Comfort Woman
by Nora Okja Keller
Nomination: Women's Prize Longlist 1999
Date Read: February 12, 2022
Perhaps now, more so than in the 90’s, it has become common knowledge of the Comfort Women who were supplied to the Japanese who occupied Korea. With brutal tenderness, Keller brings to vivid reckoning what those women endured – the fear, the suffering, the complete loss of humanity, even the loss of their names and speech.
Akiko, a typical Korean young girl, is one of the women who is forced into these recreation camps, having been left exposed and somewhat dispossessed after her mother’s death. At the impossible age of 12, her virginity is auctioned off to the highest bidder and then she was “open for business.” Pregnancy was a mere inconvenience that was quickly ripped out of any woman.
A woman’s viability to continue being useful was determined by a quick fuck from the attending doctor. Those who were “all used up” were left stranded in the woods to die or shot.
Akiko escaped the camp and was taken in by Catholic missionaries where the main priest quickly set an eye for her. Focused on her redemption and still beautiful youth, as the missionaries are forced out of erupting Korea, the priest quickly marries Akiko. She, of course, sees her husband as just an extension of her imprisonment. But she does have a daughter by him, Beccah, who she cherishes and tries to keep safe from evil spirits still luring around Akiko.
Beccah never knew of her mother’s past until her death when she slowly began discovering what her mother endured. Before her death, she knew her mother went into bizarre trances and communed with the spirit world – some good, some bad. In fact, that is how Akiko supported her family – through her services as a medium to those who had passed.
Only through the loss of her mother is Beccah able to see the strength her mother bequeathed her, incorporate those gifts as her own and offer her mother the tender and peaceful departure from this earth that will finally rest her soul. A powerful novel about survival, endurance and a mother’s love. Haunting.
Comments
Post a Comment