Violets - kyung-sook shin

By Man Asian Literary Prize winner Kyung-Sook Shin, a moving delve into a lonely psyche that follows a neglected young womans search for human connection in contemporary Seoul (YZ Chin).

San is twenty-two and alone when she happens upon a job at a flower shop in Seouls bustling city center.

Haunted by childhood rejection, she stumbles through life--painfully vulnerable, stifled, and unsure.

She barely registers to others, especially by the ruthless standards of 1990s South Korea.

Over the course of one hazy, volatile summer, San meets a curious cast of characters: the nonspeaking shop owner, a brash coworker, quiet farmers, and aggressive customers.

Fueled by a quiet desperation to jump-start her life, she plunges headfirst into obsession with a passing magazine photographer.

In Violets, best-selling author Kyung-Sook Shin explores misogyny, erasure, and repressed desire, as San desperately searches for both autonomy and attachment in the unforgiving reality of contemporary Korean society.