Book - Crying in H Mart: A Memoir

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the indie rock sensation known as Japanese Breakfast, an unforgettable memoir about family, food, grief, love, and growing up Korean American— “in losing her mother and cooking to bring her back to life, Zauner became herself” (NPR) • OVER ONE YEAR ON THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER LIST

In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a talented singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humor and heart, she tells of growing up one of the few Asian American kids at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother’s high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother’s tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond late at night over plates of gochujang-slathered kimbap.

As she got older—moving to the East Coast for college, working in the restaurant industry, and performing in her nascent band—her Korean identity felt more and more distant, even as she found the life she wanted. It was her mother’s diagnosis of terminal cancer, at age twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her Korean American identity and changed Zauner’s life, as she reclaims the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her.

Vivacious and honest, poetic and earnest, Zauner’s voice is as bright on the page as it is onstage. Rich with intimate anecdotes that will resonate widely and featuring family photos, Crying in H Mart is a book to cherish, share, and reread.