[_list: Books from Korea] Vol.13 Autumn 2011 by LTI Korea Library

Vol.13 Autumn 2011

Special Section

Risk Society and the Artistic Imagination Interviews

Novelist Kim Joo-young Novelist Sung Suk-je Theme Lounge

The Seas of Korea The Place

Mullae Ironworks Alley

ISSN 2005-2790

FAQ What is list_Books from Korea, and where can I find it? list is a quarterly magazine packed with information about Korean books. Register online at www.list.or.kr to receive a free subscription.

Can I get it in English? The printed edition of list is available in English and Chinese. The webzine (www.list.or.kr) is available in English, Chinese, and Korean.

What if I want information about Korean books more often? We offer a bi-weekly online newsletter. Simply email list_korea @ klti.or.kr to begin receiving your free copy.

Who publishes list_Books from Korea? list is published by the Korea Literature Translation Institute, which is affiliated with the Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism. LTI Koreaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s mission is to contribute to global culture by expanding the knowledge of Korean literature and culture abroad. Visit www.klti.or.kr to learn about our many translation, publication, cultural exchange, and education programs. Contact : list_korea @ klti.or.kr

Korean Literature into the World: The Past 10 Years and the Next Decade Date: September 22(Thu.) ~ 23(Fri.), 2011 Venue: International Conference Hall 20th Floor, Korea Press Center, Seoul Host: Korea Literature Translation Institute (LTI Korea)

Foreword

The Way We Confront Disaster A catastrophic earthquake on the scale of nine took place in northeastern Japan this past spring. An artificial paradise made for human stability and convenience disappeared without a trace. Citizens were engulfed by the natural disaster, unable to resist or refuse. Japan was seized by terror, and neighboring countries also became anxious. What happened in Japan was an affirmation of the unpredictability and uncertainty of danger and disasters, and the world watched as Japanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s decades of preventative measures crumbled before the earthquake. The earthquake had an enormous impact on the Pacific plate, moving Japan two meters and the Korean peninsula five centimeters to the east. Movement usually spread out over the course of a year happened in one blow. This is perhaps a metaphor for the interconnectedness of contemporary society in which the effect of disasters and dangers are not contained within the unfortunate country but also has a great impact on neighboring countries and the rest of the world. The radioactive scare and the grim news of natural disasters occurring worldwide since the earthquake speak to the immediacy of disasters and dangers today, which are no longer bleak predictions but an ever-present pain. In this issue, we will examine the sociological discourse of dangerous societies in Korea and how catastrophes are conceptualized in Korean literature and film. Discussion on danger has increased recently in Korean society as a result of the rise of new powers in 2008 and subsequent changes throughout society in the wider context of the global crisis. What we feel as we face disasters is a fundamental reflection on where modernization has brought us. Man, enlightened through advances in science, has lost his fear and awe of nature. Through a devastating destruction of civilization, disasters warn us against anthropocentric views and actions. We see ubiquitous signs that tell us we can no longer place all our faith in our abilities alone. Depictions in literature and film have espoused disasters as a theme since long ago. Recently, attempts have been made to depict the psychology and sentiments of the individual in the throes of disaster through a variety of viewpoints and a more colorful language. This is likely because danger is no longer a virtual scenario or a story about a far-off future but a part of reality. Dangers and disasters have immediacy as they function as an occasion for self-reflection. It is not the spectacle and shock of awesome destruction that art espouses as its fodder; rather, in the aftermath of a disaster we see man who rises above the ruins, who sacrifices himself for others and does not let go of the frail hope of survival. The arts takes liberties in its witnessing and experience of disasters in ways other social discourses do not because it depicts human behavior in extenuating circumstances, and not because disasters make for sensational material. Through the imagining of disasters and dangers, Korean literature and film also suggest the dangers of civilizations made exclusively for the convenience of man. They pose the question as to what the weak individual can dream of in a time of danger and instability, and where to sow seeds of hope in the world when disasters, misfortunes, and crises have come to an end. This volume will allow you to peer into the keen imagination of Korean writers today. By Pyun Hye-young

list_ Books from Korea

Vol.13 Autumn 2011

KLTI Overseas Publication Grants

KLTI Overseas Marketing Grants

Applicant Qualifications

- Any publisher who has signed contracts for the publication rights of a Korean book and can publish the book by December 2011. (The book should be published by then.) - Or any publisher who has already published a translated Korean book in 2011 based on a contract for the publication rights of a Korean book.

- Publishers who have published Korean books in translation and are planning to hold promotional events which require the author's presence. - Other events not directly involving the author's presence can be supported only in exceptional cases confirmed by LTI Korea.

Grant

How to Apply

- Roundtrip airfare and accommodation expenses for the author. - Other expenses for marketing events and advertisements can be supported only in exceptional cases confirmed by LTI Korea. - The amount will be decided by LTI Korea after due consideration of the marketing plan and scale. *The grant will be provided directly for the author or the overseas publisher in two payments, before and after an event.

- Register as a member on the website (http://eng.klti.or.kr) and complete the online application form.

How to Apply

Application Documents to be Submitted

- Register as a member on the website (http://eng.klti.or.kr) and complete the online application form.

- Part of the total publication expenses. - The amount varies depending on the publication cost and genre of the book. - The grant will be awarded after publication.

1. Publisher's profile, including its history and major achievements (e.g., previous publications related to Korea (if any), the total number of books it has published so far, etc.). 2. Publication plan including the dates and budget for translation and publication in detail. 3. A copy of the contract between the publisher and the translator. 4. A copy of the contract between the publisher and the foreign rights holder. 5. The translator's resume.

Application Documents to be Submitted 1. Publisherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s profile including its detailed history and major achievements (e.g., previous publications related to Korea (if any), the total number of books it has published to date, etc.). 2. A copy of the contract between the publisher and the translator. 3. A copy of the contract between the publisher and the foreign rights holder. 4. Marketing event plan and detailed statement of expenses.

Application Schedule and Announcement of Results

- Submission period: 2011. 1. 1 ~ 2011. 9. 30 - Grant notification: April, July, and October

- Application schedule: every month - Announcement: selection to be announced early each month

Contact

- Name: Mina Park, Youngju Cha - Email: grants@klti.or.kr

Contents Autumn 2011 Vol. 13 01 06 07 10 12

Foreword Trade Report News from LTI Korea Bestsellers Publishing Trends

Special Section

Risk Society and the Artistic Imagination

14 16 18 20

Reflecting on Risk Theories of Danger and Anxiety Confronting Danger Through Apocalyptic Literature Popular Culture Feeds on Disaster

Interviews 22 Novelist Kim Joo-young 28 Novelist Sung Suk-je Excerpts 26 The Sound of Thunder by Kim Joo-young 32 The Last 4.5 Seconds of My Life by Sung Suk-je The Place 34 Mullae Ironworks Alley Theme Lounge 38 The Seas of Korea 42 43 44 73

Overseas Angle Disturbing the Peace: Poems of Kim Seung-Hee How I Discovered Korea Book Lover’s Angle: Iwamoto Nobuto Writer’s Note: Jung Young-moon

Reviews 46 Fiction 66 Nonfiction 74 Children’s Books Spotlight on Fiction 49 The House with the Sunken Courtyard by Kim Won-il Steady Sellers 65 The Blind Calf 79 Last Bat Princess “Migaya” Meet the Publishers 80 Hangilsa Publishing Co., Ltd. New Books 82 Recommended by Publishers 90 Index 92 Afterword

list_ Books from Korea

Vol.13 Autumn 2011

Contributors An Shihwan is a movie critic. His works include Max Ophüls and Korean Film Meets Sexuality. He lectures on film and image at Dongguk University and Sejong University and contributes film reviews to Cine 21.

Bae No-pil is a reporter with the

JoongAng Ilbo and a writer for the online newsletter plus list_Books from Korea.

Cho Hyunju is a journalist at the

weekly news magazine, Sisa Journal.

Choi Jae-bong is a reporter at the

Culture Desk of The Hankyoreh newspaper.

Han Mihwa writes on the subject of

Kim Inae is a children’s writer, critic,

and translator. Among her works are The Cat with Two Feet and Across the River Tumen and Yalu. She is on the editorial board of list_Books from Korea.

Kim Ji-eun is a writer of children’s

stories and a critic of children’s literature. She currently lectures on theories of writing fiction for children in the Department of Creative Writing at Hanshin University.

Kim Min-ryoung is a children’s

critic. She won in the children’s writing category of the Munhwa Ilbo New Writer’s Award in 2006 and in the criticism category of the Changbi New Children’s Writer Award in 2010.

publishing. Her written works include Bestsellers of Our Time and This Is How Bestsellers Are Made, Vols. 1, 2.

Kim Yeran is a professor of media art

Jang Sungkyu is a literary critic.

Lee Jiyoo is a science writer and a writer

at Kwangwoon University and on the editorial board of list_Books from Korea.

