Ten Thousand Sorrows

'I don't know how old I was when I watched my mother's murder, nor do I know how old I am today'

The illegitimate daughter of a Korean peasant and an American GI, Elizabeth spent her early years as an outcast. Ostracized by her family and their village, she and her mother were regularly pelted with stones on their way home from the rice fields. Yet because of her mother’s love and calm acceptance of their fate, inspired by her deep Buddhist faith, there was a tranquillity in their intense bond - until the day Elizabeth's grandfather and uncle came to punish her mother for the dishonour she had brought the family, and hanged her in front of her daughter’s eyes.

Elizabeth was dumped in an orphanage in Seoul where the orphans were neglected, deprived of all affection, and abused. After some time, she was adopted by an American couple. Brought to America, she was surrounded by fanaticism and prejudice: her strict Christian Fundamentalist parents forbade her to recall the traumas of her past, and she suffered racial discrimination at school. At eighteen she was married off to a man who turned out to be a paranoid schizophrenic. After her own daughter was born she ran away and lived in poverty and isolation with her, thus mirroring her past life in Korea. Eventually she made a career in journalism, but after her daughter grew up and left home, Elizabeth returned to Korea to exorcize the demons of the past.