8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster

THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2024
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 WILBUR SMITH ADVENTURE WRITING PRIZE
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 WILLIAM SAROYAN INTERNATIONAL PRIZE FOR WRITING

SLAVE. ESCAPE-ARTIST. MURDERER. TERRORIST. SPY. LOVER. MOTHER. TRICKSTER.

At the Golden Sunset retirement home, it is not unusual for residents to invent stories. So when elderly Ms Mook first begins to unspool her memories, the obituarist listening to her is sceptical. Stories of captivity, friendship, murder, assumed identities and spying. A life that moves from WWII Indonesia to Busan during the Korean war; from cold-war Pyongyang to a Protestant church in China. The adventures are so colourful and various, at times so unbelievable. Surely they can't all belong to the same woman. Can they?

8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2024, announced on 5th March 2024.

About the Author

Mirinae Lee was born and raised in South Korea, and now lives in Hong Kong. Her first work of fiction appeared in the Antioch Review and was listed as Notable Nonrequired Reading of 2018 in The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2019. Her second short story won the 2018 Editors' Prize in Fiction and appeared in Meridian. 8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster is her debut novel.