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| photo: Iris Minji Kim | |
Monika Kim graduated from the University of California, Davis, with a B.A. in Communication. She works for an environmental agency in Southern California, focused on environmental justice and assisting underserved communities through outreach and youth education programs. She is the author of The Eyes Are the Best Part (Erewhon Books, June 25, 2024), a feminist psychological horror about the making of a female serial killer from a Korean-American perspective.
Handsell readers your book in 25 words or less:
After eating a fish eye during a traditional Korean dinner, a female Korean American college student becomes obsessed with eating white men's eyes.
On your nightstand now:
The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas and Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark. I'm excited to read both of them. I was also lucky enough to receive an ARC of Anton Hur's debut novel, Toward Eternity. Anton is so incredibly talented, and I have loved many of his book translations (e.g., Bora Chung's Cursed Bunny, Park Seolyeon's A Magical Girl Retires).
Favorite book when you were a child:
When I was in elementary school, my parents gave me a collection of Roald Dahl stories, which I read cover to cover at least a dozen times. I distinctly remember that the book included a recipe to make your own "Enormous Crocodile" at home. I begged my mother to make it for me, but she never did. Recently, I was feeling nostalgic and looked up the recipe online, and realized that my mom must have refused to make it because it was objectively horrifying. (If you're curious, the "Enormous Crocodile" involves covering a baguette entirely with cooked spinach. Shudder.)
Your top five authors:
In no particular order: Min Jin Lee, Ann Patchett, Toni Morrison, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Lan Samantha Chang.
Book you've faked reading:
Does my Saturday Korean school textbook count? To this day, my mother still wonders why my Korean isn't better....
Book you're an evangelist for:
I'm obsessed with Lan Samantha Chang's Hunger. It's a gorgeous novella and an absolute must-read for children of immigrants, as well as for anyone who wants to better understand the immigrant experience and what those who come to this country must leave behind.
Book you've bought for the cover:
Tomb Sweeping by Alexandra Chang. The cats! The colors! The orchids! It's such a unique and fun design. And did I mention the cats?
Book you hid from your parents:
When I was in middle school, a distant relative gifted me Louise Rennison's Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging. I hid it from my parents because I thought "thongs" was a bad word.
Book that changed your life:
So many books have changed me and have remained with me long after I turned the last page. But if I had to choose only one, I'd pick Min Jin Lee's masterpiece, Pachinko. It was the first time in my life that I read a "mainstream" book about Korean characters written by a woman who looked like me.
Favorite line from a book:
Cathy Park Hong's Minor Feelings is filled with so much wisdom and insight that I feel like I highlighted nearly the entire book while reading it. But one of the quotes that really resonated with me, and is mirrored in my work, is: "One characteristic of racism is that children are treated like adults and adults are treated like children. Watching a parent being debased like a child is the deepest shame. I cannot count the number of times I have seen my parents condescended to or mocked by white adults. This was so customary that when my mother had any encounter with a white adult, I was always hypervigilant, ready to mediate or pull her away. To grow up Asian in America is to witness the humiliation of authority figures like your parents and to learn not to depend on them: they cannot protect you."
Five books you'll never part with:
This is hard! Some of my favorites that I keep coming back to, in no particular order: Jade City by Fonda Lee, If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha, Beloved by Toni Morrison, The Dutch House by Ann Patchett, Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls by T Kira Madden, and We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson.
Book you most want to read again for the first time:
Red Rising by Pierce Brown. An incredibly addictive book with enough twists and turns to give you whiplash. It shocked me out of a reading slump, and I've been chasing that high ever since.