Clay Walls

Clay Walls is a story about immigration and colonial trauma, and it is also a story about marriage, class, and patriarchy … A beautifully written work of American literature that is both absorbing and deeply felt – Min Jin Lee, author of Pachinko and Free Food for MillionairesBy interweaving the three themes of the Korean immigrant experience – Korean culture, American racism and Korean nationalism – Kim has created an important novel – Eun Sik Yang * The Los Angeles Times *Political-historical moments are the pearls of the novel … One is grateful for being invited into that closeted but lively world * The New York Times *Kim Ronyoung’s writing is true to her unblinking vision of reality. Her portrayal of Chun reminds me of D. H. Lawrence’s portrayal of the miner-father in Sons and Lovers. The passage of this family from 1920 to 1945 is a long and extremely arduous journey, but it is both necessary and triumphant * San Francisco Chronicle *

Kim Ronyoung was the pen name of Gloria Hahn (1926-1987), a Korean American writer who was born and raised in Los Angeles’s Koreatown. After her children graduated from college, Kim earned a bachelor of arts in Far Eastern art and culture at San Francisco State University. She was a docent at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. Throughout her life, Kim wrote many poems, short stories, and essays. Her first and only novel, Clay Walls, was the first major novel focusing on the experiences of Korean immigrants and Korean Americans in the United States. It was published in 1987, shortly before her death. Kim passed away on February 3, 1987, at the age of sixty, after a lengthy battle with breast cancer.

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