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*Now available in a NEW paperback edition

“The title of Chung’s exquisite novel seems to be missing a word: “not long for this world” would be the easy, expected phrase. But little is easy or expected in this multilayered story… Readers who enjoyed superbly crafted, globe-trotting family sagas such as Kamila Shamsie’s Burnt Shadows, Naeem Murr’s The Perfect Man, or Chang-rae Lee’s A Gesture Life will swoon over Chung’s breathtaking debut.” —Library Journal (starred review)

“A powerful debut from a young writer of great talent and promise.”    —Kate Walbert, National Book Award finalist and New York Times bestselling author of Our Kind and A Short History of Women

“Chung presents each scene with confidence… one of the joys in reading this debut is connecting the pieces, then stepping back for the big view: the intricate and nuanced family story that emerges.”    —Celeste Ng, best-selling author of Everything I Never Told You, Little Fires Everywhere, and Our Missing Hearts

. . .

In 1953, on a remote island in South Korea, a young boy stows away on the ferry that is carrying his older brother to the mainland. Fifty-two years later, Han Hyun-gyoo is on a plane back to Korea, leaving behind his wife and grown children in America. His daughter, Jane, a war photographer, journeys to the coastal South Korean town where her uncles settled to find him. Father and daughter take refuge from their demons, unearth passions, and, in the wake of tragedy, find their way to enduring truths and love.

Moving fluidly between familial intimacies and the global stage—Iraq, Darfur, Paris, Syria—Long For This World evokes whole worlds through the details of a carefully prepared meal or a momentary encounter, illuminating the resonances between world affairs and personal trauma and healing.

. . .

“A lyrical and insightful debut novel.”
—The Boston Globe

“Chung writes with great empathy and clarity. Her characters are lovingly fleshed out in direct, yet often haunting prose. For the novel’s ambitious scope—spanning multiple decades, continents, generations, cultures and wars—this is really an intimate work… urgent and satisfying.”
–Hyphen Magazine

“[A] beautiful book that focuses on the small but complicated negotiations of a family, and larger, global questions of identity, art, and happiness. . . I loved it.  It’s so gracefully told, and rich–not to mention riveting.”
-Edan Lepucki, The Millions

“When a novel, particularly a debut novel, is referred to as ‘ambitious,’ there’s usually an implicit ‘but’ present. In Long for This World, Sonya Chung takes on the dynamics of family—what draws it together and what pulls it apart—through the eyes of a number of players, male and female, old and young, Korean and Korean-American. Both her subject matter and her approach are ambitious, to say the least. The only ‘but’ in my reaction, however, is but she pulls it off—and admirably… Chung balances multiple time frames and points of view well, the voices identifiable without resorting to a shorthand of quirks… her touch is light throughout, and her ear is good… This is a skillful and heartfelt debut.”
–Open Letters Monthly /Like Fire

“For “hyphenated” authors […] using ethnicity and personal experiences can all too often lead to stories involving new immigrants, diasporas and a citizen of the “new” world returning back to his familial and traditional roots. There are however some stories that rise above formula, extending their reach beyond the Asian-American, yielding a more universally appealing novel. SONYA CHUNG’s debut novel LONG FOR THIS WORLD takes a familiar theme — the tensions within a family straddling new and old, modernity and tradition — and builds something far more complex, detailed and illuminating.”
–Asian Review of Books