This first-ever English translation recovers the overlooked and disavowed stories of Korea’s most marginalized women. The first Korean novel devoted to this subject, it rekindled conversations about comfort women as well as the violent legacies of Japanese colonialism.
One Left is a provocative, extensively researched novel constructed from the testimonies of dozens of comfort women. Yet, when she learns that the last known comfort woman is dying, she decides to tell her there will still be “one left” after her passing, and embarks on a painful journey. She has never been able to marry or have children, a fate that befell many of the survivors. The narrator estimates that 30,000 men violated her over the seven years she was held captive in Manchuria. The horrors of her life as a sex slave follow her back to Korea, where she lives in isolation gripped by the fear that her past will be discovered. One Left: A Novel, Kim Soom, Bruce Fulton (trans), Ju-Chan Fulton (trans) Kim bases her narrative on real testimonies of victims. Kim Soom tells the story of a woman who was kidnapped at the age of thirteen while gathering snails for her starving family. Since then, self-declared comfort women have come forward only to have their testimonies and calls for compensation largely denied by the Japanese government. Barely 10 percent survived to return to Korea, where they lived as social outcasts.
They lived in horrific conditions in “comfort stations” across Japanese-occupied territories. Read One Left, by Kim Soom online on Bookmate During the Pacific War, more than 200,000 Korean girls were forced into sexual servitude for Japanese soldiers. During the Pacific War, more than 200,000 Korean girls were forced into sexual servitude for Japanese soldiers.
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