He currently lectures at Kwangwoon University.

and translator of children’s literature. Her works include Mrs. Shooting Star’s

Joseph Lee is a literary agent and

and many more. She is an editor of the quarterly Changbi Children.

president of KL Management. His main interest lies in selling Korean literature to overseas markets. He is the author of A Man Selling Novels.

Jung Hongsoo is a literary critic. He has published such works as The Loneliness of the Novel.

Jung Yeo-ul is a literary critic. She lectures at Seoul National University and the Korean National University of Arts.

Kang Yu-jung is a literary critic.

In 2007, she published Oedipus’ Forest. Currently, she teaches at Korea University and is a member of the editorial committee for the quarterly publication Segyeui Munhak.

Kim Hong-jung is a professor of

sociology at Seoul National University. He has written such books as Sociology

of the Heart.

Kim Hyoung-joong is a literary critic.

He is a professor of Korean Literature at Chosun University and is an editorial board member of the journals Literature and Society. He was awarded the 28th Socheon Lee Heon Gu Prize in Literary Criticism in 2008 and has published various books of criticism, including An

Analysis of Literature and the Mind.

4 list_ Books from Korea

Vol.13 Autumn 2011

Space Tales, Volcanoes, Star Shooters,

Oh Yunhyun writes children’s books. Currently, he is editor-in-chief of the culture and science section of SisaIN, a weekly magazine, and is a member of the World of Children’s Story Society. His books include Tori Is Escaping from Game Land and The Amazing Mystery

of Our Body.

Richard Hong is a book columnist

a n d t h e h e a d o f B C A g e n c y. He translated 13: The Story of the World’s Most Notorious Superstitions, appeared on KBS 1 Radio’s “Global Today,” and writes columns for The Korea Economic Daily and Posco News.

Shim Jinkyung is a literary critic and is

also currently a member of the editorial committee for the quarterly magazine Consonants and Vowels . Her main works are Traversing Women’s Literature and Korean Literature and Sexuality.

Shin Hyoung-cheol is a literary critic.

His critical works include Sukijo and Anaki and Narratology of Universal Gravitation. He is also a member of the editorial committee for the quarterly publication Munhakdongne.

Shin Junebong is a journalist at the

Culture Desk of the JoongAng Ilbo . He received his MA from Goldmiths, University of London, and is interested in theoretical analyses of literature, cultural phenomena, and customs.

Son Minho writes for the travel and

leisure section of the Joongang Ilbo. He is the author of Son Minho’s Literary

Touch 2.0.

Uh Soo-woong is editor-in-chief of the Chosun Ilbo Weekly Magazine.

Yi Soo-hyung is a literary critic and a

Gaze, The Mystery and Melancholy of Literature, and In the Eyes of Orpheus.

senior researcher at the Seoul National University Academic Writing Lab. He studied contemporary literature, and has taught at Hongik University, Seoul Institute of the Arts, and Korea National University of Arts.

Park Sungchang is a literary critic

Yoon So-hee is a children’s writer. She

Park Hyekyung is a literary critic. Her works include The Wound and the

and professor of Korean literature at Seoul National University. His works include Rhetoric, Korean Literature in the Glocal Age , and Challenges in Comparative Literature. He is on the editorial board of list_Books from Korea.

Pyo Jeonghun is a book reviewer, columnist, translator, and freelance writer. He has translated 10 books into Korean and written Books Have Their

has written such works as Prejudice, Aram’s Secret, and 7 Stories to Help You Study. She is the winner of the 13th MBC Children’s Writing Prize. She is a writer for the online newsletter plus list_

Books from Korea.

Yu Gina is a film critic and professor

Own Destiny, A Short Introduction to Chinese Philosophy, and An Interview with My Teacher: What Is Philosophy?

of film and digital media at Dongguk University. Her works include Yu Gina’s Women’s Cine-Promenade and Find Yourself Through Film (co-authored with Im Kwon-taek). She is on the editorial board of list_Books from Korea.

Pyun Hye-young has published

Yu Youngjin is a critic of children’s

the short story collections Evening Courtship, AOI Garden, and To the Cages and the novel Ashes and Red. She won the Hanguk Ilbo Literature Award in 2007 and the Lee Hyo-seok Literary Award in 2007. She is on the editorial board of list_Books from Korea.

literature and a teacher at Ja-un Elementary School. He is the author of The Body’s Imagination and Fairy Tale.

Translators Cho Yoonna studied English literature

at Yonsei University and earned her MA in conference interpretation at the Graduate School of Interpretation and Translation at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. She is a freelance interpreter and translator.

C h o i In yo u n g i s a n a r t i s t a n d

translator. She has been translating for over 20 years. She specializes in Korean literature and the arts.

Christopher Dykas studied German

Studies and Politics at Oberlin College. He is a graduate student at UCLA.

Dafna Zur is a professor of Korean

literature in Keimyung University in Daegu, South Korea. Her interests lie broadly in children’s literature and folk tales of North and South Korea. She has published both scholarly work and literary translations.

Heinz Insu Fenkl is an author, editor,

translator, and folklorist. His first book, Memories of My Ghost Brother , was a Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers book in 1996 and a PEN/ Hemingway finalist in 1997. Fenkl’s most recent book, Korean Folktales , published by Bo-Leaf Books, is a collection of traditions myths, legends, and folklore.

H . Ja m i e C h a n g r e c e i v e d h e r undergraduate degree from Tufts University. She is a Bostonian/Busanian freelance translator.

Jung Yewon studied interpretation and

translation at GSIT, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. Jung is currently working as a freelance interpreter/ translator. Jung received the Daesan Foundation Translation Grant in 2009. She is currently working on No One Writes Back, a novel by Jang Eun-jin.

Kari Schenk was the co-recipient of the

commendation award in the 2006 Korea Times contest for new translators, and in 2010 she attended a special course in translation at KLTI. She lectures in English at Korea University.

Kim Ungsan graduated in German

L i t e r a t u r e f r o m S e o u l Na t i o n a l University and also studied at the Free University of Berlin. He earned an MA degree in Comparative Literature. Currently he is working on a PhD in English Literature.

Kyung-Ja Chun is a professor Emeritus

at The Catholic University of Korea. She has translated numerous works of Korean literature into English, including Peace Under Heaven by Chae Man-sik, for which she received the Grand Prize from the Korean Culture and Arts Foundation in 1995.

Oh Younga is a third-generation Zainichi

Korean. She earned her PhD at the Graduate School of Translation and Interpretation at Ewha Womans University and now teaches at the same institution. She is the winner of the 6th KLTI New Translator’s Award.

Park Jinna is a freelance translator based

in Seoul with a special interest in education and environmental issues.

Peter J. Koh is a freelance translator and

interpreter who completed KLTI's Special Workshop in 2009 and Intensive Workshop in 2010. He currently resides in Seoul.

Sue Y. Kim received her BA in English

Literature and International Studies from Ewha Womans University. She currently resides in Los Angeles, and is working on a novel in the Creative Writing program at the University of Southern California.

Suh Ji-moon is a professor of English at

Korea University and has been a dedicated translator of Korean literature for over three decades. Her published translations include

The Rainy Spell and Other Korean Stories, The Golden Phoenix: Seven Contemporary Korean Short Stories, The Descendants of Cain, and Brother Enemy: Poems of the Korean War.

Yang Sung-jin is currently a staff reporter

at The Korea Herald, covering new media and books. Yang wrote a Korean history book in English titled Click into the Hermit Kingdom and a news-based English vocabulary book, News English Power Dictionary. His homepage is web.me.com/ sungjin.

Editors Kim Stoker earned an MA in Asian Studies

at the University of Hawaii. She is currently a full-time lecturer at Duksung Women’s University.

Vol.13 Autumn 2011 A Quarterly Magazine for Publishers

Krys Lee is an editor, translator, and fiction

writer. Her short story collection will be published by Viking/Penguin in the US and Faber and Faber in the UK, in 2012.

PUBLISHER _ Kim Joo-youn

Cover Art

MANAGING DIRECTOR _ Lee Jungkeun

Yoon Jung-won has participated in several group and solo exhibitions since 2003. She is known for her paintings of chrysanthemums, most notably in the series called “Stardust.” jungwon7878@empal.com blog.naver.com/jwstardust

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR _ Kim Yoonjin

EDITORIAL BOARD Kim Inae Kim Yeran Park Sungchang Pyun Hye-young Yu Gina EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Kim Sun-hye MANAGING EDITORS Cha Youngju Kong Min-sung EDITORS Kim Stoker Krys Lee ART DIRECTOR Choi Woonglim DESIGNERS Kim Mijin Lee Jaehyun Jang Hyeju PHOTOGRAPHER Lee Kwa-yong PRINTED IN _ EAP Date of Publication 2011. 9. 5

list_ Books from Korea is a quarterly magazine published by the Korea Literature Translation Institute.

