SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
"The Last Tiger" is a new novel for young readers that's both a fantasy and a parable, inspired by terrible events. Julia and Brad Riew, sister and brother, remember stories they heard from their grandparents about the Japanese occupation of Korea that lasted from 1910 to 1945. Their book is set in a fantasyland - the occupied Tiger Kingdom. The people have been subjugated, and tigers are all but extinguished by the invading Dragon Empire. Two young people, Eunji and Seung, from separate social spheres, are thrown together whether they like it or not. Julia Riew, a composer and playwright, joins us from our studios in New York. Thanks so much for being with us.
JULIA RIEW: Hi. Thanks so much for having me.
SIMON: What kind of stories did you hear from your grandparents?
RIEW: So growing up, our grandparents were both pretty avid storytellers. Every time we'd visit them, they would tell these amazing, very colorful stories about their past. Our grandmother came from a really prominent family in Korea, and our grandfather was on the absolute opposite end. And one of their favorite stories to tell was this story about their forbidden romance. They were forbidden by their parents from seeing each other, mostly by my grandmother's parents. But they would find ways to secretly communicate and to sneak out and go on these secret dates.
It really wasn't until my grandfather passed away in 2020 that we got sort of a really full, comprehensive story. My grandmother ended up writing down, like, 50 pages of memories from her life with my grandpa. And I actually ended up finding this email from my grandfather where he had also detailed his forbidden romance with my grandmother, way back when I was in high school. And at the end, he'd written, will you turn this into a fictional story? So after poring through our grandmother's memoir journal and reading through this email from my grandfather, we were just so inspired to share their story with the world in a new and fresh way.
SIMON: Tell us about the state of this kingdom you've created in this novel for young readers. Why does the Dragon regime consider tigers so dangerous?
RIEW: This is really inspired by true events. During the Japanese occupation of Korea, there was a very clear effort on the Japanese Empire to eliminate Korean culture. That manifested in banning the Korean language, Korean businesses, Korean clothing. And they started hunting down the Korean tigers, which are Korea's national animal, and they actually drove them to extinction. So in our novel, these tigers are really magical manifestations of Korean culture. I think that culture is really the heart and courage and the hope of a people. And so if you can crush someone's culture and if you can erase their history and erase their collective memory, that is when you weaken a people. And so for us, in our story, the Dragon Empire is doing this to the tiger colonies, just as Japan did to Korea. But there's sort of this more magical spin that we've taken to present this in an accessible and lively and whimsical fantasy world.
SIMON: Let me ask you about your characters, Eunji and Seung. Because they're both born, in a sense, into a life they're expected to live - aren't they? - in which there's not much freedom, although one is much more comfortable than the other.
RIEW: Yeah. Yeah. So Seung and Eunji - they are directly inspired by our grandparents. Seung is - he's a servant, and he's yearning for freedom. Eunji is this noble girl who is seeking to escape her destiny. It seems like they come from these opposite worlds where Eunji has everything and Seung has nothing. But in reality, Eunji is very, very trapped in her situation. She's got her entire life essentially laid out for her. And Seung, on the other hand, while he feels like he cannot rise above his stature, he has this loving family and this support and a bit of freedom.
They each have something that the other's longing for. And through that, they sort of enter into this reluctant collaboration where they are simultaneously rebelling against the forces that are trapping them. Outside forces end up separating them, which is actually something that happened to my grandparents. Outside forces physically separated them. And in real life, our grandparents found each other again. And in the book, Seung and Eunji also find each other again, but I won't spoil exactly how that happens.
SIMON: You have written this novel, "The Last Tiger," with your brother, Brad Riew. What's that kind of partnership like?
RIEW: (Laughter) So people ask us this all the time. It's funny 'cause a lot of people are often - often say, I could never write a book with my sibling. I - we would argue so much, and we - you know. But Brad and I, while we definitely had disagreements, I think there's something really special about - this story's a family story. And the two of us, as siblings, understand each other's brains sort of on another level. Brad really specializes in history and spirituality and sort of these deep, resonating, emotional moments and description. And for me, with my background in theater, I specialize in plot and character and dialogue and action.
And there's also - there's no pretense. There's no sort of ego or sugarcoating. We really are able to be very fully honest with each other. And we just honestly had so much fun with it. Brad and I have been collaborating since I was literally born. We used to play storytelling games when I was growing up. He would tell stories. I would jump on the bed, and I'd say, oh, and then this happens. And he'd say, and then this happens. And I would say, and this happens. And that's pretty much exactly how we ended up writing the book.
SIMON: You've been doing this a long time, then, haven't you?
RIEW: (Laughter) He is my oldest collaborator.
SIMON: August 15 will be the 80th year since the liberation of Korea from Japan. What are your hopes for Korea today? The country is not occupied but divided, and a cruel regime prevails in the north.
RIEW: I think we are living in a really interesting moment right now. Really, in the last 10 years, Korea has exploded in terms of media representation and in terms of excitement about Korea. We just saw on Netflix "KPop Demon Hunters" is the No. 1 movie. It's been really interesting as a Korean American. Brad and I grew up really far away from our homeland. We grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, where we really didn't know many other Koreans. We weren't reading novels that were about Korean people. I think growing up, I didn't even know that stories could be about Korean people because of the context in which we were living. And now things are really, really different.
And so I think as authors, our place in this is sharing our story, which is a story about how to find hope when hope is lost and how to find hope amongst the people that are around us. And so the way that we really want to contribute to the time is by sharing stories. And that's what we're doing now, and that's what we'll continue to do.
SIMON: Julia Riew - her new novel, written with her brother, Brad Riew, "The Last Tiger." Thank you so much for being with us.
RIEW: Thank you so much for having me.
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