LONGLISTED FOR THE DYLAN THOMAS PRIZE 2021
In South Korea, where impossible beauty standards and ruthless social hierarchies dictate your every move, four women are balancing on a razor's edge:
Kyuri, a beautiful 'room salon' girl paid to entertain wealthy businessmen after hours.
Miho, an artist whose life becomes enmeshed with the offspring of the super-wealthy elite.
Ara, a hairstylist whose obsession with a K-pop star leads her to violent extremes.
Wonna, their neighbour, pregnant with a child that she can't afford.
Set in the drinking dens and beauty salons of Seoul, If I Had Your Face is an electrifying debut novel about female strength, resilience and the solace that friendship can provide.
If I Had Your Face by Frances Cha
Frances Cha is the author of the novel If I Had Your Face, which was named one of the Best Books of the Year by Time Magazine, NPR, BBC and Esquire among other publications and is being translated into 12 languages.
Born in Minnesota, she moved to Texas at age 4, Hong Kong at age 8 and South Korea at age 11. She received her MFA in fiction from Columbia University, where she received a Dean’s Fellowship. She worked as the assistant managing editor of Samsung Economic Research Institute’s business journal in Seoul, and as a travel and culture editor for CNN in Seoul and Hong Kong. She has taught media studies at Ewha Womens University and creative writing at Yonsei University.
She currently teaches fiction in the MFA program at Columbia University.
She divides her time between New York and Seoul.