8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster
Publisher,Virago
Publication Date,
Format,
Weight,
No. of Pages, 304
SLAVE. ESCAPE-ARTIST. MURDERER. TERRORIST. SPY. LOVER. MOTHER. TRICKSTER.
At the Golden Sunset retirement home, it is not unusual for residents to invent stories. So when elderly Ms Mook first begins to unspool her memories, the obituarist listening to her is sceptical. Stories of captivity, friendship, murder, adventure, assumed identities and spying. Stories that take place in WWII Indonesia; in Busan during the Korean war; in cold-war Pyongyang; in China. The stories are so colourful and various, at times so unbelievable, that they cannot surely all belong to the same woman. Can they?
As playful and thought-provoking as it is compelling, as brutal and harrowing as it is achingly poignant and tender, this is a novel about love and war, deceit and betrayal, about identity, storytelling and the trickery required for survival.
About The Author
Mirinae Lee was born and raised in South Korea, and now lives in Hong Kong. Her first work of fiction appeared in the Antioch Review and was listed as Notable Nonrequired Reading of 2018 in The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2019. Her second short story won the 2018 Editors' Prize in Fiction and appeared in Meridian. 8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster is her debut novel.
