WIN $150 GIFT VOUCHERS: ALADDIN'S GOLD
Born in South Korea to a German father and a Korean mother, Heinz Insu Fenkl grew up in Korea until he was twelve, and then in Germany and the U.S. A professor of English at SUNY New Paltz, where he teaches creative writing, Asian and Asian American literature, and film, he is the author of the novel Memories of My Ghost Brother. He is also a folklorist, who has edited anthologies of Korean folklore and translated seminal folktales and Buddhist texts; and from its inception until 2017 he was a member of the editorial board for Harvard University's Azalea: Journal of Korean Literature and Culture. A section of Skull Water appeared in The New Yorker. Fenkl lives in New York's Hudson Valley.
Praise for Skull Water: A magical, brutal novel that shines light into a little-known world of a modernizing Korea of 1970s with its vestiges of American occupation, along with the mysteries of ancestors and the hungry ghosts of worlds we cannot see. -Marie Myung-Ok Lee, author of The Evening Hero The novel in your hands is something I never knew I'd see, born from things at least two governments hoped to hide. A mixed German Korean boy in 1970s Korea undertakes a quest to save the living with what the dead might know, and he tells us stories across time of this almost- vanished world, and the lives of those thrown away by Korean society and American military forces-his family. Precious, life altering, rebellious, funny, and full of a necessary truth. -Alexander Chee, author of The Queen of the Night This is a mesmerizing take on what happens when civil war walks into a nation, leaving scarred humanity in its wake. A fascinating story of a young mixed-race man caught between two cultures, not knowing what to keep and what to leave behind. This touching book, written with grace, does more than deliver a fresh perspective on a forgotten war. It's proof that the old, peaceful ways defeat the brutality of the new every time, with a blend of spirit, memory, and folklore, some of which is delivered by the magical spirits that walked, and still walk, this earth. We are all the same. We all walk the middle path to get home. I'm so glad that Heinz Insu Fenkl shows us how to get there. -James McBride, author of Deacon King Kong Praise for Heinz Insu Fenkl: Unsparing...an intimate look at a volatile, rarely glimpsed landscape. -The New Yorker Vivid, powerful writing...a compelling and poetic portrait of the Amerasian experience in reconstructionist South Korea. -The San Francisco Review of Books [S]tately, mature and understated...written with great sensitivity and assurance. -Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) Think...of James Agee's A Death in the Family...equally lyrical, dreamy, and sad. -Kirkus Review
