8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster

A Novel

De: Mirinae Lee

Narrado por: Cindy Kay

“Fantastically original doesn’t begin to describe this exhilarating globe-spanning, decade-hopping masterpiece. Lee has achieved the impossible—from a fractured century of agonies and betrayals, she has woven a novel of immense beauty and regeneration.” — Junot Díaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Winner of the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing

Longlisted for the Women's Prize in Fiction.

Longlisted for the 2024 Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize, Best Published Novel

Joining the acclaimed ranks of Pachinko and A Woman is No Man, a riveting and genre-bending debut of love and survival, set in the demilitarized zone separating North and South Korea.

Life near the North Korean border is a zero-sum game, an ongoing battle in which you either win or you lose. This dangerous, shadowed netherworld is home to an unforgettable woman known only as the “trickster.”

Inspired by the story of Lee’s great aunt, one of the oldest women to escape alone from North Korea, 8 Lives of a Century Old Trickster consists of eight dark and spellbinding chapters that follow this remarkable character and her family as they struggle to survive during the most turbulent times of modern Korean history. Mirinae Lee’s trickster is a shapeshifter—throughout the course of these interconnected chapters she is a slave, an escape artist, a murderer, a terrorist, a spy, a lover, and a mother—a woman who must often choose the unthinkable to survive war and conquest in Korea. Her story is a beguiling, complex tale of love and survival that will keep you riveted—and speculating—until the very end thanks to Lee’s brilliant talent for sleight of hand.

A fascinating look at survival, trauma, and family, 8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster is an incredible literary debut from a bright new talent.

©2023 Mirinae Lee (P)2023 HarperCollins Publishers

A great story and a great narration

I came to this novel after reading a very favorable review by Sam Sacks in the Wall Street Journal. I wasn’t disappointed. The suffering of the Korean people during the twentieth century is told by a woman who was intelligent and crafty enough to survive it. My favorite lives were about her reunion with her husband. The narration was flawless.

Good and learned so much

I actually read this book twice. The first time, I read it in the order it was written. The second time, I read the lives in sequential order. I got so much more out of it the second time. I definitely recommend this book, but I’d read the lives in sequential order. I learned so much about the history they don’t teach us in school. What some people have gone through is crazy.