Palimpsest Documents from a Korean adoption

Sjöblom opens with definitions of two seemingly unrelated, yet brilliantly paired, words: palimpsest, a very old text or document in which writing has been removed and covered or replaced by new writing, and adoption, the act of legally taking a child to be taken care of as your own. In May 1979, two-year-old Chung Wool Rim became Lisa Sjöblom, part of a 9,000-plus statistic of Korean children sent to Sweden as adoptees in the 1970s to '80s. Her birth identity and birth culture are completely erased, making her an empty vessel for other people to fill with their own story. Inevitably, our first families disappear completely from our own stories. And so do we. In her mid-twenties, Sjöblom began the reclamation of her origin story, embarking on a decades-long grueling odyssey, which she meticulously documents in her graphic novel debut, originally published in Sweden in 2016, translated here by Sjöblom herself; her partner, Richey Wyver; and polyglot translator Strömberg. Raw, can't-turn-away, angry Sjöblom confronts the gaping holes . . . filled with lies to vitally, finally tell her own authentic story.--Terry Hong Copyright 2020 Booklist

Sjöblom delivers an often searing and poignant, if occasionally tedious, graphic memoir of her quest to unearth her roots. Despite being raised in Sweden by loving adoptive parents, who did their best expose her to the Korean culture of her ancestry, Sjöblom struggles with racism and an internal "sense of not fully existing." With help from her husband and a Korean-raised friend, she begins an investigation into her origins that reveals the dark history of foreign adoption: children "laundered like money and transformed into legal 'paper orphans.' " The participating institutions, meanwhile, do their best to dismiss, obfuscate, and gaslight Sjöblom as she investigates, though the experience of her sifting through layers of paperwork and bureaucracy can be less than riveting. Sjöblom inks her story on parchment and transcribes numerous emails and letters over illustrations of envelopes. Her round, sweet-faced characters are set against black-and-parchment backdrops. Sometimes the result is overly text-heavy; more often, Sjöblom's loneliness and frustration churns on the page. An unflinching indictment of foreign adoption, Sjöblom's story is also, ironically, an homage to the chosen family who help her find her first family. (Oct.)