Yet, this form amplifies the impact of the story and offers the reader a respite as well. A visual novel may seem like an odd choice to tell such a dark story. This graphic novel is told in black inky paintings with black and white panels. She now lives at the House of Sharing in Seoul, South Korea where author Gendry-Kim met and interviewed her. Grass details the journey of survivor Lee Ok-Sun (referred to as Granny Lee Ok-Sun in the novel), a Korean woman in her 90s who was sold off as a laborer at 14 years old and kidnapped to be a comfort woman just a year later. A direct translation of the Japanese euphemism for 'prostitute,' ianfu, the term continues to be controversial.since it reflects only the perspective of the Japanese military and distorts the victim's experiences.ĭespite the failings of the term, this is the most common phrasing used to refer to this specific form of sexual slavery and the word that Gendry-Kim uses in Grass. The term 'comfort women' is widely used to refer to the victims of Japanese military sexual slavery. On the very first page, nestled right above a flowering tree, she writes: To start, the term comfort women is a misnomer.Īnd that is how the biographical graphic novel Grass by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim opens.

This number diminishes even further when compared to the estimated 100,000-200,000 Korean girls and women kidnapped to serve as comfort women. Photo by Cheyenne Trujillo.Īs of July 2, 2021, only 14 out of the 240 registered Korean survivors of Japan's military sexual slavery are still alive. Grass is a landmark graphic novel that makes personal the desperate cost of war and the importance of peace.Find out how this graphic novel got its title. Cartoonist Gendry-Kim s interviews with Lee become an integral part of Grass, forming the heart and architecture of this powerful non-fiction graphic novel and offering a holistic view of how Lee s wartime suffering changed her. Grass is painted in a black ink that flows with lavish details of the beautiful fields and farmland of Korea and uses heavy brushwork on the somber interiors of Lee s memories. Keum Suk Gendry-Kim emphasizes Lee s strength in overcoming the many forms of adversity she experienced. Beginning in Lee s childhood, Grass shows the leadup to World War II from a child s vulnerable perspective, detailing how one person experienced the Japanese occupation and the widespread suffering it entailed for ordinary Korean folk. Grass is a powerful anti-war graphic novel, offering up firsthand the life story of a Korean girl named Okseon Lee who was forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese Imperial Army during the second World War a disputed chapter in 20th century Asian history.

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