The Court Dancer

Starred review from July 1, 2018
Man Asian Literary Prize-winning Shin (The Girl Who Wrote Loneliness, 2015) alchemizes a brief mention in a French diplomat's book about his turn-of-the-century Korean tenure into a gorgeous epic that seamlessly combines history and fiction to create a hybrid masterpiece. In 1888, France's first official legate to Korea, Victor Collin de Plancy, arrives in Seoul and falls in love at first word, a single exchange of Bonjour with Yi Jin, a revered traditional dancer of the Joseon Dynasty (Korea's final royal court). Blinded by obsession, Victor dares to ask the emperor for her unprecedented release to accompany him back to France. Orphaned but adoringly raised by a royal attendant's sister, coddled since childhood by the queen, taught French by a missionary-priest, Jin leaves Korea and settles in Paris. Her new life provides unimagined social, literary, even commercial opportunities, but the relentless exotification of her very person emphasizes her growing alienation. Her return home is bittersweet, as she's treated like a foreigner, but events turn horrific when she's caught in the violent Japanese takeover of the Joseon court. Originally published in Korea in 2007 to best-selling success and smoothly Anglophoned by Anton Hur in his translated-novel debut, the court dancer's latest journey west should command substantial, eager audiences.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)