All correspondences should be addressed to the Korea Literature Translation Institute at 108-5 Samseong-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea 135-873 Telephone: 82-2-6919-7700 Fax: 82-2-3448-4247 E-mail: list_korea@klti.or.kr www.klti.or.kr www.list.or.kr Copyright © 2011 by Korea Literature Translation Institute ISSN 2005-2790

Cover art © Yoon Jung-won, Sublime, 110x110cm ink painting on Korean paper hanji, 2009

list_ Books from Korea

Vol.13 Autumn 2011

Trade Report

Foreign Rights Sales Taking Off Shin Kyung-sook’s Please Look After Mom sold foreign rights to publishers in Hungary, Greece, and Serbia. The latest sales added the number of countries where translations of Shin’s bestseller are available to 28 as of mid-July this year. The novel already climbed to the bestseller list in the U.S., Britain, Italy, and Taiwan, drawing keen attention from readers across the world. The translation rights for another Shin novel, I’ ll Be Right There, was also sold to a Chinese publisher in 2010 and other countries including Britain, the U.S., Poland, and Spain this year. The pickup in foreign rights sales is seen as a sign that Shin is solidifying her position as an established writer on the global stage. U.S.-based publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt recently bought the rights for Kim Young-ha’s novel, Black Flower. The company previously secured the rights for Kim’s other well-known novels, I Have the Right to Destroy Myself and Your Republic Is Calling You. Jo Kyung-ran’s novel, Tongue, is gaining popularity abroad as well. Ten publishers including a Taiwanese firm snapped up the foreign rights for the novel. Gong Ji-young, one of the most popular female writers in Korea, is poised to raise her international profile as her most well-known novel, Our Happy Time, has been sold to a host of countries including Spain, France, the Netherlands, Brazil, and

Serbia in recent months. The novel, first published in 2005 in Korea, sold more than 1 million copies in the domestic market alone, showcasing its commercial appeal. Other foreign publishers are said to be interested in publishing a translated version of her hit novel. Our Happy Time was also adapted into a film in Korea on the back of the huge popularity among local readers, and its translation rights were sold to Japan, China, Thailand, and Italy at the time. Han Kang’s The Vegetarian was sold to publishers in Japan and Vietnam. This time, Shanghai Literature and Art Company bought the translation rights for her short story collection, The Fruit of My Woman. Han’s literary style is attracting attention from agents in Europe and Southeast Asia, raising hopes that her profile will be further expanded to foreign markets. Choi Jaehun’s first novel Seven Eyes of Cats was snapped up by a French publisher amid high hopes that he will emerge as a favorite Korean writer for foreign readers. Lee Jung-myung’s intriguing faction mystery novel, The Painter of Wind, was sold to Chinese, Japanese, and Italian publishers. The novel depicts an interesting unraveling of a mystery hidden in the old paintings by Joseon masters Kim Hong-do and Shin Yun-bok. Meanwhile, Hwang Sun-mi’s Leafie, a Hen into the Wild, whose sales topped 1 million copies, is also a sought-after writer as an animated film adaptation of the same title was recently released. Jieli, which secured the translation rights of the novel for the Chinese market, recently bought the copyright for the book’s picture book version. Professor Kim Rando’s Youth, It’s Painful is also gaining momentum as a favored title on the foreign rights front. The book sold nearly 1 million copies in just six months since its publication. As of mid-July, publishers in China, Japan, and Taiwan bought the book’s copyright for their local markets, and other players in the U.S. and Europe are also said to be interested in the hit title. The popularity of a Korean work of nonfiction is fairly unusual, experts said, and Professor Kim’s book is widely expected to appeal to foreign readers in consideration of its persuasive message. By Joseph Lee literary agent, president of KL Management

1. Seven Eyes of Cats Choi Jaehun, Jaeum&Moeum 2011, 378p, ISBN 9788957075418 2. I'll Be Right There Shin Kyung-sook, Munhakdongne Publishing Corp. 2010, 380p, ISBN 9788954611275

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Vol.13 Autumn 2011

3. The Fruit of My Woman Han Kang, Changbi Publishers, Inc. 2000, 328p, ISBN 9788936436575

News from LTI Korea

Literary Events Held on the 50th Anniversary of Korea-Australia Diplomatic Relations LT I Korea is orga nizing litera r y events this year marking the 50th anniversary of the establishment of Korea-Australia diplomatic relations. This is a joint effort with Asia Link of t he Universit y of Melbourne, online poetry journal Cordite, Sogang Universit y, a nd Seou l A r t Space Yeonhui. Renowned poets of both countries have so far participated, including Hwang Tong-gyu, Kim K i-taek, Park R a-yeon, and Park Hyung-jun, representing Korea, and Barry Hill, Ivy Alvarez, and Terry Jaensch, repre sent ing Au st ra lia. Following a public reading session on

May 18, an urban literature concert, a combination of a poetry recital and concert, was held at Seoul Art Space Yeonhui on May 28. The recital and concert consisting of a stage for poetry recita ls under the theme, “Poetr y and Spring, the Season of Flower Blossoms”; a n urba n stor y tel ling project that bridged the two cities of Seoul and Melbourne; and a literature concert starring three groups of singers, offered a splendid spring evening to ardent literature fans. There are to be more planned exchanges between Korean and Australian poets starting in late August in Australia.

KLTI Hosts 10th International Workshop for the Translation and Publication of Korean Literature

Established in 2001, K LTI held its 10th international workshop for translation and publication, which aims at discussing measures to introduce Korean literary works and related topics to international readers. This year’s gathering that examined the “Translation and Publication of Korean

Literature in the Digital Era” took plac e at t he COE X C onvent ion Center, in Seoul on Friday, May 30. In his keynote speech, Richard Nash, the CEO of a book publishing software platform, Cursor, suggested a new paradigm of translation and publication following the changes in the digital publishing environment. In the first part of the workshop, novelist Kang Youngsook, author of Rina and Writing Club, spoke on the digital revolution seen from a writer’s perspective, and Yang Han-ju, who teaches Korean Studies at RuhrUn i v e r s it y B o c hu m , G e r m a n y, shared her thoughts on the role and future of translators in a transitional period. In the second part of the

workshop, Kate Eltham, the CEO of Queensland Writers Centre introduced new possibilities for contemporary literature. In addition, philosopher Kang Sin-joo spoke about liberal arts as the object of translation, and child education researcher Yoo Jung-a h pr e s e nt e d a p a p e r on c h i ld r e n’s literature in the digital age. About 100 people attended the workshop, which was followed by an active question-and-answer session, offering a good opportunity to estimate the outcome of the phenomenon that is currently the key concern of publishers worldwide: digital publishing.

KLTI Asia Translators Community Launching Ceremony Held in Vietnam

KLTI and Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences a nd Hu m a n it ie s ( HC M US SH ) c o -ho s t e d t he A si a Translators Community event from July 20 through July 21

at the Rex Hotel in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. This regional gathering for translators of Korean literature was the first planned and carried out by the Institute this year, and its aim was to reinforce the local network among translators living overseas, as well as form a basis for the reception of Korean literature in the region. Held in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam as a first-year event, 10 translators working in five countries in Asia met, namely Vietnam, China, Taiwan, Thailand, and Mongolia, shared their diff iculties in translating Korean literature, and discussed possible ideas for Korean literary works to be

introduced in their countries. Du r i n g t h i s e vent , t here w a s a lso a n awa rd c eremony for be st book reviews of Korean literature in Vietnam. Fifteen reviewers were recognized for their impressions of Kim Young-ha’s Quiz Show. K LT I a l s o d o n a t e d K o r e a n books (in 128 categories), as well as translated books (in 16 categories) to HCMUSSH, providing local Korean Studies scholars and students with the opportunity to have easier access to books and information about Korea.

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Vol.13 Autumn 2011

News from LTI Korea

Ceremonies for the 10th Korean Literature Translation Awards and the 10th Korean Literature Translation Contest for New Translators June 30, 2011 / Korea Press Center, Seoul Every other year, KLTI conducts the Korean Literature Translation Awards to encourage high-quality translations of Korean literary works and to promote their publication overseas. The judges of the 10th Korean Literature Translation Awards selected works of translators who published more than two independent titles outside Korea between January 1, 2009 to December 31, 2010. A total of 51 books in seven languages made it to the first round of selection; however, the final decisions were made for one grand prize and two awards based on the translator’s understanding of the original work, accuracy and completion, readability, literary style, and local reception. The grand prize for the 10th Korean Literature Translation Awards went to translators Choi Mikyung and Jean-Noël Juttet for their French translation of Shim Chong, fille vendue by Hwang Sokyong. Two translation awards went to Yang Han-ju and Heiner

Feldhoff for their German translation of Schwarze Blume (Black Flower) by Kim Young-ha, and to John Holstein for A Moment’s Grace, for his English translations of short stories including those of Oh Junghee. Grand-prize winners were awarded $20,000, and the translation award winners, $10,000 respectively. Meanwhile, KLTI also selected eight winners of the 10th Korean Literature Translation Contest for New Translators and celebrated the birth of the next generation of Korean literature translators on June 30 at the Korea Press Center. The designated works for translation were “The Morning Door” by Park Min-gyu for contestants in English, French, German, Spanish, and Russian, and “Bye, Elena” by Kim Insuk for Chinese and Japanese. A total of 257 applicants for the seven languages submitted their translations to KLTI for the translation contest this year.

