The End of August is an experimental, multi-generational, multilingual epic telling a semi-fictionalised version of the author’s family history, and thereby illuminating the experiences of Japan’s Zainichi (second- and third-generation Korean) communities.
Set mostly in South Korea of the 1910s (recently occupied by imperial Japanese forces) and the 1940s (recently decolonised), but flipping between Japan and Korea, the past and the present, The End of August is an investigation into the nature of identity, encompassing Japanese colonisation, the phenomenon of “comfort women” and personal history, as well as a complex family saga stretching over four generations.