Nami Mun is the author of a wonderful book entitled Miles From Nowhere. I picked up this book randomly at a independent book seller down on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and from the moment I opened it, I knew I was holding something special.
Her style of prose is imaginative, light, flows freely and yet has poignant and well defined characters. It deals with a young Korean girl born in the Bronx who runs away from an alcoholic father and a emotionally defunct mother to living on the streets in the 80s and going through a series of random adventures with a variety of street personalities along the way. As with most good novels, its just as much about the way in which she's writing as what she's actually writing about.
Its always nice to experience new and unique voices, both abroad and here in the States. Mun, a Korean American immigrant writing about the harsh realities of life in a modern urban environment, certainly fits the mold. She also has this quiet tendency to evoke the deepest of emotions out of everyday situations and put them into poetical form. Needless to say, when you read her work, you're in her world.
I consider Nami Mun's Miles From Nowhere one of those books you only get every so often. A gem. I'm honestly lucky to have happened to wander into that particular book store after my lunch with Rios at cafe havana, lucky that one of the avid readers who worked there recommended this novel as one of the staff picks, and lucky that all but one had disappeared off the shelves before I stumbled in there and got my hands on this copy. Great read. Highly recommended.
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