In this powerful, page-turning debut, Jimin Han deftly shows that revolutions-whether big or small, in the world or of the heart-can have an impact that lasts through time and spans the oceans. On a beautiful Pennsylvania fall morning, a gunman holds college freshman Yoona Lee and three of her classmates hostage in the claustrophobic confines of their dorm room. The desperate man with his finger on the trigger-Yoona's onetime friend, Lloyd Kang-is unraveling after a mysterious accident in Korea killed his closest friend, Jaesung, who was also the love of Yoona's life. As the tense standoff unfolds, Yoona is forced to revisit her past, from growing up in an abusive household to the upheaval in her ancestral homeland to unwittingly falling in love. She must also confront the truth about what happened to Jaesung on that tragic day, even as her own fate hangs in the balance. Through scenes of political upheaval and protests in South Korea, spirited conversations in cramped dumpling houses, and the quiet moments that happen when two people fall in love, A Small Revolution is a moving narrative brimming with longing, love, fear, and-ultimately-hope.
About the Author :
Jimin Han received her MFA at Sarah Lawrence College and her BA from Cornell University. Her work appears in NPR's Weekend America, Entropy, the Rumpus, HTMLGiant, The Good Men Project, Kartika Review, The NuyorAsian Anthology, and KoreanAmericanStory.org, among others. She teaches at Sarah Lawrence College's Writing Institute and lives outside New York City with her husband and children.
Review :
One of Entropy’s Best Fiction Books of 2017
One of CNN’s Best Beach Reads for Summer 2017
One of Buzzfeed’s 6 Binge-Worthy Books of May 2017
One of Redbook’s 20 Best Books by Women to Read for Spring 2017
“A Small Revolution has all the makings of a riveting sensory experience…Han’s careful unspooling of the narrative thread that holds the three pieces together is a powerful tapestry in reverse.” —Hyphen Magazine
“A Small Revolution is a novel of remarkably rendered extremes…It is an ambitious and accomplished debut that pulls us out of our comfortable window seats and places us in a room, in a young woman’s heart, and in a nascent democracy’s earliest days.” —Los Angeles Review of Books
“Swift, and timely…A worthy and cinematic debut.” —Electric Literature
“In her novel A Small Revolution, Han handles serious topics—mental illness, political activism, domestic violence—deftly.” —Los Angeles Times
“It’s the courage of voices like Yoona, and Jimin Han, that force change. I couldn’t stop reading A Small Revolution once I began. It stirred a revolution inside of me and is one of those books that I’ll be thinking about for a long time to come.” —Entropy
“Entwining personal and political histories on either side of the globe…Han’s novel exudes a universal immediacy about what can happen when safety, and sanity, are repeatedly threatened…A resonating parable for today’s volatile, fearful times.” —Bloom
“We’ve all wondered what it’s like inside the rooms where the horrors unfold. Jimin Han’s relentless, timely A Small Revolution grabs you by the collar and pulls you inside, then back through her sympathetic character’s history to answer that question: How does a good girl end up inside a brutal disaster? How does young love become a mirage of political activism—and accident become hostage-taking and murder? Open the book; remember to breathe.” —Gwendolen Gross, author of When She Was Gone and The Orphan Sister
“On the heels of South Korea’s 1980s era pro-democracy uprisings, Jimin Han’s gripping debut novel, A Small Revolution, explores the volatile space between love and loss, desperation and deed.” —Julie Iromuanya, author of Mr. and Mrs. Doctor, a finalist for 2016 PEN/Faulkner Award and 2016 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Debut Fiction Award
“Jimin Han’s debut novel, A Small Revolution, is a riveting and mysterious tale of young love, political intrigue, family secrets, and dangerous obsession rendered in prose so gripping I couldn’t put it down.” —Joy Castro, author of The Truth Book and Hell or High Water
“With exquisite precision, Jimin Han’s A Small Revolution transforms the claustrophobic confines of an unfolding hostage crisis into an expansive meditation on the collisions between past and present, hope and fear, life and death. Elegant, elegiac, and unsettling, each new page offers insight and revelation.” —Steve Edwards, author of Breaking into the Backcountry
“Jimin Han’s A Small Revolution packs a big punch. With a front story taken from the headlines of gunmen on college campuses and a haunting backstory of events in Korea, our protagonist is forced into walking a tightrope between two worlds, as well as the past and present.” —Alan Russell, author of Lost Dog
