'To those who feel they don't belong': Author Graci Kim on diaspora and Korean mythology

Books

Published: 26 Mar. 2024, 15:44 Updated: 26 Mar. 2024, 15:58

'To those who feel they don't belong': Author Graci Kim on diaspora and Korean mythology

The New York Times best-selling author Graci Kim, behind the Korean mythology-inspired ″Gifted Clans″ trilogy, speaks during an interview with the Korea JoongAng Daily at the New Zealand Embassy in Jung District, central Seoul, on March 22, 2024. [PARK SANG-MOON]

If all the immigrant, third-culture and diaspora people formed a country of their own, it would be one of the largest in the world, according to various statistics. Graci Kim, a former Kiwi diplomat who is now a New York Times best-selling author of children's fantasy books, creates stories for this population as she is a member of it herself.

Taking inspiration from Korean mythology but giving it a “modern twist,” Kim dedicated her “Gifted Clans” trilogy, which follows a magical clan of Korean diaspora, to “those who have felt like they don’t belong.”

“In this globalized world, I think it is ever more important to find your roots and realize that you don’t have to choose whether you are one nationality and culture or another,” said Kim during an interview with the Korea JoongAng Daily last Friday.

The "Gifted Clans" trilogy was introduced to the world with the blessing of the creator of the "Percy Jackson" series as part of the Rick Riordan Presents imprint and is currently optioned by Disney for a television series.

Kim discussed the Korean mythology that inspired her stories, themes of family bonds and loyalty and how her experience as a diplomat influenced her literary work.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Author Graci Kim with a copy of ″The Last Fallen Star,″ the first installment of the ″Gifted Clans″ trilogy, during an interview with the Korea JoongAng Daily at the New Zealand Embassy in Jung District, central Seoul, on March 22, 2024. [PARK SANG-MOON]

Q: Your novels incorporate Korean mythology, making use of the concept of "gi," mythical creatures like the gumiho and imugi and animals like the Korean tiger. How did you first come to dive deeply into Korean mythology and what made it appealing as a resource for children's novels?

A: I grew up with stories on Korean mythology — my parents and grandmother would tell me things like if you don’t behave, the dokkaebi [mythological creature resembling a goblin] will come and get you. But it wasn’t until I was much older that I rediscovered these stories and wondered why they weren’t being told apart from in a family setting. I delved into online research, learned rich Korean folklore and decided to put a modern twist to them. It’s very exciting and such an honor to be able to be one of the first people to tell these stories based on Korean mythology in English.

In the acknowledgments for "The Last Fallen Star," you wrote that the book is for "all the adoptees, the diaspora kids, the misfits, to anyone who's ever felt invisible or felt like they don't belong." Please tell us more about how your books are for such readers.

I think the main character Riley’s journey was based subconsciously on my own experiences growing up feeling like I didn’t really belong anywhere. Growing up in New Zealand from a Korean background, I felt like often I wasn’t Kiwi enough but when I came to Korea I felt that I wasn’t Korean enough either. I think it’s such a universal feeling. Ultimately, if you can’t accept yourself first, no one else can either. And it’s not some kind of math equation where we have to be 50 percent something and 50 percent another identity. We can be whatever we want, if we so embrace it.

Many reviewers of your novels have commented on the strong family love and "family feels" depicted in them. Would you say that family bonds and love is especially important as a message in children's novels?

One of the messages of my books is that family is found. It’s not necessarily who you’re born to — you can also have really strong and beautiful family bonds with people you choose to become family with. I do think that this message is an important element of my books. My own close bond with my two younger sisters inspired the bond between the main character Riley and her adoptive sister Hattie.

Forgiveness, acceptance and loyalty also seem to be very important themes in your books. Could you tell us about these themes and how you incorporated them into your novels?

On forgiveness, I tried to make the villains of the story very multilayered. They are who they are for a reason, and in the book Riley has a line of dialogue where she says, “Compassion is not just for your friends, it’s for your enemies too.” My message on that was that people make mistakes and come with their own history and baggage, and people need to be redeemed. Acceptance, as we mentioned before, has to start with accepting oneself first. Lastly, I feel that loyalty is a very Korean concept. It is everywhere, but I felt like my parents and family held loyalty to a much higher standard.

How did your experience of working as a diplomat influence your literary work?

In content, there wasn’t much influence, but the diplomatic life led me to have so many great experiences that I can draw from, in the places that I lived and the people I met. In that sense, my former career has definitely inspired me in a literary way. One thing that diplomacy really helped me with in becoming an author was that it made me not scared of feedback. In diplomacy, you write reports back to the capital, and there is a big cycle of feedback. You can’t be precious about your work because it will always be torn apart, and I think that prepared me for my career as an author.

What advice would you give to diaspora or third-culture kids growing up reading your books?

That we do not need to split ourselves between different things. We can be entirely 100 percent of all the identities we want. I think it’s a false question that we need to choose to be one thing. Belonging to your family, like the main character in my books, Riley, is most important at a young age, and then comes belonging in friend groups or in society. And really, there are so many of us diaspora people, so we may feel that we are alone, but that isn’t true.

BY LIM JEONG-WON [lim.jeongwon@joongang.co.kr]