Returned and Reborn

More than 200,000 South Korean infants and toddlers left their motherlands in the arms of strangers from the postwar era. "Returned and Reborn: a Tale of A Korean Orphan Boy" is the first novel about such an orphan--a boy fathered by a missionary priest who established the first Catholic Adult Institute in South Korea. This fiction is based on a true story, mixed with Korea's modern history--Vietnam War in which 300,000 South Korean troops fought (5001 were killed); the unintentional harm the American military caused to the Korean people by disposing millions of gallons of toxic chemicals called "Agent Orange" in the Korean water ways and soil; and the Korean society's contempt against children of mixed blood, children born of unwed mothers, and those born with birth defects. It's the story of a young man's journey of self discovery from an aimless American with no knowledge of himself or his roots who returns to his birth country, reunite with his Korean birth mother dying from cancer caused by consuming toxic water over time, but unexpected accident separate them permanently. Yet, through her and his deceased father's former co-workers, he learns of his father's greatness as well as his weakness, as an ambitious American Jesuit who fulfilled his big dreams but caused his birth and troublesome journey as an orphan forced to leave his mother who couldn't raise him. Still, in a mysterious way, he finds his own path--the path to a mission trip to North Korea.

Returned and Reborn is available for purchase in print and ebook formats.