Winners of the 10th Korean Literature Translation Awards Type of Award

Translated Language

Awarded Literary Work

Translator(s)

Grand Prize

French

Shim Chong, fille vendue (Zulma, 2010)

Choi Mikyung and Jean-Noël Juttet

Translation Prize

German

Schwarze Blume (konkursbuch, 2010)

Yang Han-ju and Heiner Feldhoff

Translation Prize

English

A Moment's Grace (Cornell University East Asia Program, 2009)

John Holstein

Shim Chong, fille vendue

Schwarze Blume

A Moment’s Grace

(Zulma, 2010)

(konkursbuch, 2010)

(Cornell Univ. East Asia Program, 2009)

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Vol.13 Autumn 2011

Winners of the 10th Korean Literature Translation Contest for New Translators Designated works to translate: “The Morning Door” by Park Min-gyu and “Bye, Elena” by Kim In-suk

Language

Translated Work

Translator

English

Into the Morning

Jane Kim

The Morning Door

Ji Yehgou

French

La porte d’un matin

Ahram Lee

German

Tür des Morgens

Maike Siehl

Spanish

La Puerta de la Mañana

Parodi Sebastián

Russian

ВЫход

Pak Kamilla Moran

Chinese

寻找埃莲娜

Wang Yanli

Japanese

さよなら、エレナ

Furukawa Ayako

Winners of the 10th Korean Literature Translation Contest for New Translators Winners of the 10th Korean Literature Translation Awards

Grand Prize winners Choi Mikyung and Jean-Noël Juttet

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Vol.13 Autumn 2011

Bestsellers

What We’re Reading Fiction

Nonfiction

The City of Familiar Others

Princess Deokhye

Youth, It's Painful

Choi In-ho, Yeobaek Media 2011, 391p, ISBN 9788958660941 In a mix of adventure and mystery, a man tries to track down his memories in a bid to find the truth. One day, the central character named K wakes up to an alarm, only to realize that his everyday life seems to have changed into something different and strange. A journey to regain lost memories brings the reader into a thought-provoking literary world.

Kwon Bee-young, Dasan Books 2009, 360p, ISBN 9788963700342 Princess Deokhye was born to the royal family of the Joseon era, but she led a solitary life that drew little attention from the public. The novel, partly based on this historical figure, brings back to life the pain and anger involving main characters in a rare take on the forgotten people who got swept up by the tragic development of Korea’s history.

Kim Rando, Sam&Parkers 2010, 320p, ISBN 9788965700036 The discourse praising 20-year-olds being at the peak of youth abounds, but today’s young people in Korea confront more problems and challenges than ever amid growing uncertainty. Professor Kim Rando delivers a host of hopeful messages, reflecting upon his discussions with students.

A Familiar World

Greatest Fish

Hwang Sok-yong Munhakdongnae Publishing Corp. 2011, 234p, ISBN 9788954615037 This novel highlights people who live in Flower Island where there is a dump. The plot also involves a main character called Ddaburi, and his growth. The dump in the region is compared to a garbage-filled world. It’s a dirty, poor, and harsh area, but also a place for low-wage workers who are mysterious and wonderful.

Koo Byung-mo, Jaeum&Moeum 2011, 210p, ISBN 9788957075425 Faced with imminent death by drowning, a man named Gon ends up growing gills. The novel leads the reader to people who come in contact with Gon in a network of relationships that abounds in secrets and mystery. The author tells a story about what Gon symbolizes in a tightly constructed plot, and how the world somehow got lost and why we have to miss it, love it, and fear its existence.

My Palpitating Life Kim Ae-ran, Changbi Publishers, Inc. 2011, 354p, ISBN 9788936433871 Young parents and their old child are an unlikely mix, but in this fascinating novel their relationship generates a celebration of youth and love. The couple, both just 17, are parents to a child who suffers from a rare disease where he ages at a relentless pace. The novel uncovers sparkling moments prompting readers to appreciate life, youth, aging, and time, aided by the writer’s trademark style of humor and insight.

A Night of Seven Years Jeong You-jeong, EunHaeng Namu Publishing Co. 2011, 523p, ISBN 978895604992 This is a fast-paced novel about sad, mysterious, and thrilling events that happen to a father and his son over a period of seven years. In a place called Seryeong Lake, an alarming development hits 12-year-old Seowon, who has survived a mystery-shrouded calamity linked to the lake. Doubts only grow upon his father’s death.

Please Look After Mom Shin Kyung-sook, Changbi Publishers, Inc. 2008, 299p, ISBN 9788936433673 A novel by the well-known Korean writer Shin Kyung-sook, Please Look After Mom is concerned about the process of retrieving memories about a mother who goes missing. A typical Korean mother is depicted realistically while the innermost aspects of her family members are also exposed. When the novel was first released, it became an instant bestseller. Recently, it was translated into English and climbed the bestseller list on Amazon.com, reigniting the public's attention.

Vol.13 Autumn 2011

Kim Je-dong, Wisdom Kyunghyang 2011, 296p, ISBN 9788996628705 Kim Je-dong, a TV comedian, is a social entertainer who makes good on what he believes and values. This book compiles interviews Kim began to write from February 2010 for the Kyunghyang Shinmun, a newspaper in Seoul. He conducts witty interviews with 25 experts in diverse fields such as politics, economy, society, and culture.

After the Flowers Wilt, We Notice the Leaves Yi Hae-in; Illustrator: Hwang Kyu-baik SAMTOH Publishing Co., Ltd. 2011, 288p, ISBN 9788946418035 Yi Hae-in, a renowned poet and Catholic nun, delivers a collection of articles reflecting her fight against cancer. She saw some of her loved ones die at a time when she was confronting a lethal disease herself, resulting in painful moments. But Yi turned the unbearable into an opportunity for self-reflection. The book showcases her positive attitude and simplicity, focusing on the here and now.

My Exploration of Korea's Cultural Heritage, Vol. 6 Yu Hong-june, Changbi Publishers, Inc. 2011, 452p, ISBN 9788936472061 Author Yu’s original My Exploration of Korea's Cultural Heritage sparked a travel boom in the southern part of the Korean peninsula in the 1990s. It also became the first million-seller as a humanities title. The series has finally reemerged with this sixth volume. Unlike the previous volumes, he pieces together his encounters with cultural experts, as well as historic and cultural sites, in an engaging fashion.

A Night of Seven Years

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Kim Je-dong Is Coming to Meet You

Princess Deokhye

My Exploration of Korea's Cultural Heritage, Vol. 6

These totals are based on sales records from eight major bookstores and three online bookstores from May to July 2011, provided by the Korean Publishers Association. The books are introduced in no particular order.

Children's Books I Love You and Thank You

Leafie, a Hen into the Wild

Treasure Hunting in New Zealand

Go Do-won, Hongik Publishing Co. 2011, 268p, ISBN 9788970652566 Go Do-won sends a message of happiness via email to 2.18 million subscribers each morning; this book is a collection of his essays that result from those efforts. The author presents stories that reaffirm the importance of self-affirmation along with inspiring, prize-winning photographs.

Hwang Sun-mi; Illustrator: Kim Hwan-young Sakyejul Publishing Ltd. 2002, 200p, ISBN 9788971968710 It is no exaggeration that this book has changed children’s literature in Korea. A hen breaks out of the chicken farm and confronts one challenge after another in this moving tale. Helped by recordbreaking sales and a recent animated film adaptation of the same title, the book has climbed to the No. 1 slot on the bestseller list again. The author was also nominated for the 2012 Hans Christian Andersen award.

Gomdori Co; Illustrator: Kang Gyung-hyo I-Seum, 2011, 216p, ISBN 9788937848261 The book is part of the World Exploration Cartoon Common Sense series aimed at providing information about the history and culture of various countries around the world. All the installments in this series continue to secure a slot on the bestseller list, reflecting the interest children have in foreign countries. The latest book shows how people in New Zealand are trying to protect their beautiful environment, and also introduces the Maori, the indigenous Polynesian people of New Zealand.

Educational Talmud Story

Tomorrow’s Experiment King, Vol. 17

Taste of Busan Park Jong-ho, Sanzini 2011, 270p, ISBN 9788965451549 In this extensive food guidebook, author Park introduces restaurants that he thinks offer the most delicious dishes in Busan and the South Gyeongsang province. More than a simple restaurant guide, Park talks about his own experiences in the form of essays in a way that accentuates the cultural and culinary varieties in the region.

Practice Is the Answer Lee Min-kyu, THENAN Publishing 2011, 304p, ISBN 9788984056503 The best-selling author of Charming People Are Different by 1%, returns with a bag of practical tips aimed at encouraging people to do what they have to do. The author draws up a three-stage plan: decision, implementation, and maintenance. The book also provides techniques to tackle psychological blocks that hinder the efforts to implement goals.

