The Stone Home by Crystal Hana Kim

Worth Reading!

The Stone Home, by Crystal Hana Kim, is an moving story about Eunju and Sangchul, two teens who were abducted from the streets and sent to a placed called the Stone Home. It is a tale about family relationships, loyalty, resilience, and terror.

Set in South Korea during the 1980's, it is story of people taken from the streets in Korea and spirited away to 'rehabilitation' homes.

These homes did not rehabilitate them. They were places where children and adults worked in slave-like conditions, were fed very little, and were often abused.

The Warden and the Teacher are the only officials in the home. The remainder of the jobs are done by the children. It pits Keepers, older boys who had turned 16 and were selected to keep the others in line, against the people they once suffered with.

At one point in the story when the Warden and Teacher were angry, one of the Keepers called Mosquito thought up a plan to preserve the Keepers places.

"Mosquito looked back at the tables, the swirling chatter, resolve creasing his forehead. 'We show them we're Keepers. Show them they can't blame us. Warden and Teacher will see; we know what we're doing.'"

Inspired by historical events in Korea, The Stone House vividly traces a terrible period in South Korean history. While Kim was researching an artist's residency called Gyeonggi Creation Center, she learned that it was used as a concentration camp during the Japanese colonial period.

Kim mentions in her Author's Note, '...I read Kim Tong-Hyung and Foster Klug's investigative article ... "S. Korea Covered Up Mass Abuse, Killings of 'Vagrants,' which exposed human rights atrocities at institutions throughout South Korea in the years leading up to the 1988 Seoul Olympics." The atrocities in the 1980's were not that different from those during the Japanese colonial period.

Crystal Hana Kim writes simply and with passion. She is a 2017 winner of the PEN/Robert J. Dau Short Story Prize. The Stone Home is her second published novel.