Defined Beauty

A debut novelist depicts the modern edge of Seoul and the societal pressures faced by young women through the lens of four remarkable characters

- Eric Wilson

Frances Cha grew up in the US, Hong Kong and South Korea, working for several years as a travel and culture editor for CNN International in Seoul and Hong Kong, where she covered many of the more extreme trends in pop culture and beauty for a global audience. The world’s ravenous interest in stories about the prevalence of plastic surgery, the obsession with K-pop stars and the competitiveness for a top-flight education went a long way towards informing her first novel, If I Had Your Face, which tells the stories of four young women in a fast-paced, ever-intense environment where appearances are literally everything. Cha puts the societal pressures and hierarchies of Seoul in a context that defies the reader to cast judgment on her characters.

Kyuri, whose face has been altered to fit an ideal picture, works in a room salon, a private bar where men pay for the company of beautiful women. Miho is an artist who discovers the family of her wealthy boyfriend disapproves of her background. Ara, a mute hairstylist, harbours dreams of meeting her favourite K-pop singer while Sujin, another friend, wants to follow in the footsteps of Kyuri. What they have in common is that the measures they take to fit into the world into which they were born seem not only justifiable but necessary. Here, Cha discusses her debut work.

How did you go about writing this book and how do these characters represent what you experienced in contemporary Seoul?