As I’m warming up to other venues on the Internet, I’ve recently started a Twitter account where among other things I will post links to websites, articles, blogs and other things that I find relevant. Please, feel free to follow me on twitter.com/kharanine 🙂
My most recent Twitter posts will also be visible in the right-hand bar on my blog.
Those of you who have followed my blog may have noticed that there hasn’t been any activity for some time. The main reason for this is simply that I’ve been consumed by the project of turning my blog into a book. Though some of the chapters have been taken more or less verbatim from this blog, most of it is brand new. It’s been a long and laborous journey, but now at last I am finally there! The book was completed not long ago, and I finally feel ready to go public with it.
I could not have made it without the help and support from my husband and our daughters, my husband’s family, and definitely not least the guidance and encouragement from my dear friend and mentor Joe Soll (who also wrote the introduction).
Big thanks to my friends all over the world, on Facebook and elsewhere, who have cheered me on while I was writing, and read my book after it was finished, and provided the positive feedback which has given me the confidence to also announce it here on my blog.
I am thrilled to see that in the few brief months that the book has been out, I have received four five-star reader reviews, and it also warms my heart that a number of authors have asked to include parts of both my book and my blog in books and other projects of their own.
If with this book I succeed in helping even just one adoptee, it will be totally worth the effort I put into it.
It’s available in paperback on www.amazon.com, and a Kindle version is in the works (to be announced here on the blog when it’s ready).
Cries of the Soul
The True Story of a Korean Adoptee’s Fight to Survive
by Khara Niné
In 1970, shortly after the death of her mother, and without the consent or even the knowledge of her father, a barely one year old girl is put up for foreign adoption in South Korea. She ends up in an adoptive family where she spends her childhood suffering neglect and abuse at the hands of her adoptive parents. “Cries of the Soul” tells a story rather different from the more common, picture-perfect fairy tales of the adoption industry. With her original childhood and natural family stolen from her, Khara Niné describes the harsh reality of coping and trying to fit into a family where she doesn’t belong, of grieving the loss of parents she can not even remember, and the emotional scars which she is still struggling to get to grips with more than forty years later.
“Beginning with the trauma of lying in the arms of her beloved Umma when she died, Khara takes the reader through her life’s journey with a colorful, flowing narrative, joyous in parts, yet mostly a soul wrenching description of one woman’s struggle to survive.” — Joe Soll, author of “Adoption Healing… a path to recovery”
amazon.com | amazon.ca | amazon.co.uk | amazon.de | amazon.es | amazon.it | amazon.fr
Reviews
A majestic work, October 17, 2013 By Joseph M. Soll
“Cries of the Soul” is the most complete and compelling book I have ever read about the horrors of the separation of a child from her origins. Anna Freud’s statement that the horrors of war pale beside the loss of a mother is brought to reality by the gut wrenching writing of Jung Kyung Sook.
Beginning with the trauma of lying in the arms of her beloved Umma when she died, Kyung Sook takes the reader through her life’s journey with a colorful, flowing narrative, joyous in parts, yet mostly a soul wrenching description of one woman’s struggle to survive.
Those who face their demons are some of the strongest people on the face of the earth. Kyung Sook is one such person. Her story had to be told and she told it well. This book is a Must Read!” – Joe Soll, psychotherapist and author of Adoption Healing… a path to recovery.
A Must Read for Adoptive Parents, November 10, 2013 By Mary A. Coyle
This story was a tribute to Kyung Sook’s strength to live and prosper. I admire her determination to see beauty in the world around her, and her perseverance to keep going like when Kyung Sook describes the Christmas that she decorated the tree when no other family member would. The determination to choose to live when it may have been easier to take her own life. The way that Kyung Sook went on to create a family of her own in which her daughters grew up safe and happy. It is stories like hers that give parents like the me the education that we need to be better parents for our children whom we have adopted. We do listen. I know that there are not many of us, but we are out here and we do listen and learn. My own kids are growing into fine young adults. They have benefited from going to Culture Camps, cooking Korean food, and travelling to Korea (more than once) because we listened. Thank you for sharing your story.
cries of the soul, November 26 2013 By Jane hunt
This book is a wonderful read. The author covers so much about what an adoptee from korea may feel.
Her story of her family left to search for her is heartbreaking and her descriptions of fitting into a totally new culture where she is labeled an outsider is very sad.
She also manages to cover some of the corrupt side of international adoptions and is very courageous to tell her truth. She covers the spiritual side and the emotional side very well. It is a great read and an eye opener about how the adoption industry effects those in it’s grasp.
Real, raw, and heartfelt, December 30, 2013 By Nanci Dru
Cries of the Soul is an autobiography of the life of a Korean adoptee who grew up in Norway that is told in beautiful and haunting vignettes that are seamlessly woven together. Although the book may be of particular interest to adoptees, it is such a compelling book and written in such a lovely way that I recommend it for any reader (though not young children; although Khara Nine, nee Jung Kyung Sook, writes with the innocent voice of a child, it is a book for those mature enough to understand the painful and dark side of adoption). What I loved most about this book is the author’s voice. It is the voice of a girl who appreciates the innocence of climbing trees and her beloved stuffed animal. Her detail is spot on — I have never been to Norway but felt I was there alongside her with the beaches and fjords. Her descriptions of happy occasions are punctuated with the abuse she suffered at the hands of her adoptive parents, and these moments when the reader is suddenly swept from an idyllic situation to the reality of her abuse are jarring and suspenseful. Her writing is reminiscent of fairy tales, but real and without the happy ending. Interwoven with the stories of her childhood are her adult musings on finding her sisters, learning of her father’s death, and her own family in Norway. The book has all the lessons of a great psychology or self-help book but is told as an incredible life story. I highly recommend this thoughtful and thought-provoking work.
Indigo Child Khara 