One Left: A Novel
Soom Kim
Translated by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton
2020, University of Washington Press
One Left: A Novel tells the harrowing and deeply human story of a 91-year-old former “comfort woman” — one of the many Korean girls and women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War II. Living in isolation and silence for decades, the narrator has never told anyone about her past. But when she hears on the news that only one former comfort woman is still alive, she begins to revisit her buried memories. The novel shifts between her painful recollections of being abducted at age 13 and her present-day life, where she forms a quiet bond with a neighbor girl and begins to reckon with her trauma.
The novel is both a personal story of survival and a broader meditation on historical erasure, justice, and remembrance. Kim Soom masterfully explores how trauma lingers across time, and how the act of speaking — even late in life — can become an act of resistance. By giving voice to a woman who had long been silenced, One Left underscores the importance of acknowledging these atrocities not just as historical facts, but as ongoing legacies that shape identity and truth.
About the Author:
Soom Kim is a South Korean novelist acclaimed for her unflinching literary portrayals of historical trauma, particularly those involving marginalized voices in Korean history. She studied creative writing at the Seoul Institute of the Arts and began publishing fiction in the late 1990s. One Left was the first Korean novel to focus solely on the life of a former comfort woman, was based on extensive research and survivor testimonies, including those archived by the Korean Council for Justice and Remembrance. Kim explores memory, silence, and the ethics of witness, cementing her reputation as a writer deeply committed to historical reckoning and literary compassion.