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"A fascinating story of a young mixed-race man caught between two cultures, not knowing what to keep and what to leave behind."--James McBride, author of The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store A "magnificent" (Ha Jin), "mesmerizing" (James McBride), and "magical" (Marie Myung-Ok Lee) fever dream of a novel that interweaves the coming-of-age of a 1970s Korean-American boy grappling with his identity and the impact of intergenerational trauma. Growing up outside a US military base in South Korea in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, Insu--the son of a Korean mother and a German father enlisted in the…mehr

Produktbeschreibung
"A fascinating story of a young mixed-race man caught between two cultures, not knowing what to keep and what to leave behind."--James McBride, author of The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store A "magnificent" (Ha Jin), "mesmerizing" (James McBride), and "magical" (Marie Myung-Ok Lee) fever dream of a novel that interweaves the coming-of-age of a 1970s Korean-American boy grappling with his identity and the impact of intergenerational trauma. Growing up outside a US military base in South Korea in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, Insu--the son of a Korean mother and a German father enlisted in the US Army--spends his days with his "half and half" friends skipping school, selling scavenged Western goods on the black market, watching Hollywood movies, and testing the boundaries between childhood and adulthood. When he hears a legend that water collected in a human skull will cure any sickness, he vows to dig up a skull in order to heal his ailing Big Uncle, a geomancer who has been exiled by the family to a mountain cave to die. Insu's quest takes him and his friends on a sprawling, wild journey into some of South Korea's darkest corners, opening them up to a fantastical world beyond their grasp. Meanwhile, Big Uncle has embraced his solitude and fate, trusting in otherworldly forces Insu cannot access. As he recalls his wartime experiences of betrayal and lost love, Big Uncle attempts to teach his nephew that life is not limited to what we can see--or think we know. Largely autobiographical and sparkling with magical realism, Skull Water is the story of a boy coming into his own--and the ways the past haunts the present, in a country on the cusp of modernity, struggling to confront its troubled history. As Insu seeks the wisdom of his ancestors, what he learns, he hopes, will save not just his uncle but himself.
Autorenporträt
Heinz Insu Fenkl, born in South Korea to a German father and a Korean mother, grew up in Korea until he was twelve and then in Germany and the United States. A professor of English at The State University of New York, New Paltz, he is known internationally for his collection of Korean folktales and translations of contemporary Korean fiction and classical Buddhist texts. He is also the author of the novel Memories of My Ghost Brother, a PEN/Hemingway Award finalist and a Barnes & Noble "Discover Great New Writers" selection. An excerpt from Skull Water, "Five Arrows," was first published in the New Yorker. Fenkl lives in the Hudson Valley with his wife and daughter.