.
- ↑ (en) Frances Cha Event. The Decameron Project. Geraadpleegd op 3 januari 2021.
- ↑ (en) Miriam Balanescu, 'A coldness that masks a burning rage': South Korea's female writers rise up. the Guardian (23 april 2020). Geraadpleegd op 3 januari 2021.
- ↑ (en) Writing What Bothers: A Conversation with Frances Cha. The Rumpus.net (3 september 2020). Geraadpleegd op 3 januari 2021.
- ↑ NPR's Best Books of 2020. apps.npr.org. Geraadpleegd op 4 januari 2021.
- ↑ The 100 Must-Read Books of 2020. Time. Geraadpleegd op 4 januari 2021.
- ↑ Announcing the Goodreads Choice Winner in Best Fiction!. Goodreads. Geraadpleegd op 4 januari 2021.