A haunting and unforgettable debut spanning the last seventy years of Korean history, including the BBC Short Story Prize shortlisted story 'The Goose Father'.
Alternating between the lives of Koreans struggling through seventy years of turbulent, post-World War Two history in their homeland and the communities of Korean immigrants grappling with assimilation in the United States, Krys Lee's haunting debut story collection Drifting House weaves together intricate tales of family and love, abandonment and loss on both sides of the Pacific.
In the title story, children escaping famine in North Korea are forced to make unthinkable sacrifices to survive. The tales set in America reveal the immigrants' unmoored existence, playing out in cramped apartments and Koreatown strip malls, from the abandoned wife in 'A Temporary Marriage' who enters into a sham marriage to find her kidnapped daughter to the makeshift family in 'At the Edge of the World' which is fractured when a shaman from the old country moves in next door.
- ISBN10 0571276180
- ISBN13 9780571276189
- Publish Date 19 January 2012 (first published 1 January 2012)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 7 July 2021
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Faber & Faber
- Edition Main
- Format Paperback (UK Trade)
- Pages 256
- Language English