Jun | A Graphic Memoir

With spare, essential brushstrokes, Keum Suk Gendry-Kim tells the true story of Jun in a manwa (Korean comic) — a boy with autism growing up in the 1990s in a South Korea that offered little room for inclusion. From his childhood, when his parents tried to hide him out of shame, through school bullying and into the anxieties of his future, the graphic narrative maps the difficult terrain of family life with disability. Gendry-Kim chooses tenderness over melodrama, working hard to stir not pity but genuine compassion, through words and images that never overreach. "I drew this story," she writes in the afterword, "because when I meet people like Jun and his family, I hope readers will respect them and take a step toward them." We hope for that too.