Exploring Sexual Desires and Asian Identity Struggles in the Novel

Jin Han, the narrator of R.O. Kwon's Exhibit, is a photographer going through it – both with her work and her husband. When she meets ballerina Lidija Jung, her world is turned upside down. Exhibit becomes a story about "what you might give up for what you want most," as Kwon tells NPR's Ayesha Rascoe. In today's episode, they discuss the nuances of wanting to give in to sexual desires even when they might be problematic for cultural perceptions and stereotypes of Asian women, and the way shame, religion and Korean womanhood function in both the book and Kwon's own life.

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