Grace Jahng Lee’s project for the 2021 Jack Straw Writers Program is a novel about a Korean-American family, incorporating themes of memory and intergenerational trauma. In her conversation with curator E.J. Koh, they discuss the enduring impacts of the Korean War, and the challenges of preserving stories from the past. “Sometimes you have to forget to survive, right? . . . And through my writing, I guess I’m always pushing against that, but yet also trying to respect the fact that a lot of what I’m writing is a source of trauma, not only for me but for many people who were involved in those stories.”

Music by Andrew Weathers, produced in part through the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.