(from our correspondent Mauretta Capuano)
Susan Choi, one of the most acclaimed voices in contemporary American literature, drew on the void left by a father's disappearance to tell the story, in her latest novel 'Flashlight' (Mondadori), of "how little we actually know the people closest to us. We think we know them well, but that's not the case."
Louisa, age 10, walks along a now-dark beach with her father Serk, who is carrying a flashlight and cannot swim. A few hours later, there is no trace of her father. She is found near death at the water's edge.
"I explored what the emotions and experiences of the remaining characters would have been, what their reactions to the disaster that had befallen them would have been. I had no plans for how their relationships would evolve or what choices they would make. Page after page I asked myself: what will they do now? In fact, the mother Anne and the daughter Louisa, left on their own, survived this disappearance but instead of coming together, of being closer, of drawing near to each other, they drifted apart. The distance between them grew over time, they became suspicious of one another, they grew angry. Exactly the opposite of what should happen in a mother-daughter relationship, and this has to do precisely with the fact that very often, in what we consider our closest and most important relationships, there is a lack of that intimacy and knowledge we assume characterizes them. Even if not in such a profound form, I have experienced this in my own life, among my friends. My curiosity was to understand why all of this happens," Susan Choi, who lives in Brooklyn, tells ANSA. Her father is Korean, her mother American. She won the National Book Award for 'Trust Exercise' and was shortlisted for the 2025 Booker Prize for 'Flashlight.' Did she find an answer?
"No, but another element the book explores is the fact that very often we ourselves are unable to know ourselves. We tell ourselves lies, we keep secrets from ourselves, we fail to recognize our own fears. So it was more of a reflection on the difficulties we have in knowing ourselves. When we manage to get close to and truly know another person, that is almost a miracle."
America is approaching the midterm elections on November 3rd. Will anything change? "Obviously I hope for change because we cannot keep going on this way. Above all, I hope the elections take place without interference. There are changes underway in the United States right now that give me hope. The situation is so terrible that in a certain sense it can almost be an advantage for us, because while it is true that Trump is very powerful and has a strange talent for imposing his will on others, he is not a shrewd man, he is not a subtle man, he is not a far-sighted man. It is as if right now he has the ability to destroy anything. And the people who previously supported him are now falling out of love with him. The situation is getting a little out of control and most people think things cannot continue this way. But among the many problems facing the United States is the issue of voter turnout, which is very low. This time I hope people understand that their vote is a matter of life and death, that they must go out and vote," Choi explains.
In over 500 pages, 'Flashlight' follows the complex events
of the Kang family across approximately seventy years between Korea, Japan and the United States. "I wanted to write pages about Japan in the 1970s. I had visited it and wanted to reconstruct the atmosphere of those years. I started from a break and then went backwards. It is impossible to ignore my origins and my family, although the protagonists of the book are very different from my father and my mother, yet the themes are somewhat the same. My parents came from different cultures and countries and this difference inevitably led them to have two totally opposing views of the world and a different attitude on practically any event. Their marriage was not a success at all but, after the divorce, they remained friends. That is why I find it fascinating to understand how different circumstances and situations can then come together," says Choi.
In this great family saga, written over five years, she once again explores roots, memory, geographical differences and the Korean diaspora. "I read a great many testimonies from people in prison who managed to escape. It was," she says, "the hardest part."
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