Don’t Stop Now: Write Down Your Dreams Kim Su-young, Woongjin Think Big Co., Ltd. 2010, 279p, ISBN 9788901107585 In 1999, author Kim won the top award on a popular TV quiz show. During her school years she was unpopular and a troublemaker. Later, upon discovering that she had cancer, she was compelled to write a list of dreams to achieve before dying. Though the cancer was treated, Kim decided to carry out the 73 “dreams” on her list. Over a period of five years, she has already realized 32 dreams.

Don’t Stop Now: Write Down Your Dreams

Writing Factory, Beautiful People 2011, 238p, ISBN 9788965130918 South Koreans are passionate about the education of their children, a trait that might be comparable to Jewish people. No wonder Koreans favor the Talmud. In the publishing sector, Talmud-related titles tend to stay on the steady seller list. This book comprises five chapters: think forward, think different, think in a way that generates value, think positive, and think without prejudice.

Gomdori Co; Illustrator: Hong Jong-hyun I-Seum, 2011, 208p, ISBN 9788937847691 For children, theories and terminology in science is burdensome, but this book attempts to explain the scientific concepts in a simple, understandable style. In the form of comics, the book shows how children conduct science experiments through interesting episodes involving the senses, optical illusions, the instinct of self-preservation, and paralysis among others.

Thinking Genius Who Changed the World

Mommy Teaches Art

Park Sung-choul; Illustrator: Kang Il-suk Kukmin Publishing Co. 2009, 184p, ISBN 9788981652029 Inventions that changed the world include credit cards, the Band-Aid, microwave oven, instant noodles, paper cup, Coca-Cola bottle, and the teddy bear. The author explains who came up with the small ideas that eventually led to such innovative products. The book is in line with the latest trend in Korean education circles that emphasize creativity. The author, who is an elementary school teacher, is also famous for offering education tips to parents.

Thinking Genius Who Changed the World

Kim Hong-dae and Jeon Young-sun Jinsun Publishing Co., Ltd. 2011, 112p, ISBN 9788972216964 This title is co-authored by two art teachers. Children feel happy when they draw and freely cut and paste pictures on paper. The happiness can double if children work on their projects together with their mothers. This book provides a guideline through which mothers can help their children make art at home by using various materials, themes, and presentation techniques.

Tomorrow’s Experiment King, Vol. 17

Mommy Teaches Art

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Vol.13 Autumn 2011

Publishing Trends

Fiction

Nonfiction

Short Story Writer Emerges with First Novel

Making Way for the Next Trend

My Palpitating Life Kim Ae-ran, Changbi Publishers, Inc. 2011, 354p, ISBN 9788936433871

Kim Ae-ran is well-known among Korean writers born in the 1980s. She made a high-profile debut by winning the first Daesan Literary Awards for College Students in 2002, and published two short story collections amid growing expectations about her in Korean literary circles. For her age, Kim received plenty of literary awards and her short stories were also well received, proving that there was a reason for high hopes regarding her literary talent. But she faced a challenge, or rite of passage that she could not avoid—her first novel. So many talented writers gain fame in the short story genre but, strangely enough, fail to produce quality work in the genre of novels. In other words, a good short story writer is not necessarily a good novelist. All in all, Kim’s novel, My Palpitating Life, previously serialized in a literary magazine, meets public expectations. In the novel, the first person narrator is a 17-year-old boy named Han A-reum who suffers from progeria. Due to his condition, he looks like an 80-year-old man. As he races through life at a relentless speed, his life is also marching toward death. His parents, Han Dae-su and Choi Mi-ra, became parents when they were just 17-years-old. The problem is that Dae-su and Mi-ra seem to be stuck at the mental age of 17. My Palpitating Life generates a stream of ironic moments by comparing and contrasting A-reum’s adult-like optimism and his not-so-mature parents. The precocious boy writes up a story about his birth and shows up at a television program to raise funds for treating his disease. A 17-year-old girl, who happens to watch the broadcast, starts exchanging letters with A-reum, leading to budding affection, only to be blindsided by a snag. Readers are bound to be controlled by Kim’s skillful writing. The novel is a testimony that Kim, a precocious literary genius, has emerged as a leading writer. By Choi Jae-bong

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Vol.13 Autumn 2011

There is no single trend in the nonfiction bestseller list that covers the sales between late April and early July in 2011. The emotional sensibility trend—a fad that began to impact local readers in their 20s since late 2010—seems to have bottomed out. Although the front-runner of the boom, Youth, It’s Painful, has remained at the top of the bestseller list for months now, a new and hopefully better nonfiction title is yet to appear. Several nonfiction books that can be easily grouped together with Youth, It’s Painful are climbing the bestseller list, but readers have yet to find one that can set a new trend. Three nonfiction titles, though, deserve attention. Kim Je-dong Is Coming to Meet You has ranked third or fourth on the bestseller list since May, a meaningful performance that can be compared to the two bestsellers in nonfiction and fiction, Youth, It’s Painful and Please Look After Mom. The author, Kim Je-dong, is a 37-year-old comedian and television show host who is deeply interested in social issues. The book is a collection of interviews he conducted for a major liberal newspaper. Kim’s interviews do not contain sharp satire, but still appeal to a wider group of readers as his discussions are targeted largely at the general public and without any technical jargon. His interviewees come from diverse sectors: influential politicians, novelists, sports stars, and idol entertainers. Another notable book in the nonfiction category is My Exploration of Korea's Cultural Heritage, Vol. 6, the latest installment of a popular art history series. The author is Yu Hongjune, former head of the Cultural Heritage Administration and celebrated art historian who sparked a boom for exploring the Korean peninsula in the 1990s with the series. The book comes after a hiatus of several years, but still falls into the category of a well-edited and easily readable title for anyone interested in Korea’s traditional aesthetics. If a top publisher and an experienced translator work on the version for foreign markets, it will certainly turn into a highly recommended title for travelers planning to visit Korea. The third and final title is A Child’s Self Esteem, which quickly rose to the No. 10 slot after hitting the shelves and then made it to the No. 5 position. Based on child psychology theories, the book introduces a methodology that encourages children to appreciate their own selves and explore ways to achieve their goals, marking a departure from forceful and artificial head-start programs. In a related genre, Emotional Coaching for Children continues to make the bestseller list. One might also wonder how foreign readers will respond to steady sellers in the self-help category such as Practice Is the Answer and The Things I Didn’t Know at Thirty. By Bae No-pil

simply follow the path of the detective-like characters. As children tend to get excited about characters their own age, the detectiveoriented story offers plenty of pleasure and satisfaction. Some of the latest books for children handle not only adventure stories in which younger girls and boys confront challenges but also slow-paced mystery dramas with the main characters using their intelligence and observational skills. Cracking open a mystery in such stories is a sure-fire way to enhance a childâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s imagination, reasoning power, and sense of dramatic tension and fear. In the process, the characters work out problems together, overcome difficult situations, join hands to handle challenges and share secrets, appreciate the importance of friendship, and look into their deeper selves. The recent boom of mystery and detective titles in the Korean publishing industry, therefore, is a phenomenon that should be welcomed.

By Yoon So-hee

1. Kim Je-dong Is Coming to Meet You Kim Je-dong, Wisdom Kyunghyang 2011, 296p, ISBN 9788996628705

2. My Exploration of Korea's Cultural

Heritage, Vol. 6

Yu Hong-june, Changbi Publishers, Inc. 2011, 452p, ISBN 9788936472061

3. A Child's Self Esteem Chung Ji-eun and Kim Min-tae Knowledge Channel 2011, 280p, ISBN 9788952762078

Children's Books

Children Love a Good Mystery Most children love detective and mystery novels. In many cases, a major incident takes place or a riddle-like secret is provided in the stories, with a sense of tension bolstering the plot in a way that enhances the fun factor as such mysteries get revealed and explained. Strong and attractive characters usually show up in the genres in question. Moreover, a big surprise awaits younger readers in the last chapter, an irresistible captivating factor. Children often find themselves not only immersed in the story but also imagining that they are the very heroic characters solving one mystery after another. The only problem is that writing a convincing mystery story is difficult. The genre has its limitations; after all, childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s book writers cannot draw on the sensational topics found in other crime novels targeted at adult readers. Despite this limitation, detective novels have been entertaining younger readers since the 1920s, though the popularity among modern readers is tapering off a bit. In recent years, however, some titles take on the mystery factor even though they do not belong to the genre. In this particular hybridized genre, main characters are usually detectives and go through an exciting adventure. Readers can

4 3

1. Detective Seol Hong-ju,

Find the Voice in the Darkness

Jung Eunsuk, Prooni Books, Inc. 2011, 165p, ISBN 9788957982631

2. Lost Diary Jun Sung-hyun; Illustrator: Jo Sung-heum Changbi Publishers, Inc. 2011, 186p, ISBN 9788936442637

3. Find Choi Ki-bong! Kim Seon-jeong; Illustrator: Lee Young-rim Prooni Books, Inc. 2011, 88p, ISBN 9788957982648 4. Bonjour, Tour Han Yoon-sop; Kim Jin-wha Munhakdongne Publishing Corp. 2010, 215p, ISBN 9788954612883

