Sookan

Sookan is the narrator and main character of "Year of Impossible Goodbyes." Sookan is about ten years old at the start of the book, and she is a very good child, who tries to be obedient and helpful to her family. Although she is a child in many ways, she has grown up surrounded by the oppression of war, so she understands some adult ideas all too well, like self-sacrifice, hard work, and hunger. Sookan is small for her age, so her family passes her off as being younger than she is in order to postpone sending her to the Japanese school. Sookan loves learning about Korean culture and history, but when she is forced to repeat Japanese or Communist propaganda, she finds it hard to conceal how silly and stupid she thinks the propaganda lessons are. She does what she can to sabotage Japanese efforts to crush...