SKULL WATER
by Heinz Insu Fenkl
A remarkable intergenerational coming-of-age novel set in South Korea—about friendship, belonging, and displacement.
"A magnificent novel with a grand vision and assured execution.”
—Ha Jin, author of Waiting
“A magical, brutal novel that shines light into the little-known world of a modernizing Korea of 1970s with its vestiges of American occupation, along with the mysteries of ancestors and the hungry ghosts of worlds we cannot see.”
—Marie Myung-Ok Lee, author of The Evening Hero
“The novel in your hands is something I never knew I’d see, born from things at least two governments hoped to hide. A mixed German Korean boy in 1970s Korea undertakes a quest to save the living with what the dead might know, and he tells us stories across time of this almost-vanished world and the lives of those thrown away by Korean society and American military forces—his family. Precious, life-altering, rebellious, funny, and full of a necessary truth.”
—Alexander Chee, author of Queen of the Night
“This is a mesmerizing take on what happens when civil war walks into a nation, leaving scarred humanity in its wake. A fascinating story of a young mixed-race man caught between two cultures, not knowing what to keep and what to leave behind. This touching book, written with grace, does more than deliver a fresh perspective on a forgotten war. It’s proof that the old, peaceful ways defeat the brutality of the new every time, with a blend of spirit, memory, and folklore, some of which is delivered by the magical spirits that walked, and still walk, this earth. We are all the same. We all walk the middle path to get home. I’m so glad that Heinz Insu Fenkl shows us how to get there.”
—James McBride, author of Deacon King Kong
“Skull Water is . . . an elegantly structured, multi-stranded work of the imagination, enhanced by some little-known historical elements, and drawing on a deep well of Korean folklore—and extremely rewarding in all of its many dimensions.”
—Madison Smartt Bell, author of All Souls Rising
Born in South Korea to a German father and a Korean mother, HEINZ INSU FENKL grew up in Korea until he was twelve and then in Germany and the United States. A professor of English at The State University of New York, New Paltz, he is known internationally for his collection of Korean folktales and translations of contemporary Korean fiction and classical Buddhist texts. He is also the author of the novel Memories of My Ghost Brother, a PEN/Hemingway Award finalist and a Barnes & Noble “Discover Great New Writers” selection. An excerpt from Skull Water, “Five Arrows,” was first published in the New Yorker. Fenkl lives in the Hudson Valley with his wife and daughter.
