Please Look After Mom

　　為了慶祝爸媽的生日，我們特地邀請他們從老家來到首爾。沒想到，媽媽卻和爸爸在地鐵站走散了。在一陣慌亂與相互指責為何沒人照顧爸媽後，我們兄妹終 於冷靜下來，開始寫起尋人啟事。但，該怎麼描述媽媽呢？久未相見的她，還是我們印象中的模樣嗎？那個老是叮嚀我們千萬別餓肚子的媽媽？那個總是要我們別擔心，好好照顧自己的媽媽？而我們上次耐心聽媽媽說話，又是什麼時候了？

　　我對媽媽如此模糊的描述，別人認得嗎？哥哥和妹妹心中的媽媽呢？媽媽在爸爸心中呢？而媽媽自己最真實的模樣呢？當我們開始復原每個人對媽媽的記憶時，這才驚覺，原來她早已在我們心裡走失了……希望還找得到她。

　　如果你們看見她，請照顧我媽媽。

　　A million-plus-copy best seller in South Korea and poised to become an international sensation—Please Look After Mom is the stunning, deeply moving story of a family’s search for their mother, and of the desires, heartaches, and secrets they discover she harbored within.

　　On a family visit to the city, Mom is right behind her husband when the train pulls out of Seoul Station without her, and she is lost, possibly forever. As her children argue over how to find her and her husband returns to their countryside home to wait for her, they each recall their lives with her, their memories often more surprising than comforting. Have they lived up to her expectations? Was she happy? Through the piercing voices of daughter, son, and husband, and through Mom’s own words in the novel’s shattering conclusion, we learn what happened that day, and explore an even deeper mystery — of motherhood itself.

　　At once steeped in the beauty and complexities of the East and rich with a universal tenderness, Please Look After Mom has a revelatory emotional power. You will never think of your mother the same way again after you’ve read this book.

　　★本書中譯版《請照顧我媽媽》由圓神出版。

作者簡介

申京淑 (Kyung-sook Shin)

　　韓國著名小說家，暢銷天后。被譽為韓國九○年代後的文學神話，廿年來榮獲各大文學獎項肯定，被譽為「皇女」。

　　一九六三年出生，畢業於首爾藝術大學文學創作系。一九八五年推出處女作，即獲得新人文學獎肯定。她認為，小說就是做夢，能幫助自己克服虛無人生的強大武器。她的寫作企圖與氣魄是「哪怕撕掉了封面，但是只要讀上五、六頁就能知道這一定是申京淑的小說。」

　　《請照顧我媽媽》構思廿餘年，作者的母親是文盲，不懂自己女兒的寫作成就（如同本書主角）。因此作者認為必須為自己與所有人的母親寫一個故事。推出後立刻登上韓國各大暢銷榜冠軍書，被奉為母愛聖經，也是韓國人的必讀之書。

　　Kyung-sook Shin is the author of numerous works of fiction and is one of South Korea’s most widely read and acclaimed novelists. She has been honored with the Manhae Literature Prize, the Dong-in Literature Prize, and the Yi Sang Literary Prize, as well as France’s Prix de l’Inapercu. Please Look After Mom is her first book to appear in English and will be published in nineteen countries. Currently a visiting scholar at Columbia University in New York City, she lives in Seoul.