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"A potent and epic blend of the mythic and the personal, The Melancholy of Untold History has the scope and yet intimacy of all great storytelling. A favorite read of the year."—Jeff VanderMeer, author of AnnihilationThird Place Books is thrilled to welcome Minsoo Kang to our Ravenna store for a discussion of his debut novel, The Melancholy of Untold History, a challenging, beautiful, sad, humorous, and ultimately unforgettable novel of love, grief, and myth-making. Spanning 3,000 years and multiple voices—with tales within tales woven expertly together, The Melancholy of Untold History reveals a people and its individuals who seek to confront the hardships of life through storytelling. This event is free and open to the public.
For important updates, registration is highly recommended in advance. This event will include a public signing and time for audience Q&A. Sustain our author series by purchasing a copy of the featured book!
About The Melancholy of Untold History. . .
A beautifully crafted, enriching saga inspired by East Asian mythology, The Melancholy of Untold History follows the grand traditions of exploring time, generations, history, and storytelling of the modern classics R.F. Kuang’s Babel, Anthony Doerr’s Cloud Cuckoo Land, and David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, interweaving four complex yet entertaining stories as they shape and create a nation’s literary narrative through the themes of love and grief.
A history professor mourning his wife. His young protégé’s search for a path forward. Four witty mountain gods with much to say and not enough time to listen. A gifted storyteller bringing a world into being out of thin air...
Famous for his dispelling of the national myth, the Historian understands the power of narrative. He has inspired another young professor to search for her own truths, while trying to understand the way fiction creates fact and how sometimes the past can only be understood by filling in holes with a new narrative. Which is exactly what he needs when his wife passes away to parse meaning out of a world that no longer makes sense.
Together the protégé and the Historian find comfort in each other. Yet they know their time together is fleeting, as time usually is. Only the gods have an abundance of time, and yet—the two discover—even that might not be so clear cut. Part of their homeland’s myth tells of four gods who squabbled and argued and destroyed and rebuilt time and again.
Or did they?
Because, of course, even the gods need mouthpieces on earth. And the one the Historian knows of—the elusive Storyteller—may have just been spinning tales for his own amusement and, ultimately, revenge. By fabricating the exploits of the gods, he could have set a course for certain events to unfold and a particular story to survive today.
Spanning 3,000 years and multiple voices—with tales within tales woven expertly together—The Melancholy of Untold History reveals a people and its individuals who seek to confront the hardships of life through storytelling. Mixing the East Asian mythos with a postmodern approach to standard sci-fi/fantasy narrative tropes, Minsoo Kang has created a challenging, beautiful, sad, humorous, and ultimately unforgettable novel of love, grief, and myth-making.
Praise for The Melancholy of Untold History. . .
"A potent and epic blend of the mythic and the personal, The Melancholy of Untold History has the scope and yet intimacy of all great storytelling. A favorite read of the year."
—Jeff VanderMeer, author of Annihilation
"The Melancholy of Untold History is a delight. A historian teaches himself to reach into the world of fable and myth to complete a story he cannot otherwise tell, and a new genre is born. That's the novel's main character, but it is also Kang, giving us a profound exploration of the possibilities of narrative, of how we tell stories and why, and how they can change not only a person but a culture. Kang's scholarly background has born extraordinary fruit: a debut novel only he could write about the ways we know ourselves and others, which is to say, story. And with, it should be said, an 'extraordinary fruit' plot as well."
—Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel
"The Melancholy of Untold History mixes genres, traverses space and time, and ultimately limns the human soul as it asks us to consider what is a story, and does story make us human? An epic feat of storytelling in itself, this book is a triumph."
—Marie Myung-Ok Lee, author of The Evening Hero
"This colorful debut novel from historian Kang parallels a tale of modern love with a chronicle of a Scheherazade-like storyteller from the distant past... Kang delivers an impressive reimagining of Asian folk traditions, combined with a deeply touching modern love story... Much to admire."
—Publishers Weekly
Minsoo Kang is a fiction writer and a historian specializing in the intellectual history of modern Europe. Due to his father's occupation as a diplomat for South Korea, Kang has lived in Korea, Austria, New Zealand, Iran, Brunei, Germany, the United States, and other places for shorter periods. He served in the army of the Republic of Korea and earned his Ph.D. in European History at UCLA. Currently, he is a professor at the history department of the University of Missouri at St. Louis, and the author of a number of history books and short speculative fiction.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
6504 20th Ave NE, Seattle, WA, United States, Washington 98115
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