Broken Summer

A death, a lie, a secret. For twenty-six summers he didn’t have the courage to face the past.

Lee Hanjo is an artist at the peak of his fame, envied and celebrated. Then, on his forty-third birthday, he awakens to find that his devoted wife has disappeared, leaving behind a soon-to-be-published novel she’d secretly written about the sordid past and questionable morality of an artist with a trajectory similar to Hanjo’s. It’s clear to him that his life is about to shatter and the demons from his past will come out. But why did his wife do it? Why now?

The book forces Hanjo to reflect on a summer from his youth when a deadly lie irreversibly and tragically determined the fates of two families.

From master storyteller J. M. Lee, one of Korea’s most renowned authors, comes an unforgettable novel of hidden truths, denials, and their inevitable repercussions. Everyone still left standing from that terrible summer so long ago must finally reckon with the deceptions that started it all and, twist after shocking twist, reap both the suffering and the vindication that comes with revenge.

J. M. Lee’s books have sold millions of copies in his native Korea. He is the author of Painter of the Wind, the historical mystery that launched his career and was adapted into a popular and award-winning television series in Korea; The Boy Who Escaped Paradise; The Investigation, nominated for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and among the final six books selected for the Italian literary prize Premio Bancarella; and Broken Summer, an instant bestseller in Korea and currently in production as a television series.

An Seon Jae is an award-winning translator who was born in England in 1942. He has lived in Korea since 1980 and took Korean nationality in 1994. He has published fifty collections of translated modern Korean poetry under the name Brother Anthony and currently translates contemporary Korean fiction under his Korean name. He is a professor emeritus at Sogang University and a chair professor at Dankook University in Seoul, and he has been a member of the Community of Taizé in France since 1969.