Clay Walls | Kim Ronyoung

Clay Walls: A Novel by Kim Ronyoung

About the Book:

Clay Walls weaves the complex threads of Korean culture into the tapestry of American society while telling the story of the early Korean immigrants who arrived in Los Angeles in the decade prior to World War II, and of their American-born children.

Praise for Clay Walls:

"This earnest novel about Korean immigrants begins with a Los Angeles matron and her hired help bent over the rim of a toilet. The employer is pointing out a missed stain to the plucky Asian heroine, who calls her ungrateful benefactor sangnyun ('low woman') and tells her where to put the job. From then on the path is rocky for the Chun family, whose three-part story forms the core of this novel, one of the first about the plight of Korean Americans. One is grateful for being invited into that closeted but lively world."
—New York Times Book Review

"Between 1903 and 1924 a trickle of Korean immigrants, mostly by way of the Hawaiian Islands, arrived on the West Coast of the United States, either singly or in couples. Clay Walls by Kim Ronyoung is a fictional account of a newly married young Korean couple arriving in Los Angeles in the early '20s and their struggle until the end of World War II to put down roots in America. Although the novel consists of three parts, beginning with 'Haesu,' 'Chun,' and concluding with 'Faye,' their American-born daughter, it is essentially Haesu's story. For people like Haesu and her family, the passage from 1920-1945 is a long and extremely arduous journey, but it is both necessary and triumphant."
—San Francisco Chronicle

"By interweaving the three themes of the Korean immigrant experience — Korean culture, American racism, and Korean nationalism — Kim has created an important novel."
—Los Angeles Times

About the Author:

Kim Ronyoung (Gloria Hahn) was born in Los Angeles and lived for nine-teen years in a Korean community before moving away to marry, raise children, and earn a degree in Far Eastern Art and Culture. She died in 1987.

Book Data:

The Permanent Press — Sag Harbor, New York | 1-877946-78-8 | ISBN-13: 9781877946783