A review by shiloniz
The Magical Language of Others by E.J. Koh

5.0

This book is an exceptional read: part memoir, part history, part generational saga. E.J. Koh moves fluidly from memoirist to historian, from historian to biographer with swift and deft strides that feel expansive even as the text itself is spare. What connects all of these elements is her journey through language beginning first with her mother(s) language, Korean, but grounded firmly in American English. We journey with her to the language of Japanese, another branch of her ancestry, where we discover that language is more than words; it is movements, attitude, everything that goes unsaid. We discover, not for the first time, but with her, as she understands the language of the body and of men through the language of dance. Finally, we come to poetry, the language of letting go, or reckoning. There is so much in this text that I can not speak to or fathom, but the way in which we excavate our lives and those of who we love to get at the heart and root of grief, trauma, sorrow, and more potently, hope, compassion and love, is a universality that speaks to the many languages we all speak.