This anonymity only increases the importance of her story.Īs an American, I was completely unaware of the gender issues in South Korea. Most importantly, Jiyoung is not an extraordinary protagonist and her situation lacks uniqueness as well. It’s as if every microaggression against Jiyoung is a papercut and the accumulation of them turns fatal. I think NYT writer Euny Hong summed it up best, saying “I hated reading ‘Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982,’ the debut novel by Cho Nam-Joo, which is the opposite of saying that I hated the book itself.” This novel hurts to read. The book begins when Jiyoung, after giving birth to her daughter, begins to take on the characteristics of other women in her life in an apparent mental breakdown. Jiyoung fights for a place of respect in school, at work, and at home, but is often dragged under by society’s expectations. As a South Korean woman, she is deemed less than her male counterparts, including her selfish younger brother. While seemingly mundane, especially for 200 pages, Jiyoung’s existence turns out to be rife with inequality and struggle. The novel follows Kim Jiyoung’s life from birth to parenthood. Now, having been sold in 10 different languages, the novel presents a brief but powerful display of lifelong misogyny, despite many believing that sexism has long since passed. In 2016, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo made waves in South Korea with its realistic depictions of sexism and gender inequality within the country.