Kim’s award-winning The Calligrapher’s Daughter memorably evoked both the experience of a wife left behind by her husband and the national trauma of Korea under Japanese occupation. Her second novel returns to Korea, charting the brutal separation of a family by war. The narrative opens in the South in 1948, as the Chos make two difficult decisions. The first is to leave for America. The second is to take just one of their daughters and send for the other later when their situation is stabilized. But war intervenes, and the sisters grow up in two different countries. Alternating between their points of view, Kim’s beautiful and poignant work, based on actual events, is a testament to the enduring strength of family.