Susan Choi

that Korea became a colony of Japan, lost its sovereignty.

And so that was the case until the end of the Second World War when Japan is defeated and has to give up all its colonies.

And this is the point at which modern Korea, that story begins.

But meanwhile, while Japan is holding Korea as a colony, many, many Koreans ended up

in Japan, either against their will, there were a lot of awful ways in which they were brought to Japan by force, or in some cases, large circumstances forced them, like mostly poverty.

So a lot of Koreans migrated to the archipelago in search of a better life because they were, as Koreans, they were now sort of subjects, not citizens, it wasn't great, but they were subjects of Japan.

So this character's parents do the same thing.

They're very poor.

And they migrated to Japan in hopes of being able to feed the kids basically.

No, I knew nothing about it.

So I do have Korean heritage.

My father's Korean.

He was born in Seoul, Korea in the late 20s under the Japanese Empire.

So I was always, always, from adulthood I became very fascinated by the history.

And this little corner of the history I knew nothing about.

My father's own story is totally different.

He was, like I said, born in Korea, not Japan.

He was born to a very well-to-do, well-off, highly educated family, unlike this character who it's the opposite.

But this character's circumstances do come out of research that I was doing because of this larger interest in Korea because of my dad.

It was very little a part of my life.