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8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster

On sale

18th April 2024

Price: £9.99

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Selected: Paperback / ISBN-13: 9780349016771

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THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER



WINNER OF THE 2024 WILLIAM SAROYAN INTERNATIONAL PRIZE FOR WRITING
LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2024
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 WILBUR SMITH ADVENTURE WRITING PRIZE

‘Captivating’ New York Times
‘Dazzling’ Financial Times
‘Heartbreaking’ Monica Ali

SLAVE. ESCAPE-ARTIST. MURDERER. TERRORIST. SPY. LOVER. MOTHER. TRICKSTER.

At the Golden Sunset retirement home, it is not unusual for residents to invent stories. So when elderly Ms Mook first begins to unspool her memories, the obituarist listening to her is sceptical. Stories of captivity, friendship, murder, assumed identities and spying. A life that moves from WWII Indonesia to Busan during the Korean war; from cold-war Pyongyang to a Protestant church in China. The adventures are so colourful and various, at times so unbelievable. Surely they can’t all belong to the same woman. Can they?

8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2024, announced on 5th March 2024.

Reviews

Wall Street Journal
Despite the darkness of the history it retells, this is primarily an adventure novel, fueled by the same righteous anger that turns ordinary mortals into masked superheroes
Mira T. Lee, author of Everything Here is Beautiful
A turbulent novel traversing decades of Korean history, 8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster interrogates love, identity, betrayal, and everything it takes for one shape-shifting "trickster" to survive. Lee writes with sharp, ferocious energy, and I was riveted from the first page. An exquisitely accomplished debut
New York Times
Enthralling, captivating, tantalising ... keeps readers hooked
Bookpage (USA)
Outstanding ... enticing, profound and deeply moving. By the end, the reader is left with an intensely vivid picture of both North and South Korea during the mid-20th century, throughout multiple wars and times of national chaos
Historical Novel Society
Grandma Mook ... has murdered four men, deceived her husband, and is a wanted terrorist. And yet, in a dazzling feat of storytelling, she is a lovable character. Her tales of brutality, grit, hope, love, and redemption are too fantastic to be untrue. This is a cracking good read, rich with social commentary and historical detail.
Brittani Sonnenberg, author of Home Leave
Mirinae Lee has magically created a new literary form, one that deftly weaves political intrigue, lyrical narration, sensuous description, and subtle humour. In her heroine's tender, harrowing reclaiming of her traumatized body, the reader, too, finds healing. 8 Lives packs the spellbinding, page-turning punch of a spy thriller while quietly delivering the lilting insights of Carmen María Machado and Ocean Vuong. Lee's debut marks the arrival of a riveting new voice on the global literary stage
Lyn Liao Butler, author of Red Thread of Fate
A stunning debut from Mirinae Lee, 8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster follows the incredible life of a woman, a shapeshifter, as she battles life near the North Korean border during the most turbulent times in Korean history. Lee is a master at storytelling, weaving the eight stories in a way that leaves you with questions, only to answer them with scenes that are sometimes horrific, sometimes touching, but always riveting
Washington Post
A gripping story set against the backdrop of Korea's turbulent history ... brilliant and original
Tor.com
A beguiling, complex tale of love and survival that will keep you riveted-and speculating-until the very end, thanks to Lee's brilliant talent for sleight of hand
Booklist (USA)
Lee's beautiful novel is a tale of survival, trauma, and love in the midst of modern Korea's most tumultuous times. Her metaphorical and lyrical language, brutal and unsettling storytelling, and masterful prose will keep readers hooked until the very end
Financial Times
Seven accounts, told achronologically and ranging from 1938 to 2006, reveal a series of startling transformations involving cross-dressing, spying, identity theft, motherhood and murder ... A dazzling feat of narrative sophistication and historical invention
Pandora Sykes, Books and Bits
Energetic and lyrical ... a richly layered and playful read ... I'm savouring it, so as not to miss a single detail
Catherine Cho, author of Inferno
A dazzling, visceral read. Intricately woven and playful, the prose has a brutal beating energy. At its heart is the fascinating Ms Mook, and the kaleidoscope of her life is a captivating history of Korea, a country torn apart
Krys Lee, author of How I Became A North Korean
Mirinae Lee has created an unforgettable character and a bold, inventive narrative that takes us through history. But don't underestimate 8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster; this astonishing, compassionate, and ambitious novel is more than story. Lee cares about how the story is told as much as the story itself. What an incredible debut.
Kit Fan, author of Diamond Hill
The atrocity and suffering interwoven in these pages tell the splintered history of war and violence in twentieth-century Korea that keeps me awake at night. Mirinae Lee unravels human intentions and actions with devastating details, reminding us of many hearts of darkness. What's most striking, however, is the trust invested in the power of storytelling. The interlocking lives in the novel read like scar tissues that reopen and close. A mutual understanding is established as we re-examine the wounds that won't heal until they find their voice, until we listen.
Kimberly Elkins, author of What Is Visible
Chilling, bold and masterful, Lee's dazzling debut slams into the head and the heart with dizzying, visceral force and commanding skill. Intricately and inventively plotted, 8 Lives of a Century-old Trickster is hard-wired with tension and suspense and bound tight with history
Marjan Kamali, author of The Stationery Shop of Tehran
Soaring, fierce, bold, and intoxicating, 8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster draws an unforgettable portrait of a Korean woman navigating her place in the world over the course of almost a hundred years. Lives that have been ruptured by war, totalitarianism, and unexpected family discoveries are explored with razor-sharp insight and shimmering detail. The lies we tell, the particles of pleasure we find amidst the pain, and how deception and the power of storytelling can lead us to our truest selves are all explored with phenomenal skill. An absolutely astonishing work of art
Alyssa Songsiridej, author of Little Rabbit
In Mirinae Lee's 8-lives of a Century-Old Trickster, a sly, flinty protagonist summons all of her charm to survive one hundred years of tumult, espionage, and war. I have never put so much trust in a verified liar. Part spy novel, part ode to storytelling, Lee's debut captivated and surprised me.
Joseph Juhn, director of Chosen
Reading 8 Lives is like eating earth: unapologetically rebellious, breathtakingly exhilarating, and deeply painful. Korea's turbulent modern history as its backdrop, each story is artfully told through a magnetic character who embodies the peninsula's dark and complex past. Lee's debut is a gift to all storytellers of diasporic imagination
Melissa Fu, author of Peach Blossom Spring
Unflinching and tender, philosophical and mischievous, this playful novel conveys a sense of Korea's turbulent twentieth century through a charming, compelling protagonist who is not always a reliable narrator but who tells the truths that matter. I was captivated by Lee's masterful storytelling
Junot Díaz
Fantastically original doesn't begin to describe this exhilarating, globe-spanning, decade-hopping masterpiece. Lee has achieved the impossible - from a fractured century of agonies and betrayals, she has woven a novel of immense beauty and regeneration
Monica Ali
A wild ride of a novel that embodies twentieth-century Korean history through the mesmerising, heartbreaking and deeply fractured personal history of one woman and her many incarnations.
Kirkus (USA)
Smart, complex, inventive, melancholy