Author Eve J. Chung’s latest novel The Young Will Remember follows a Chinese American war correspondent who has made a name for herself covering the women at the heart of the Korean War. After being stranded in a place she’s only known as enemy territory, the two worlds that Eleanor “Ellie” Chang has straddled her entire life become one, and she is left with one ally and enemy in the same: humanity.
Chung, a Taiwanese American human rights lawyer focusing on gender equality, has delivered a well-researched, historical novel that tackles some topics American history books and school curriculums often fail to address: the Korean War (known as “the Forgotten War” for a reason), war-time sexual violence, and the impact of mass bombings on civilians.
After being turned away from press briefings and denied the opportunities afforded to her white, male colleagues, Ellie decides to take her reporting instincts elsewhere. She hitches a ride with a military plane largely carrying injured men. When their plane is shot down in North Korean territory, Ellie is saved by a North Korean woman who claims Ellie as her long lost daughter, Yun-Hee, a girl who was drafted — at 14 — during the Imperial Japanese occupation of Korea.
As Ellie gets to know this woman, she learns that Yun-Hee is missing: The mother fears her daughter was forced to become a “comfort woman” and won’t acknowledge the possibility that she is dead.
During World War II, which took place shortly before the events of this novel, the Japanese Imperial Army implemented “comfort stations” — a system that forced women from Japanese colonies, including Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines and more to become sex slaves. Later in the novel, Chung references Kim Hak-soon, a victim of sexual slavery who publicly testified about her experience in 1991, opening the floodgates for other survivors to come forward.