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Vol.13 Autumn 2011

Special Section

Risk Society and the Artistic Imagination

Reflecting on Risk Development and risk are key words that distinguish light from shadow in Korean society today. The signs and experiences of risk, as well as reflections on the inner world and feelings of individuals thrown into a dangerous world, are being revealed through various languages and perspectives. The reason why we cannot dismiss the theoretical, literary, and cultural enthusiasm of risk as a temporary trend is because of the plain reality in which risks of all degrees occur quite frequently in our daily lives at unexpected moments. Another reason is that the discussions on risk, as well as the consequent cultural products, warn of a dangerous reality, at times through plain language, and at times through unintended stimuli. It was in the 1990s that the theories of Western sociologists such as Anthony Giddens and Ulrich Beck were introduced to Korea for the first time and began to be discussed in general. As we all know, risk in Western society is like a dark twin that was born alongside modernization. The modern risks spoken of here are the kind that cannot be eradicated by mankind, like poverty and war, but the kind for which rational action is planned and implemented for the approach, management, and subsequent control. Even if we cannot root out risks, we are aware of their potential, and are in the process of making improvement by investing political, economic, technical, and social resources and efforts to prevent risky situations, and thus be able to act with selfassurance. The postmodern risks of today, however, are different from the previous modern risks in their condition and degree. Nuclear power, and the risks resulting from man’s misuse of the natural world, such as the destruction of the ozone layer, diseases of unknown causes, and mutation changes in the ecosystem, manifest themselves as problems that concern the entire world, and are beyond the prediction, management, and improvement by individual nations. As shown by the U.S. economic crisis in 2008, the speed and scope at which a risk that arises from one society spreads throughout the world is becoming faster and wider. What’s even more terrifying is that through the process of capitalizing on risk, the history of capitalism not only continues 14 list_ Books from Korea

Vol.13 Autumn 2011

but is expanding infinitely. Tremendous wealth and power— material, financial, and symbolic—are created through strategies in which the act of predicting, managing, and controlling risk is industrialized, with an investment of capital. Korea, which also exists in a system of risk that concerns the world, cannot be free of an environment of risk. With universal problems as well as problems inherent in Korean society, such as the deficiency of management skills, lack of social management capacity, lack of interest and care on the part of the individual members of the society, and the irresponsibility and incapacity of the government, the risks in Korean society—perhaps like the risks of any society—take on a more complex nature than universal risks. In Korean society today, the word “risk” implies various meanings and is used extensively. In light of theoretical interpretations developed in advanced Western nations, the difficulties and precariousness found in Korean society have been deemed distinct from those of Western nations, and the distinction places Korea into the category of an “underdeveloped risk society.” The act of using the word “risk” in speech is not carried out just to talk about risk, but to discover, discuss, and determine the depth of the phenomenon of risk, and make meaningful changes in the phenomenon. Thus, reflection on risk leads to an active intervention, as opposed to complacency and negligence. In this way, discussions of risk in the areas of theory, literature, art, and culture, calling for awareness and action, have set forth an attitude of defiance and reflection through which we can move forward and go deeper. The increase in discussions on risk in Korean society, in particular, can be seen as a result of the emergence of a new administration in 2008 and changes in civil society, along with universal risks. From this perspective, the areas of risk that stand out are those of the generation gap and the environment. When the current administration showed a great desire for development and an opening up of society, the risks latent in the desire were criticized, with an effort to seek alternative values. For example, Hong Sungook reports the risks lying in the system of science and

technology that rush forward unbridled, and sociologists such as Jung Chin-sung are rigorously examining the structures of risk and the reality of risky politics in Korea. In addition, conflict between generations, as well as between classes, have created a great sensation as they were incorporated into critical discussions of the “younger generation.” The craze over how-to books on achieving success and self-management, the crisis of universities and youth unemployment, high private education costs and college tuition, lack of enthusiasm for academic and labor activities, competition and individualism—these are some of the major discussions on risk and anxiety in the younger generation. They are important in that they have not only been dealt with as major topics of discussion in the fields of humanities and social sciences in the recent years, but also in that they place importance on youths as agents to overcome social risks and limitations. At the same time, such efforts are developing into a historical approach in tracking the process in which the literary youth, as well as modern young men and women were created in the era of colonization and modernization in Korea. Concerns and fear regarding the globally changing order of the environment, life, food, and health are becoming more concrete through the reflective work in life science and engineering currently being carried out on a multinational level. In addition, discussions on the democratization of the social distribution order for the prevention of risk, protection from it, as well as the cost and responsibility regarding it, are underway, from the standpoint of civil rights and welfare. The developments of integral approaches in the areas of science and humanities, which allow for an integrated management of a broad spectrum of issues, should also be noted. The artistic imagination on the risks that exist in society today unfolds at times through the lively language of popular culture. The issues of colonization, war, division, and poverty are still significant as structures of risk deeply rooted in Korean history, and act as key motifs in contemporary literature and art. In addition, familiar but changing themes such as industrialization, urbanization, individualism, multicultural and multiracial groups,

human identity and social relationships that are realigned through digital and mobile networks, as well as aging and one-person families, continue to be dealt with in the fields of poetry, novels, movies, plays, and popular culture. Among many remarkable works, “The Host,” can be seen as the most symbolic. The host, a character in the movie by the same title by Bong Joon-ho, a prominent Korean director who co-wrote the screenplay with Baek Chul-hyun, represents the absolute evil in the form of social contradiction and tragedy that accumulated in the process of a compressive modernization of Korea since the war and division. The spirit of cheerfulness, the counterpart to the hideous host, is a welcome entity that can often be encountered in the cultural landscape of risk. Cheerfulness embodies the life and spirit of man who must live in a world of risk. The word “risk,” while encompassing the fearful contradiction inherent to contemporary society, also implies the critical reflection of it by man. Imagination of risk in today’s society arises not from irresponsibility or deceptive complacency, but from the spirit and courage to face a distorted society, in which the abnormal is normalized. By Kim Yeran

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Vol.13 Autumn 2011

Special Section

Risk Society and the Artistic Imagination

Theories of Danger and Anxiety Risk Society, written by Ulrich Beck, a German sociologist, was published in 1986 and translated into English in 1992, and into Korean in 1997. Since then, the term “risk society” has been used by sociologists around the world, and the concept has had a profound effect on the diagnosis of the new reality and search for solutions in the late 20th century. The risk spoken of by Ulrich Beck in Risk Society is conceptually distinct from danger. First, danger refers to an actual threat to the physically existing body or property. For example, chemical substances are dangerous to the human body. Freon gas is dangerous to the ozone layer, and junk food is dangerous for one’s health. Danger is a specific entity, and causes real harm. Risk, however, is unrelated to such a physical or empirical reality of a threat. Risk refers to the statistical probability of something happening to bring harm to the body or property. For that reason, risk is calculable, controllable, and predictable. Therefore, the expression “uncontrollable risk” is contradictory. A risk is a danger taken into account under rational calculation. It is preparation against a danger that may arise in the future, and involves prevention against the occurrence of danger. Risk is nowhere. But anything can become a risk. Risk is not something that exists in reality; it is a perspective through which reality is seen in a special way. Thus, the same danger can be a risk to someone, yet not to someone else. Therein lies the reason why culture plays a key role in the constitution of a risk. For instance, a certain society (Germany) sees nuclear power plants as

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Vol.13 Autumn 2011

a serious risk, and based on the rational idea that they can cause fatal and widespread destruction on the earth’s ecosystem, has declared a departure from this volatile power, and has gained a social consensus to no longer build nuclear plants. Some societies, however, myth-ify the safety of nuclear plants, despite having witnessed the tremendous damage caused by nuclear accidents in catastrophes such as Three Mile Island in 1979, and Chernobyl in 1986. Such phenomena show that in defining a risk, the different attitudes of different societies, as well as their judgments and values, play a more fundamental role than objective scientific knowledge. Even within a single society, risk evolves according to the times. In other words, a society can show drastic changes in its constitution of a risk during a short period of time. For instance, smoking wasn’t considered a particularly risky behavior in Korea just 10 years ago. People were allowed to smoke in public places, including buses, and were even encouraged to smoke under certain circumstances, such as during military service. Smoking served as a symbol of masculinity, youth rebellion against society, the aesthetic preference of women, as well as refinement amongst intellectuals. In the past 20 years or so, however, Korean society has come to see smoking as a risk. Today, smoking is seen as a slow suicide, as well as an attack on others and their health. Such perceptions arise from the awareness that smoking can cause a number of diseases, as well as that smoking is accompanied by risks. A risk society is a society dominated by such perceptions of risk. What drives people to action is no longer a release from hunger. They want release from anxiety. A risk society does not come from a righteous, revolutionary fervor; rather, what drives a risk society today is a desire for safety. Class variables, too, lose a great deal of their significance. As Beck likes to put it, smog is democratic. Environmental disasters do not care about class or borders or race. Concerns over food on the table, fear of environmental disasters, including global warming, and anxiety over countless new diseases move the citizens of a risk society in a political way. The new political agent that Beck calls a “risk community” is formed on a worldwide scale, with the anxiety over potential catastrophic disaster as its motivating power. Politics descends to the level of life. Politics turns into a political life

