Fox Girl
By Nora Okja Keller
2002
Set in the aftermath of the Korean War, Fox Girl tells the haunting story of Hyun Jin and Sookie, two teenage girls abandoned by both their country and their family, struggling to survive in a shattered society. Sookie, kept by an American soldier, survives as a prostitute near the U.S. military base, while Hyun Jin, once a factory worker’s daughter, is pulled into the same world of exploitation and survival. Alongside them is Lobetto, a streetwise boy who lives by hustling and pimping for local girls. Together, the trio forms a fragile, makeshift family amid poverty, racism, and the predatory gaze of occupying forces. Keller illuminates how systems of war and colonization crush innocence while offering glimpses of fierce love and fleeting solidarity.
With unflinching honesty and deep empathy, Fox Girl expands upon the themes of intergenerational trauma and female resilience that defined Keller’s debut, Comfort Woman. The novel explores the social fallout of the U.S. military presence in Korea, focusing on the marginalized women and children often left out of official histories. Keller’s narrative critiques imperialism, gendered violence, and the commodification of Asian bodies. Yet within that bleak landscape, she traces the strength of found families, the ache of lost childhood, and the enduring, complicated bonds between mothers and daughters.
About the Author:
Nora Okja Keller is a Korean American author whose fiction explores themes of multigenerational trauma, memory, and identity shaped by war and colonialism. She earned a B.A. in psychology and English from the University of Hawaii and later completed an M.A. and Ph.D. in American Literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Comfort Woman is her debut novel and has received critical acclaim for its lyrical prose and emotional depth, winning the American Book Award and Elliot Cades Award. Keller’s work draws on her upbringing in Hawaii and her Korean heritage, particularly her relationship with her mother and early exposure to Asian American literature. Keller was inspired by the testimony of a former comfort woman at a 1993 human rights symposium.