Daughters of Jinyao Pharmacy

Author: Park Jeong-ri
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-10-01
Features: One of the renowned works of Korean literature, the novel vividly portrays the ordinary lives of Koreans nearly a century ago. Many of the depicted life phenomena have vanished today, yet they possess a nostalgic charm. Park Jeong-ri is a prolific and celebrated contemporary female writer in Korea, and Daughters of the Golden Medicine Office is one of her significant works. Since debuting on the Korean literary scene in 1955, Park Jeong-ri's short story The Unbelieving Era won the Third Modern Literature Newcomer Award in Korea, while her novel The Map of Drifting received the Third Literature Award. In 1962, she published the novel Daughters of the Golden Medicine Office, which garnered widespread acclaim upon release. It has been reprinted over fifty times to date and has remained a bestseller for over three decades, having also been adapted into films and television dramas.
The Kim Yak-joo family lived during the turbulent era of internal strife and external hardships in Korean society from 1894 to 1930. From the of their ancestors and the trials of the second generation to the joys and sorrows of the third generation's five daughters, the novel presents a series of touching and heart-wrenching stories, as well as scenes of a large family's decline from prosperity to ruin. It unfolds the modern history of the Korean people's suffering before the readers' eyes. The novel is filled with a rich yet rustic atmosphere, and its simple, pure-hearted tales leave a profound impression.