centered around the issues of safety and anxiety. In this respect, a risk society shows new kinds of social constitutions and changes heretofore not experienced by mankind. It was in the mid-to late-1990s that full-fledged discussions on risk societies began in Korea. The collapse of the Seongsu Bridge in 1994 and that of the Sampoong Department Store in 1995 awakened a great sense of crisis in a society optimistically steeped in the myth of success and progress. It was during this period that Korean sociologists began to do a thorough dissection of Korean modernity through the concept of a risk society. The fall 1998 issue of Sasang carries the opinions of various scholars on the issue of a risk society. Han Sangjin discusses the flaws of modernization faced by Asian nations based on the concept of a risk society, and Kim Daehwan searches for the causes of large-scale disasters in the process of modernization in Korea, which was achieved through a rush to growth. In addition, Chang Kyung-sup depicts modern Korean society as “a society of explosion and jerry-building,” created by a distorted idea of development, and Yee Jaeyeol points out the “daily abnormality” prevalent in Korean society. The responses by Korean intellectuals to the discussion of a risk society which began in the 1990s are characterized, above all, by critical reflection on the so-called “compressed modernity.” In this respect, the Korean idea of a risk society during this period was different from that of the West. In other words, while the Western idea of a risk society was based on the awareness of destruction that paradoxically comes as a result of the standard development of modern rationality, intellect, and science, the Korean idea of a risk society was rooted in the horrors that occurred due to an abnormal process of modernization. With the outbreak of the IMF foreign exchange crisis in 1997, Korea was swept up in neoliberal globalism. Irregular jobs were created in great numbers with increased flexibility in the labor market, market and competition oriented thinking infiltrated even the public sector, the social safety net was rapidly undermined, and the problem of polarization grew more severe. The foreign exchange crisis was in itself a catastrophe, and a drama of social changes led to catastrophic situations. After the foreign exchange crisis, Korea became not just a risk society in which buildings collapsed, bridges broke, and subways trains derailed, but a high risk society in which carrying on with daily life itself became a risk. As it were, the concept of risk broke free of that of disasters or accidents, and expanded into life in general through the crisis. Korea in the 2000s has become closer to the risk society illuminated by Ulrich Beck on different levels (The Sociology of Risk in Uncertain Times by Rho Jin-chul, published in 2010, merits attention. The author deals with various theoretical issues regarding risk society, based on the system theory of Niklas Luhmann, and attempts an analysis on the issue of risk in Korean society.). For instance, what are we to think of the candlelight vigils that heated up Korea in 2008? As we all know, the vigils began with the issue raised by the public, of the possible exposure of beef to mad cow disease, which was imported from the U.S. through the FTA signed by the newly launched government. Countless people participated in the vigils, and political discussions and cultural performances were held at the same time. The online and offline worlds coexisted. Outwardly, the issue manifested itself in such diverse ways, but the main factor that rallied the people to the streets was anxiety over American beef and distrust of the

government that emphasized its safety. The people expressed their concerns and demanded a solution. What was important to them was not ideology or a political line, but the life and safety of their families. Mothers who came out to protest, pushing strollers, symbolized the candlelight vigils. Those who participated in the vigils were the risk community mentioned by Beck; the most important issue they wanted to convey to the government was that of safety and life; the logic behind the value of safety and life was risk; and what led to the action was the feeling of anxiety. As Beck states, what is more important than scientific rationality in a risk society is social rationality, because modern science isn’t the answer to everything. Modern science is going through a process of evolution, and a tremendous unknown risk lies outside of the scientifically confirmed risks of today. Furthermore, it must be taken into account that pure science is at times misused due to the demands of businesses and governments. Therefore, the main agent in determining what a risk is should not be those few scientific experts, but those who are vulnerable to the risk when the risk becomes real. In other words, the main agent should be everyone on earth as citizens of a global risk society—everyone who is alive, including ourselves. In a risk society, anxiety, common sense, and desire for safety must be respected. The intellect must be restrained by a consideration for the unknown and the power of common sense should be more important than ever in a risk society. By Kim Hong-jung

1. Sasang quarterly magazine, autumn 1998

2. Sociology of Risk in Uncertain Times Rho Jin-chul, Hanul Publishing Group 2010, 550p, ISBN 9788946052611

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Vol.13 Autumn 2011

Special Section

Risk Society and the Artistic Imagination

Confronting Danger Through Apocalyptic Literature Kim In-suk, Park Min-gyu, Yun I-hyeong, and Pyun Hye-young The Realities of a Risk Society Korean writers have been producing an increasing number of works that deal with the end of civilization or disasters of apocalyptic scale. In particular, authors who have emerged after the new millennia— Park Min-gyu, Yun I-hyeong, Pyun Hye-young, Cho Hahyeong, and Yun Ko-eun—have delivered straightforward depictions of the horrors of a post-apocalyptic dystopia instead of extracting messages of hope or salvation from the rubble. One common denominator of post-2000 works that depict catastrophes is their intensification of the tragic notion that reality is itself a catastrophic phenomenon. Apocalyptic literature in a society of danger stems from a radically critical view of reality. Recent works that depict virtual disasters reveal an allegorical imagination of the here and now. Through the horrendous disasters of societies yet to come, writers direct our attention to the everyday disasters of contemporary society. These works also re-investigate the question of “What is reality?” Novels that depict virtual disasters have strong characteristics of sci-fi or fantasy literature, and are also particularly experimental. Contemporary apocalyptic literature gives us visions of the future as grotesque and grim as the ones we meet in Brave New World or 1984.

Kim In-suk, Can You Go Insane? Kim In-suk’s new novel, Can You Go Insane? depicts the tedious hours people spend in the aftermath of a disaster. Before their lives were torn asunder in the earthquake and tsunami, they had already constructing manmade, everyday disasters. As the novel progresses, the characters come to the painful realization that their lives were already destroyed in unseen ways before calamity struck. What remained in the wake of the earthquake and the tsunami was awful, but not as harrowing as the disintegration of human relationships, a life without passion, and of love composed of empty gestures. The disasters crack open the customs of everyday life that once allowed for a mechanical life which obscured the lethal truth within. Disasters incite horror, but Kim In-suk’s characters demonstrate that a fate more horrifying than disasters is the death of the soul that cannot love this life, the world we live in, and the time we are given. Through this piece, the readers meet a lucid reflection of themselves slowly going insane, not a catastrophe happening in a faraway land. 18 list_ Books from Korea

Vol.13 Autumn 2011

To rebuild a destroyed building, one needs capital, technology, and labor. But how does one rebuild a broken life, relationship, and soul? Can You Go Insane? is about an invisible reconstruction and an elusive salvation.

Park Min-gyu, Ping Pong In Park Min-gyu’s Ping Pong, the problem of social ostracism is amplified to catastrophic levels. Social ostracism, which occurs in various social groups, is not just violence directed at an individual, but a serious social problem that is a precursor to the maladies of the society itself. Especially for young boys and girls, ostracism gives them a horrifying sense of despair even before they become active participants in society. The boy protagonist of Ping Pong, also ostracized from his peers, believes that he is a being that “has been blotted out by the world.” To the boys who cannot find “a safe, comfortable place” in the world whether they are at home or at school, the world is as frightening as a flood or earthquake. In a world that does not guarantee individuals the basic respect they deserve as human beings, each feels he lives in a dangerous world. This novel features not just the ostracized boys but also those labeled by society as failures, affectionately referred to as “losers.” The ostracized boys know that what scares them more are not the bullies who torture them and take their lunch money, but the silence of those who pretend to be in the mainstream. The ostracized boys and loser adults from Ping Pong illustrate that a social climate that leaves everything to the decision of the majority and the mainstream is also a form of violence. The theme of Ping Pong starts with the realities of ostracized people and losers to whether the “application” humanity should remain “installed.” Of course, civilization cannot be wiped out as one would install or uninstall a program, but the novel uses elements of the fantastic and reminds us that civilization could indeed be suddenly wiped out one day from a catastrophe of epic proportions. Michael Sandel’s Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? has been wildly popular in Korea. But survival, not justice, is the main issue in Korea where the fear of a dangerous society has reached its peak. It is ironic that a society struggling to preserve justice has such an explosive interest in “What is justice?” But the ostracized boy’s troubles do not stop at being mere trouble. The boy who ends up with a hairline fracture on his skull from being so battered has an

important realization that “the individual is more important than humanity.” Ping Pong communicates the desire for a society where the majority does not oppress the minority by sheer numbers, where even the weakest members can be heard. If society gives up on individual rights because it involves too great a struggle, the horrors of a risk society will grow.

