Indie rocker, Michelle Zauner, better known as Japanese Breakfast, is turning her pen to pad in another way. The “Boyish” singer has landed a literary publishing deal through Knopf (an extension of Penguin Random House). Memoir Crying in H Mart, scheduled to be released on April 20, 2021, is an unfiltered look into the guitarist’s life from growing up one of the few Asian American kids at her school in Eugene, Oregon; to the treasured months spent in her grandmother’s tiny apartment in Seoul, performing gigs with her fledgling band–and meeting the man who would become her husband and mother’s diagnosis of terminal cancer when she was twenty-five. Crying in H Mart explores all of Zauner’s most intimate life moments far beyond the music.
Zauner took to Instagram to share what sparked the idea beyond the book writing, “my mother passed away almost six years ago and ever since, my life has felt folded in half, divided into a before and after her death, my identity and my family having been fractured in the wake of her loss.
She continued, “I’ve spent the past six years processing grief in the best way I knew how—through creative work. I wrote two albums worth of material in an attempt to encapsulate all of that heavy darkness, confusion, and loneliness, and then I spent another three years writing pages and pages to try and capture my mother’s brilliant character and spirit, what it was like to be raised by a Korean immigrant in a small west coast town with very little diversity, the intense shame I felt towards my mixed-race identity and how my embrace of Korean food and culture helped me come to terms with that upbringing, allowed me to reconnect with her memory.“
Crying in H Mart will be released in-stores and e-retailers on April 20th, 2021 but is now available for pre-order now, to grab your copy click HERE. The cover for the memoir was designed by Na Kim.
Stay connected with Michelle Zauner (Japanese Breakfast) on your favorite social media sites including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or her official website japanesebreakfast.rocks.
