Grass

Appeared on best of the year lists from The New York Times. , The Guardian. , and more. Winner of The Cartoonist Studio Prize for Best Print Comic of the Year. Grass. is a powerful antiwar graphic novel, telling the life story of a Korean girl named Okseon Lee who was forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese Imperial Army during the Second World War-a disputed chapter in twentieth-century Asian history. Beginning in Lee's childhood, Grass. shows the lead-up to the war from a child's vulnerable perspective, detailing how one person experienced the Japanese occupation and the widespread suffering it entailed for ordinary Koreans. Keum Suk Gendry-Kim emphasizes Lee's strength in overcoming the many forms of adversity she experienced. Grass. is painted in a black ink that flows with lavish details of the beautiful fields and farmland of Korea and uses heavy brushwork on the somber interiors of Lee's memories. The cartoonist Gendry-Kim's interviews with Lee become an integral part of Grass. , forming the heart and architecture of this powerful nonfiction graphic novel and offering a holistic view of how Lee's wartime suffering changed her. Grass. is a landmark graphic novel that makes personal the desperate cost of war and the importance of peace.