From Family History to Fantasy: The Making of “The Last Tiger”

Authors Julia and Brad Riew are spinning their heritage into a tale of hope, resilience, and enduring love for young adult readers. The Riew siblings’ debut, “The Last Tiger,” started as an attempt to immortalize their grandparents’ life story; now, it’s a YA fantasy novel on bookstore shelves. The book is a tribute not only to the Riew grandparents’ harrowing love story, but also to the resilience of Korean national identity during Japanese occupation.

“Our grandparents just had such rich stories, and both were actually just phenomenal storytellers,” Julia said. “Their stories really were the root for this new story that we created inspired by their lives.”

A YA Fantasy Rooted in Korean History

Set in a fantasy world based on colonial Korea, “The Last Tiger” follows Coi Eunji, a rebellious noble girl, and Lee Seung, a servant fighting for freedom, as they unite to alter their respective destinies. While the story is entirely fictional, Julia said the plot and characters are largely based on their grandmother, who came from a prominent and wealthy family in Korea, and their grandfather, who was poor with few life prospects. 

Despite their families’ disapproval due to class differences, the two continued their forbidden relationship after meeting in the 1940s, communicating through secret love letters and during nighttime rendezvous. During this time, Korean culture was also being erased by Japanese imperialism: Korean language, customs, and folk songs were outlawed under Japanese state policy and surveillance. The Riew siblings learned of these histories through visits to their grandparents’ home throughout their childhood, though they didn’t think of turning these stories into a novel until 2021.

From Family Archives to the Page

When Julia was in high school, her grandfather had sent her an email that described the love story from his point of view, asking if she could “turn this into a fictional story.” After rediscovering the email years later, Julia felt it was time to return to their family history. The Riews’ grandmother also handwrote nearly 50 pages in Hangul, detailing the couple’s life together. The sister and brother duo began drafting their novel during the COVID-19 pandemic, shortly after their grandfather’s passing. 

“Growing up, the stories that we would hear from our grandparents — because all of the stories took place in Korea, in the past, and we were living in St. Louis, Missouri — felt like fantasy … like folklore,” Julia said. “It felt like a very distant time, but it’s shocking to remember so many of these events all happened less than a lifetime ago.”

In fact, “The Last Tiger” is quick to remind readers that its story is not based on folklore, but true history. Japanese colonialism has had a lasting impact on Korean national and cultural identity ever since the country’s liberation, Julia said. 

“Stepping into their stories and really digging through their archives, looking through all the photos, reading through their life stories — there is this sort of realization that our grandparents lived through these tremendously difficult times,” Julia said. “This is not fiction. It’s actually reality.”

Third-Generation Korean American Perspectives

As third-generation Korean Americans raised in Missouri, both Julia and Brad felt increased urgency to understand and record their heritage. Both graduated from Harvard University wielding backgrounds in the arts — Julia in musical theater, and Brad in writing, though he graduated with a degree in psychology. 

Together, they merged their interests in creative writing and love of the fantasy genre to conceptualize “The Last Tiger.” The duo initially split up the work by character, with Julia writing Eunji’s chapters and Brad writing Seung’s chapters. But by the end of the drafting process, they had each become familiar with both characters and took turns writing the scenes that played to their strengths. While Brad’s favorite scenes to compose were descriptions of nature, Julia said she most enjoyed creating banter between characters. Both drew their writing style from the stories they loved as children.

“Before I discovered my love for composing [music and musicals], I was a really, really avid reader,” Julia said. “One of the genres that Brad and I had both recalled loving as kids … was fantasy. We really just like the genre of fantasy and YA fantasy, in particular, because it’s a really great way to make vast historical events more accessible for young people and for people that might not already have an interest in the history.”

The writing process was not without its challenges and surprises. During their publishing journey, Brad was diagnosed with long COVID and chronic fatigue syndrome. In a note on his sister’s TikTok account, he shared, “Writing a book while living with this awful illness was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” Despite this, he remained fully committed to the project.

Exploring Cultural Nuances Between Korea and the Diaspora

Their research and review processes also yielded cultural nuances that the siblings hadn’t yet considered. After sharing the manuscript with her fiance, who was born and raised in South Korea, Julia said she was surprised to learn that Koreans and Korean Americans had different views of cultural concepts — such as Han, the idea of collective irreparable suffering.

“Korean Americans have sort of adopted Han as a symbol of strength and unity for the Korean people,” Julia said. “When we think about our shared grief and our history, we think of how the Korean people are sort of characterized by this deep suffering that glues us all together and we have this shared experience.

“But then this prompted me to do a lot more digging and I discovered that Han was actually coined by a Japanese person, and it was a concept that was created to explain why the Korean people are perhaps more barbaric and worthy of subjugation. The concept of Han was basically to say Korean people are naturally suffering. And so it has now been reclaimed by the Korean American community.”

Another subject that carries multiple meanings is the book’s central icon: the tiger. During Japanese occupation, tigers — Korea’s national animal — were hunted to extinction as part of Japan’s cultural genocide program, Julia explained. In the novel, the tiger represents Korean culture and the heart of the Korean people, she added. Tigers also serve as a sort of spiritual vehicle for Tiger Qi — the power to communicate, feel, and transfer emotion and memory from one person to another in the fantastical Tiger Kingdom.

“[The tigers] are all about this emotional bond that we have as Koreans, and a lot of this book is about finding pride in our culture,” Julia said.

Finding Belonging Through Fantasy Worlds

For the Riew siblings, writing “The Last Tiger” was also a lesson in overcoming self-doubt and cultural insecurity.

“One of the big things about being an Asian American is you often feel imposter syndrome when you’re dealing with your own country,” Julia said. “You also feel imposter syndrome when living in the country that you grew up in. So, when you create a fantasy world, that can be your exact cultural identity and you don’t have to feel any imposter syndrome, because you created that world.”

Growing up in St. Louis, Missouri, Julia Riew said her grandparents’ stories remained just that: tales of memories from a distant land. When Julia and Brad embarked on their novelization journey, Julia said they seized the opportunity to expand small bits of information into larger plotlines. 

For example, the Riew siblings further explored their grandfather’s involvement in an underground student resistance movement while attending Seoul National University, even though he had only mentioned his role in passing to his grandchildren. With heightened stakes, new characters, and “K-dramatization,” “The Last Tiger” stretched beyond a biography into a versatile and entertaining reimagining of Korea’s forgotten history.

For the Riews, writing “The Last Tiger” also served as a form of catharsis to process their childhood cultural experiences while growing up in a predominantly non-Asian population. The book provided the opportunity to tell the Riew family history across generations, including the siblings’ own.

“We got to make the world whatever we wanted it to be,” Julia said. “That was fun for us because that meant that we could have the characters talk like we talk, but the experiences that [Seung and Eunji] are going through are also mixed in with the experiences that our parents and grandparents lived.”

Ahead of the book’s release, Julia is excited to finally honor her grandparents’ story and hopes that readers will be able to connect with the sense of hope and resilience embedded in their story.

“[Writing the book] led us to remember that if we can hold on to our humanity and our love, and remember that the people — those like our grandparents — are real people, and everyone in these stories are real people, we can continue to move forward in history,” Julia said.

“The Last Tiger” is available online and at your local bookstore. Links on this page lead to our Bookshop.org storefront, where every purchase supports both your reading journey and ours. Thank you!

Follow the authors on Instagram at @bradriew and @juliariew.