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  • The Paris Review

    Inherited Trauma: An Interview with Emily Jungmin Yoon

    by Lauren Kane Jan 16, 2019 8 minutes

    Emily Jungmin Yoon. Photo courtesy of Emily Jungmin Yoon.

    On the phone, Emily Jungmin Yoon is gentle. When we spoke, she was situated in a café on the campus of the University of Chicago, where she is at work on her doctorate. There was the usual ebb and flow of people in between classes, and at a certain point she moved tables to get away from the background commotion, politely apologizing for the noise. Yet quietude is not a word one would use when describing her debut collection, A Cruelty Special to Our Species. In her poems, Yoon unflinchingly illustrates the horrors suffered by Korean “comfort women” and grapples with trauma both experienced and inherited. As Bk Fischer wrote, “Retelling the testimonies of the ‘comfort women’ forced into prostitution for the Japanese Imperial Army, Yoon takes up the charge of amplifying the voices of an often-overlooked history.”

    That there exists a disconnect between her tone and her content is an observation Yoon has heard before. “I’ve been told, tonally, my poems have been kind of quiet,” she said. “I don’t disagree with that, but I do suppose I compensate for it—to get the effect that I want, I have to use stronger language, more grotesque vocabulary and diction to bring out the

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