I'll Be Right There

"I do not specifically reveal the era or elucidate Korea's political situation," writes Shin, recipient of the 2011 Man Asian Literary Prize for Please Look After Mom, in the ending of her latest spectacular novel in English translation. Ironically, those missing details make this story urgently universal: in Israel/Palestine, Afghanistan, Egypt, Syria, and too many other countries in tumult, young people will continue to form life-changing bonds and fall hopelessly in love. While people vanish without a trace and others die senselessly, Jung Yoon matures into young adulthood as she loses her beloved mother, meets a once-in-a-lifetime mentor professor, forms and renews intimate friendships, and creates "forever" memories with her first love. Her self-preservation in the midst of brutal turmoil comes at an impossibly high price. Years later, in spite of what she survives (and others do not), the title becomes an anthem to hope: "'I hope you never hesitate to say, I'll be right there.' " Shin's searing, immediate prose will remind readers of Nadeem Aslam's The Blind Man's Garden, Edwidge Danticat's The Dew Breaker, and Aminatta Forna's The Memory of Love, and their stories of ordinary lives trapped in extraordinary sociopolitical circumstances.