The Naked Tree
Translated by Janet Hong
About
A graphic novel adaptation of Park Wan-suh's beloved novel about a young woman in 1950s Seoul during and after the Korean War. She watches her brother leave for battle, navigates a city under occupation, and comes of age in circumstances that leave little room for the luxury of growing up slowly. Gendry-Kim's illustrations strip the story to its emotional essentials. The artist behind Grass and The Waiting brings her signature style — stark black-and-white panels with moments of devastating clarity — to a story about survival and the particular wounds that war inflicts on the women left behind. The adaptation honors the source material while finding images that prose alone couldn't provide. A war story drawn in the spaces between what a young woman sees and what she can bear to understand.
