Q&A With Rosa Kwon Easton 

Katelyn Dreyer was kind enough to connect me with author Rosa Kwon Easton who is the author of the debut novel White Mulberry coming out this winter on December 3rd 2024! I am so excited that I have an early copy to read! 

Q: Rosa would you please give a brief description of White Mulberry and talk about where the idea for the novel came from?

A: WHITE MULBERRY is about a spirited Korean girl coming of age in Japan-occupied Korea who goes to Japan in search of a better future, only to face racial persecution, heartbreaking loss, and a choice that will change her life—and the life of those she loves—forever. Miyoung’s story is about identity, belonging, and the meaning of home, and is based on the true story of my Korean grandmother, Halmeoni.

The idea for the novel came from some faded documents I found on my father’s desk. I learned that they were Halmeoni’s old Japanese nursing and midwife certificates, dating from the late 1930s. I knew about Japan’s colonization of Korea and that my father was born in Japan, but what I didn’t know was that Halmeoni was a single mother raising a son alone in an unwelcoming country and forced to make the impossible choice of saving herself or leaving her child. Even though Halmeoni was reluctant to share her story at first, she eventually opened up, and WHITE MULBERRY was born. 

Q: Since White Mulberry is a historical fiction novel, how long did it take you to research and write the story? Why was now the right time to write and release it?

A: I can honestly say that I have been thinking about writing something about the history of Koreans living in Japan ever since I spent my junior year in college abroad in Kyoto forty years ago. I have many Korean relatives who still live in Japan, and that was the first time I had a chance to talk to them firsthand and read about the persecution of Koreans during the Japanese occupation of Korea, which lasted from 1910-1945. I only had the opportunity to interview Halmeoni in the last twenty years due to my career as a lawyer and being a mother of two, but after I heard her story, I couldn’t forget it. It was in the last ten years, after Halmeoni passed, that I earnestly combed history books, scholarly articles, and fictional accounts of how Koreans lived in Japan during the occupation, and this novel came to be.

There couldn’t be a better time for this novel to come out. South Korea’s influence in the world economy, media, and culture has been nothing short of spectacular. It is the 4th largest economy in Asia and the 14th largest in the world by GDP. It is an exporter of culture too, with Korean movies like Parasite and Minari winning Oscars, Korean dramas such as Squid Games capturing Emmys, and K-pop music stars like BTS becoming household names. Korean restaurants are everywhere, and Korean cooking has become popular too. 

Yet very little is known about Korea’s history, especially its fraught relationship with Japan. I hope this novel helps shed light on this forgotten period of history. And I think girls and young women especially need to hear more stories of strong women who triumph over adversity like Miyoung did. 

You can pre-order the book here. 

Q: What lessons do you want readers to learn after reading White Mulberry? What feelings do you hope readers feel after reading the novel?

A: Be true to yourself. It’s a simple message, but I believe an important one. 

After reading the novel, I hope readers feel empowered to trust who they are and claim their unique place in the world. Miyoung’s courage to save herself and her family from racial injustice despite grave danger is timely and inspiring given that our gender, race, and identity are still being challenged today. This book carries a universal hope that tolerance, perseverance and dreams can take root in the roughest soil and blossom in the harshest conditions, just like a beautiful mulberry tree.

I would love it if readers wanted to learn more about this era in Korean history as well. Of course, it would be great if they wanted to read the sequel too!

Q: If Hollywood were to get the rights to White Mulberry, who would be your dream cast to play the characters you created?

A: That is such a great question! I loved Greta Lee in Past Lives, and she would be perfect as Miyoung. Steven Yeun in Minari would be good as Hojoon, in the role of Miyoung’s husband. I don’t know many of the younger Korean actors who speak English, but there needs to be chemistry because it’s a love story too.

Q: Will your second book be a sequel to White Mulberry or will it be a new story with different characters?

A: My second book is a sequel, but also a stand-alone novel. RED SEAL is what happens to Miyoung and her son, Ko-chan, when they return to Korea in 1943. They confront the end of WWII, the division of Korea into North and South, the Korean War, and Korea’s economic transformation. It will be told in the alternating voices of mother and son and will probably end in 1971 when Ko-chan, then an adult with a family of his own, decides to immigrate to the U.S. to reclaim his birth name. 

That’s where the title of the second book, RED SEAL, comes from. The Korean name seal, which is usually dipped in red ink and used for all official signatures, represents one’s identity. It continues the themes of WHITE MULBERRY of searching for self, belonging, and home. But the second novel will also be about intergenerational conflict, family secrets, and inexplicable longing. I am in the process of writing it right now so things might change, but those are the themes I’m hoping to explore more. 

Q: Did you always know that being an author was your calling in life, or did this realization come when you became an adult?

A: I was actually talking to a friend recently who asked me this question and I found myself remembering copying whole books into notebooks when I first came to the U.S. at seven so I could learn how to read and write English. I think I hoped that the mere act of copying English words would transform me into an American overnight! Little did I know how futile that would be, since my family didn’t look and function like the homes depicted in my favorite Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume books that I devoured at the local library.

I created my own worlds through my journals, trying to make sense of my experiences growing up as an Asian minority in the 1970s. Looking back at some of those writings now, I realize they were filled with the doodles of a typical child turning teenager:  my first crush, best friends and enemies, my weird family. They were also filled with self-doubt, hope, and a hunger to belong. How do I fit in? What will I need to do to succeed here? Why are we here in America? What made my parents decide to come here?

Although I didn’t know it then, I was practicing what it was like to be an author at an early age: being curious. And curiosity is what led me to write White Mulberry, asking these universal questions that transcend generations, cultures, and time. When I had my own children and started learning about my grandmother’s incredible story, I wanted to write again. I remembered the power of books I read as a child to transform me and allow me to dream. I wanted my grandmother’s journey to be told so my children and others could learn from it. What I didn’t realize as I started writing her story was how much I enjoy writing, and how healing and joyful it was for me. 

It’s no wonder I am now an author and library trustee, by way of practicing law. These roles all serve words. It just so happens that I found my ultimate calling when I became an older adult, as I turn 60 this year. It’s never too late, as they say.

Q: You have had written work in newspapers and anthologies! I think that’s impressive! Which newspapers & anthologies has your work appeared in?

A: Earlier in my writing career, I had bylines in my local newspapers, The Daily Breeze and Peninsula News. I have been featured in anthologies such as Autobiography Matters: Themes of our Lives and Great Beginnings: An Anthology. More recently, a flash fiction story about my mother was published by CRAFT Literary, and Writer’s Digest picked up my essay about my two-book deal.