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Heart Eater: A Memoir of Immigration, Belonging, and How We Find Ourselves in Language

Price range: $14.99 through $21.95

ISBN: 9781625571786
Catalog: Black Lawrence Press
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Categories E-Books, Immigrant Writing Series, Non Fiction

Heart Eater: A Memoir of Immigration, Belonging, and How We Find Ourselves in Language

신 선 영 Sun Yung Shin

Publication Date: May 12, 2026

Description

Inaugural Selection of the Immigrant Writers on Immigrant Writing Series

Comprised of short essays, or field notes, Heart Eater: A Memoir of Immigration, Belonging, and How We Find Ourselves in Language traces 신 선 영 Sun Yung Shin’s journey from her childhood as a nameless, abandoned nine-month-old baby in Seoul, South Korea to an award-winning author.

Raised as a Korean immigrant by a white Christian family in the American Midwest, 신 선 영 Sun Yung Shin paid close attention to the power of words—especially those related to race, nation, and kinship. Through these meaningful encounters, Shin developed into a writer enthralled with language’s capacity to imagine, manifest, connect, and even heal.

Through the lens of language and immigration, Heart Eater explores the question that has obsessed Shin since childhood: “What does it mean to be American?”

Praise

Long before I was a writer, Sun Yung Shin opened my eyes to the adoption industry that brought me to America. I have trusted her ever since. Shin is a truth teller. Heart Eater is the truth. These essays, this memoir, is the book I have been waiting for. Shin is our Virgil, leading the adoptee through the rings of Hell. There is no apter, no wiser, no more generous guide.

—Matthew Salesses, author of Craft in the Real World

Sun Yung Shin artfully pushes the boundaries of the conventional memoir to reveal the existential contours of becoming a person through transnational adoption, racialization, commercialism, and the mundanities of 20th century existence.

A poetic, haunting, and delicious ride.

—Shannon Gibney, author of The Girl I Am, Was, and Never Will Be: A Speculative Memoir of Transracial Adoption, a Printz Honor book

In Heart Eater, Sun Yung Shin excavates not just a single life, but the interconnected narratives, myths, histories, and gaps present in the stories of adoptees, immigrants, and the nations that cleave them. Like the gumiho of Korean legend that she interrogates, this text is a shapeshifter: a collection of “field notes” comprising blistering essays and social, political, and literary critique, interspersed with photographs, documents, and other ephemera. Despite its rigor and lyricism, this memoir—a mirror of many layers and many facets—never loses its emotional core. As a reader, I felt Shin holding my hand as we moved through time and space together. The work stretched my understanding of the possibilities of language. I devoured this book.

—Jami Nakamura Lin, author of The Night Parade: A Speculative Memoir

About the Author

© Kyra Nygard

신 선 영 Sun Yung Shin

신 선 영 Sun Yung Shin is an award-winning poet and essayist who was born in Korea, grew up in the Chicago area, and is currently based in Minneapolis. Her work has been published widely in places such as POETRY, BOMB magazine, and the 2021 Gwangju Biennale; she speaks and presents frequently. Her fifth book of poems, Six Tones of Water, an experimental work co-written with Vi Khi Nao, was published by Ricochet Editions in 2024; her four other poetry/essay collections including The Wet Hex and Unbearable Splendor are published by Coffee House Press. She is the editor of three prose anthologies, most recently What We Hunger For: Refugee and Immigrant Stories about Food and Family and is also the author of three picture books including the forthcoming Revolutions Are Made of Love: The Story of James Boggs and Grace Lee Boggs. With poet Su Hwang she co-directs Poetry Asylum in Minneapolis.

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Raised as a Korean immigrant by a white Christian family in the American Midwest, 신 선 영 Sun Yung Shin paid close attention to the power of words—especially those related to race, nation, and kinship. Through these meaningful encounters, Shin developed into a writer enthralled with language’s capacity to imagine, manifest, connect, and even heal.

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