Thursday, October 29, 2009
Lit & Lectures The Runaway Returns
Posted by Deanna Isaacs on Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 3:25 PM
- Nami Mun
Born in South Korea, Mun emigrated to New York with her family when she was eight years old and was living on the streets of "all five boroughs" by 13. Though she could be telling her own story, she says she's not; she won't discuss her family or her own experiences on the street. But she says that eight years ago, when she began working on the first of the linked stories that became the book, she was surprised to find herself writing in tears. That story, "Club Orchid" (now the third chapter of the book), relates the initiation of a child prostitute, desperate to make enough money to put a roof over her head for a night. "When you're a runaway, you don't look back," Mun says. "And, until then, I never had."
The circumstances she describes are sordid, the writing stripped down to a deceptive, often poetic simplicity. In deference to her protagonist, Mun says, she axed anything "writerly" in the text. The result is like an easy reader guide to hell.
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