Catherine Cho + Vanessa Chan: The Devoted

Moderating this discussion is internationally bestselling author Vanessa Chan. This event will be hosted in the Strand Book Store's 3rd floor Rare Book Room at 828 Broadway on 12th Street.

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In this emotionally transportive literary debut about family and fate, a young Korean woman becomes entrenched in an infamous crime organization—and the dangerous world she once sought to escape.

Raised in Hong Kong by their Korean grandmother in a quiet village, Eunha and her brother Solomon live a sheltered life. Their father is a Dragon Head, a leader within the infamous criminal organization of the Triads. While their beloved grandmother does her best to shield the children from the constant hum of violence and fear that surrounds their father and his world, Eunha only has Solomon and their one permitted companion, a boy named Kai, for company.

But as Eunha grows up and marries into a supposedly respectable Hong Kong family, the veneer of her careful life begins to crack. When her young son is kidnapped, she is cast into the city’s criminal underground and back into the orbit of Kai, now a Dragon Head himself.

Will Eunha finally give in to the life she has strived so hard to rise above or was her future always fated?
The Devoted is at once a sweeping family drama, a moving account of forbidden love, and a story about a woman’s determination to choose her own destiny.

Photo credit: Teddy Cho

Catherine Cho is the acclaimed author of The Devoted and the memoir Inferno. She was shortlisted for The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year 2020 and shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize. Catherine also runs her own literary agency Paper Literary. Originally from the United States, she now lives with her family in London.

Vanessa Chan is the Malaysian author of internationally bestselling The Storm We Made, a Good Morning America Book Club Pick, BBC Radio 2 Book Club pick, and New York Times Editor’s Choice. The novel, her first, will be translated into more than twenty languages worldwide. Her other work has been published in Vogue, Esquire, and more.