The Color of the Sky is the Shape of the Heart

 

The color of the sky is the shape of the heart / Chesil
trans. from the Japanese by Takami Nieda.
NY: Soho Teen, 2022, c2016.
158 p.

Seventeen year old Ginny Park is Zainichi – an ethnic Korean born in Japan. As the book opens, she’s living in the US, attending a high school in misty Oregon. The reader follows along as Ginny outlines her past, and what event at her Korean high school in Japan led to her ending up in the US.  

This is a short book, and is a translation from Japanese; it's apparently semi-autobiographical, which adds to the emotional effect of the storyline. The style is a bit choppy at the beginning but readers who stick with it will be rewarded with a deeply affecting story of a young girl who is fighting against racism, prejudice and injustice. The choppy style may also reflect Ginny's unsettled experience of the events she's relating in these opening pages. 

 Ginny’s story illuminates the little known lives of Korean families who have been in Japan for generations but are still treated as interlopers. From her school uniform of traditional Korean garb (setting her apart visually) to the adoration of North Korea’s leaders by her school administration, Ginny’s narrative explains how these elements affect daily life for Zainichi teenagers.

The writing is confessional, with some letters from family members mixed in. Ginny has a raw and honest voice, not making excuses for herself, but placing her story within the wider context of society’s treatment of her community. But she’s also a teen, and so this is also an emotional story of how she overcomes racism and violence, which included a sexual assault.  But the conclusion is hopeful, even uplifting.

It’s a character-driven, thoughtful book, which strongly evokes Tokyo in the late 90s. It was immensely popular in Japan, and is now available in English translation thanks to Takami Nieda & Soho Teen.