Simple Heart: A Novel

**A Best Book of the Year So Far by *The New Yorker*
In this moving exploration of dual identities reminiscent of *Past Lives* , a writer’s pregnancy raises questions about her own childhood abandonment.**
Nana, a Korean-born playwright, was adopted as a child and raised in France by her adoptive parents. Pregnant with the child of her ex-boyfriend, Nana receives a request from a Korean filmmaker who wishes to make a documentary about her life. Following a sudden compulsion to learn more about her roots, she heads to Seoul as she prepares to bring a new life into the world. There, through unexpected encounters, the dark threads of her memory gradually begin to unravel.
*Simple Heart* delves into profound questions about identity and belonging, with a focus on family connections and motherhood that recalls Kyung-Sook Shin’s *Please Look After Mom*. It also shines a necessary light on issues such as international adoption and the historic US military presence in Korea.