One woman’s unexpected story from South Korea. An exhilarating true tale of friendship, danger, and the possibility of new beginnings.
The plight of migrant factory workers in South Korea leads Katoomba-based author Elaine Kennedy to question her own motives for travel and working in Daegu. Heartbreaking and surprisingly intimate, Kennedy’s memoir is full of true drama and incident. This is a ‘stranger than fiction’ story that compels like the best written novels. The reader is drawn deeper and deeper into the beauties, mysteries and injustices that surround and disturb the author, while Kennedy’s undercover fight to assist those who have come to Korea without her own privileges is tense and gripping. This original, warm and suspenseful story is peopled with wonderful characters and rings with the passion and authenticity of truth.
Elaine Kennedy grew up in Sydney’s eastern suburbs and was involved with music and performance from an early age. Later that interest led to teaching Music and English at secondary level. Her interest in other cultures and languages grew from teaching migrants and refugees; at first in state schools and later in TAFE and programs for international students in a university college. She has subsequently worked overseas for government-initiated programs in Japan, Korea, China and the UK. While working in Korea in a teacher training institute she was introduced to migrant factory workers who were being exploited by their employers and lived under harsh conditions for little pay. In trying to help them and seek justice for them this book began to form and to take on an importance as a story that needed to be told.
Praise for Waiting for a Wide Horse Sky ‘Told with the pace of an adventure story, with emotional honesty and self -reflection, and with no less than three love stories unfolding under difficult and sometimes dangerous circumstances, this book is a very satisfying read.’
Kate Matthew, Newsbite
