From the indie rockstar Japanese Breakfast, Crying in H Mart is a deeply moving memoir about identity and belonging, grief and joy.

'That book f**king destroyed me,' - Olivia Rodrigo 'Michelle Zauner explores what it means to cook your feelings... she uses the lens of food and cooking to explore her Korean identity after she loses her mother to cancer.' Jungkook of BTS From the indie rockstar Japanese Breakfast, an unflinching, powerful, deeply moving memoir about growing up mixed-race, Korean food, losing her Korean mother, and forging her own identity. In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humor and heart, she tells of growing up the only Asian-American kid at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother's particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother's tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food. As she grew up, moving to the east coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, performing gigs with her fledgling band-and meeting the man who would become her husband-her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live. It was her mother's diagnosis of terminal pancreatic cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her. Vivacious and plainspoken, lyrical and honest, Michelle Zauner's voice is as radiantly alive on the page as it is onstage. Rich with intimate anecdotes that will resonate widely, Crying in H Mart is a book to cherish, share, and reread. ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVOURITE BOOKS OF 2021 PRAISE FOR CRYING IN H MART 'Michelle Zauner's Crying In H Mart is as good as everyone says it is and, yes, it will have you in tears. An essential read for anybody who has lost a loved one, as well as those who haven't.' Marie-Claire 'The book's descriptions of jjigae, tteokbokki, and other Korean delicacies stand out as tokens of the deep, all-encompassing love between Zauner and her mother, a love that is charted in vivid descriptions of her mother after death; in a time when people around the world are reckoning with untold loss due to COVID-19, Zauner's frankness around death feels like an unexpected yet deeply necessary gift.' Vogue 'Zauner's writing is powerful in its straight-forwardness, though some turns of phrases are as beautiful as any song lyric... but it is her ability to convey how her mother's simple offering of a rice snack was actually an act of the truest love that leaves the most indelible impression.' Refinery 29 'Poignant . . . A tender, well-rendered, heart-wrenching account of the way food ties us to those who have passed. The author delivers mouthwatering descriptions of dishes like pajeon, jatjuk, and gimbap, and her storytelling is fluid, honest, and intimate . . . Zauner's ability to let us in through taste makes her book stand out- she makes us feel like we are in her mother's kitchen, singing her praises.' Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Details

ISBN13: 9781529033793
Format: Paperback / softback
Number of Pages: 256
Edition:
Publication Date: 31 May 2022
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Publication City, Country: London, United Kingdom
Dimensions (cm): 19.6(H)x13(L)x1.7(W)178
Weight (gm): 178

Author Biography

Michelle Zauner is best known as a singer and guitarist who creates dreamy, shoegaze-inspired indie pop under the name Japanese Breakfast. She has won acclaim from major music outlets around the world for releases like Psychopomp and Soft Sounds from Another Planet. Her third album, Jubilee, released in 2021. Crying in H Mart is her first book.

Reviews

Extraordinary . . . This is a book about loss that is also about love; it’s a book about South Korea that is also about West Coast small town America; it’s a story that is both beautiful and heartbreaking; it is as raw as it is precious. I bawled my eyes out, but I also loved it and I hope you do too -- Dua Lipa
'Crying In H Mart destroyed me . . . It’s fantastic' -- Olivia Rodrigo
Incredible . . . It absolutely wrecked me . . . So, so emotional -- Natalie Portman
I cried my way through all of it . . . It is so beautiful and so incredible . . . I was so moved, and I cannot hype it up enough. You guys need to read it for yourselves -- Kaia Gerber
Michelle Zauner's Crying In H Mart is as good as everyone says it is and, yes, it will have you in tears. An essential read for anybody who has lost a loved one, as well as those who haven't * Marie Claire *
Brilliant . . . A simultaneously joyful and gut-wrenching account of a highly complicated mother-daughter relationship -- The Evening Standard, 'Best Memoirs of All Time'
The best book I’ve read in the past year . . . frank, lyrical, humorous -- Claudia Roden, Financial Times
The book’s descriptions of jjigae, tteokbokki, and other Korean delicacies stand out as tokens of the deep, all-encompassing love between Zauner and her mother, a love that is charted in vivid descriptions of her mother after death; in a time when people around the world are reckoning with untold loss due to COVID-19, Zauner’s frankness around death feels like an unexpected yet deeply necessary gift * Vogue US *
A beautiful, honest and stylish account of grief, food and heritage. The way Zauner writes about food and how it acts as a bridge between her and her mother, her culture, her sense of self, is brilliantly written -- Nikesh Shukla, author of Brown Baby
Crying in H Mart stunned me - with its truthfulness and the force of its yearning. Beautiful, intimate, powerful, it is an unforgettable portrayal of grief and the bond between mother and daughter -- Catherine Cho, author of Inferno
Zauner brings dish after dish to life on the page in a rich broth of delectable details, cultural context and the personal history often packed into every bite. . . [Crying in H Mart] will ultimately thrill Japanese Breakfast fans and provide comfort to those in the throes of loss while brilliantly detailing the colorful panorama of Korean culture, traditions and — yes — food' * San Francisco Chronicle *
Crying in H Mart is a warm and wholehearted work of literature, an honest and detailed account of grief over time, studded with moments of hope, humor, beauty, and clear-eyed observation. It is not to be missed * Seattle Times *
Crying in H Mart is palpable in its grief and its tenderness, reminding us what we all stand to lose * Vulture *