‘The Last Tiger’ Is A Magical Tale Of Hope Inspired By Love

The Last Tiger is a fantasy novel about two friends who defy tradition and change their fate.

Penguin Random House

The Last Tiger is set in an alternative version of Korea. It’s a land that shares some similarities with Korea during the Japanese occupation (1910 – 1945), but in this Korea there are magical creatures and human characters with unrealized powers. There’s also a tiger, a very important tiger, that needs to be saved. The Last Tiger is a YA fantasy novel that’s inspired real stories, stories that authors, Julia Riew and Brad Riew, heard from their grandparents. When their grandfather died, during the pandemic, their grandmother presented them with 50 pages of written memories. The siblings knew they needed to tell their story.

“We read through them and immediately wanted to do something with the stories that she told and that we’d heard from our grandfather growing up,” said Brad. “They had such extraordinary lives that we always thought we might want to write something, but that was really the catalyzing incident.

Julia suggested they incorporate their grandparents’ story into a young adult fantasy novel. Although they grew up enjoying fantasy stories, it wasn’t the only reason they chose this genre.

“Fantasy is a really great, accessible way to dig into some really deep and dark issues,” said Julia. “To dig into history and these extreme struggles that our grandparents experienced wrapped in this magical, whimsical, fun world for young people, who might otherwise not be interested in learning about the history.”

In the world the authors created they could make their own rules.

“Being able to present these experiences and to honor our grandparents’ lives and their stories, while also creating a world of our own was really exciting,” said Julia. “This is something that you can really only do in the fantasy space.”

The story retains plenty of facts, such as the differing social status of the main characters. Seung is a servant, and Eun-ji, a young noblewoman, intended for an arranged marriage. In their grandparents’ time theirs was a forbidden romance.

“Our grandmother came from a wealthy, prominent family,” said Julia. “During the Japanese occupation, our grandfather’s father’s tailor business was shut down by the Japanese government, because all Korean businesses were banned under the Japanese occupation.”

Their grandmother’s parents wanted her to marry a boy from another wealthy family. Like Eun-ji she refused.

“Our grandmother’s parents really did essentially put her under house arrest,” said Julia. “They said you cannot see him because he is too poor and he will not be able to put food on the table.”

Seung and Eun-ji do not approve of the way tigers are being hunted by the occupying forces.

‘The Japanese empire at the time really did hunt the tigers down in Korea,” said Julia. “The tigers are Korea’s national animal and under the Japanese occupation they were hunted to extinction.”

Korea was once known as the Land of Tigers and they remain a powerful symbol in Korean culture.

“The Japanese state policy at the time was officially a policy of cultural erasure,” said Brad. “Their aim was to assimilate or incorporate Korea as a nation into the Japanese empire. That meant to ban the Korean language, to ban Korean folk songs from being sung. People were forced to take on Japanese names. The goal was really to eliminate Korean culture.”

The characters find they have unusual powers to help them in their quest.

“The superpowers embody what we feel is the strength of Korean culture to deal with some of these historical difficulties that the people have gone through and to transform it into a kind of communicative power,” said Brad. “We wanted to honor the deep historical roots while also making it really speak to a new generation of young people.

Writing duos are unusual and sibling co-authors even more so. However, Julia and Brad didn’t find it difficult.

“I think a big component of our collaboration is trust,” said Julia. “We just really trust each other’s judgment and we’ve also grown up collaborating on everything. We’ve told stories together since we were tiny children. For all my projects, even the ones that aren’t collaborations with Brad, I still often go to Brad with questions. Anytime I get stuck in a story. It was really natural collaboration.”

Trusting your sibling is great, but how does the writing work on a day-to-day basis?

“We tried a bunch of different methods,” said Julia. “When we started off I would take Eun-ji’s chapters. Brad would take Seung’s chapters, but very quickly it went away from that. Ultimately, it was whoever was most excited about writing a specific scene would take the first stab at it and write a really, really messy version. The other person would be working on a different scene, and then we would sort of swap and go over what the other person had written and just rewrite it and then swap again and rewrite from there. So the entire book is really written by both of us by the final draft.”

Julia, who studied music and theater at Harvard, is currently developing a musical based on the Korean folktale of Simcheong, a filial daughter who sacrifices herself for her blind father.

‘A lot of my work is in musical theater,” said Julia. “I wrote a musical for my senior thesis called Dive, that is still currently in development for a premiere at the American Repertory Theater. There’s also a middle grade novel that’s a companion book to that musical coming out next summer with Harper Collins.”

Brad was a psychology major and is currently in the MFA program at NYU. During the pandemic he came down with a COVID infection and a severe mold allergy. He was so ill he lost his job, but discovered how much he loved writing.

“The opportunity to do a project like this and to explore the path not taken suddenly became a real possibility,” said Brad. ‘It was the only thing I was able to do during that period.”

The writing duo has another Penguin book coming out in 2027, but they can’t yet share anything about the plot. Meanwhile, there has been interest in adapting The Last Tiger for the screen. It’s quite cinematic. More importantly, the authors hope the book provides a message of hope.

“There’s often so much confusion and turmoil that it feels difficult for young people—and for people in general—to see the path forward,” said Brad. “We were no exception to that, also feeling a lot of anguish and kind of collective grief in this moment. Reading back through our grandparents’ stories was clarifying for both of us, because we felt that they lived through a moment of incredible turmoil and adversity, but they found this strength in themselves, this unconquerable will to survive, whatever happened. They also found the kind of love in their hearts for each other and for life itself that they were able to bring into their lives and it allowed them to survive some of the chaos, the mayhem. We wanted young people to really feel that they have people standing behind them with their hands on their shoulders saying that you’re not alone and we’re with you. We’re going to get through it. We’re going to be okay.”

The Last Tiger was published by Penguin on July 29, quickly earning first place in Amazon’s Teen and Young Adult Asian Historical Fiction category.