Yun I-hyeong, The Big Wolf, Blue Yun I-hyeong’s The Big Wolf, Blue is about a virtual disaster born of contemporary man’s mindset that seeks to resolve all problems via cyberspace. Yun experiments with sci-fi and fantasy to explore new literary horizons in her second novel, The Big Wolf, Blue. Sara the protagonist is not in the least surprised when she hears news of zombies consuming human flesh and growing in number by inflicting harm on others. Her lukewarm response to news of the catastrophe reminds us of our reality where disasters strike so often we have become desensitized to calamity. When her cable and electricity are cut off, she senses that she, too, will soon be eaten by a zombie. The problem that Blue, a virtual image created by a computer program, must resolve, is not one that pertains to future societies far off in the future, but the bewilderment and despair of today’s young men and women. As horrifying as the cataclysm that is turning the entire human race into zombies is the despair of the four young protagonists who realized that they are growing old without ever having lived the way they had wanted to. In a world where no one can save them, the young protagonists believe that the virtual wolf they have made with the computer program will one day jump out of the computer and save them.

relative. Instead of depicting complete annihilation where all of human civilization has turned into Ground Zero, disasters strike sporadically, or the victims of disasters are generally the socially marginalized. Some works focus more on criticizing the uniformity with which society responds to disaster rather than depicting different kinds of disasters such as epidemics, war, and volcanic eruptions. Another scene that appears frequently is one where a civilization built for the convenience of man turns on humanity and strikes with unimaginable horror. Today people face an unprecedented variety of disasters without so much as a trustworthy survival manual. A proverb from Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching goes, “Value disaster as highly as your body.” The realities in dystopian literature are described as reality itself rather than extenuating circumstances. The exit will present itself to us when people stop avoiding disasters and start recognizing disaster as a primary condition of life. In this society of danger the question of how to coexist with others, rather than how individuals can survive, is a budding literary theme.

By Jung Yeo-ul

Pyun Hye-young, Ashes and Red Ashes and Red is the story of a man accused of being his ex-wife’s murderer and suspected of being a carrier of an infectious disease on his way into C, a country suffering from an epidemic. He becomes homeless once he arrives in country C and lives like a ghost in the sewers. On the surface, the crux of the conflict is in the outbreak of the epidemic, but the force that drives the protagonist to doom can be found in the protagonist himself. The more efficient he becomes at his job, the more he assimilates into the system and takes a step closer to his own ruin. Members of contemporary society who have absorbed the lessons of capitalism as a given may seem like harmless people who would not do evil on purpose, but in truth, these people can be the very source of someone’s downfall. The main characters in the calamities that Pyun conjures up are run-of-the-mill people who think that they are mere cogs in the larger system. Humans who are loyal to commands coming from above and adapt to follow the rules of the system are the ones with the potential to facilitate disaster. While Robinson Crusoe succeeds in surviving in order to return to civilization and society, and reclaims his identity in the end, the main character of Ashes and Red does survive but deteriorates into a surplus human being for whom belonging has no meaning. While Robinson Crusoe’s survival was for the purpose of rejoining civilization, the protagonist in Ashes and Red becomes a stranger in the city he so longed to be a part of.

Beyond Blinding Fear and False Hope The popularity of modern motherhood myths, as seen in the success of Shin Kyung-sook’s Please Look After Mom, can be traced back to the mass psychology of general anxiety and depression, which in turn stems from the sensational rhetoric of the “Era of the End” or the “Time of Annihilation.” The virtual ruination we see in recent literary works is never absolute but

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1. Ashes and Red Pyun Hye-young, Changbi Publishers, Inc. 2010, 260p, ISBN 9788936433734 2. Ping Pong Park Min-gyu, Changbi Publishers, Inc. 2006, 258p, ISBN 9788936433550 3. The Big Wolf, Blue Yun I-hyeong, Changbi Publishers, Inc. 2011, 330p, ISBN 9788936437176 4. Can You Go Insane? Kim In-suk, Hankyoreh Publishing Co. 2011, 302p, ISBN 9788984314726

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Vol.13 Autumn 2011

Special Section

Risk Society and the Artistic Imagination

Popular Culture Feeds on Disaster In a world of increasing dangers, how a society handles disasters reveals the struggle to preserve personal and private identity in a space where public and private have become increasingly at odds. How We Handle Disasters Since the second half of the 2000s, Korean film protagonists have been fighting tooth and nail to protect their families. Korean thrillers from 2010 such as Midnight F.M., Man of Vendetta, and No Mercy, seems telling of the subconscious anxiety surrounding Korea. The radio host of Midnight F.M., the pastor of Man of Vendetta, and the medical examiner specializing in autopsies—all characters who have appeared dedicated to their jobs in the public arena—become roped into the antagonists’ game (which all involves a daughter held hostage) and watch as their work ethic falls apart. Ensnared by a game they cannot quit, all characters fail to hold onto their public (work) identity. The pastor becomes corrupt, the radio host loses faith in broadcasting, and the defenders of the law find themselves out of legal bounds. Their only identity that remains, the last identity they struggle to defend, is a private one—as a mother or father. In these films, it appears that the destruction of a public identity and the defense of a private identity are two sides of the same coin.

What Monsters Live By Korean films in the second half of 2000 no longer obsess over the meta-narrative. The loss of faith in the meta-narrative has led to an increasing focus on once marginalized micro-narratives. One trend in the Korean thrillers of 2010 is the reluctance of Korean films to search for meaning and the value of life in the public arena, a trend that perhaps stems from a widespread doubt that public or national development leads to a better quality of life. The public arena in these films is no longer a space of self-realization or a protective system that guarantees the private space. What, then, is the monster that triggers the narrative of disaster and turns the private space into pandemonium? What gave birth to this monster? Why is Korean film opting to focus on the private rather than turning to the public 20 list_ Books from Korea

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in trying to battle this monster? To answer this question and understand the anxiety that the Korean masses feel, we must examine Bong Joon-ho’s The Host (2006). The film opens with an American general ordering his subordinate to release a great quantity of formaldehyde into the Han River. The toxic waste creates the mutant monster. The monster appears on the riverside park and kidnaps Hyeonseo (played by Ko A-sung), the daughter of a man named Park Kang-du (played by Song Kang-ho) who owns a small mom-and-pop store in the park. While quarantined in the hospital for being a suspected carrier of a virus supposedly spread by the monster, Park Kang-du discovers that his daughter is still alive and held hostage in a sewer along the Han River. Park Kang-du and his family escape from the hospital to save Hyeonseo, but no one is willing to help them. Thus, they fight a hard, lonely fight against the monster. At first glance, it appears the monster was created by the toxic waste that the U.S. army released into the river. But is that really the case? The peril Park Kang-du’s family found themselves in was not simply brought on by the unequal cultural, political, and military relationship between Korea and the U.S. The Host masterfully depicts how the multi-layered ironies inherent in the structure of Korean society winds up throwing the average family to the wolves. There is a very important scene in the film before the monster is introduced. A middle-aged man tries to commit suicide by throwing himself into the Han River when his friends run over to save him. The man who was about to jump sees something in the river and asks his friends if they see it, too. But his friends do not see what he does. The man throws himself into the river with these last words directed at his friends, “Dim-witted morons all the way to the end!” The Host provides no other background on this man. He is likely some failed middle-aged man who has lost the ability to take care of his family. In a society that allows no second chances, his one remaining option is to throw himself in the river.

And only then does he see the monster with its mouth gaping open, ready to swallow him whole. Although it was created by toxic waste courtesy of the U.S. army, it grew by feeding on the stragglers of Korean society whose despair sent them into the watery grave. The monster hopes for a constant supply of stragglers. That is how the monster grows. We must note that when the man calls his friends “Dim-witted morons all the way to the end!” he is looking nearly straight into the camera. This is a warning from Bong Joon-ho to the audience; the friends (and audience) that cannot see the monster lurking before their eyes will someday find themselves in the same place as the man about to jump. The narrative of disaster that befalls the average family when the monster appears seems like an allegory of the anxiety shared by the Korean masses. In the tradition of monster movies, The Host depicts the monster as symbolic of how Korean society has turned into a monster by accepting neo-liberalism as an economic and political mandate, how this monster has grown, and how this monster inflicts disaster on the average family. The monster embodies greed. The monster devours everything it can. Its avarice is demonstrated in the scene where it eats too much, becomes sick, and empties its stomach. The monster’s greedy nature that represents Korean society is closely related to the social calamities faced by the average family. The monster is, in other words, the irony of the neoliberal societal structure where wealth begets more wealth and poverty begets more poverty. The Host is a film about an average family that struggles to defend its private space. The family is treated as an entity that exists, but does not quite. It appears that this family’s suffering remains a story untold to the end. Park Kang-du’s opinions are treated as the gibberish of a madman that has contracted a virus, and because of that, everyone–the doctors, the police, the military, and virus specialists—all cut him off in the middle of his sentences. No one in the film is willing to listen, so his story remains untold. The Host continues to show us how the story is depicted in the news to emphasize the blatant disparity between what the world hears through the news and what the family actually faces.

The Host (2006)

While You Were Sleeping While the crux of the The Host is the family, there is only one scene in the film where all the family members are gathered together. When the family returns to their mom-and-pop store in the riverside park after escaping from the hospital, they sit around the crowded room to share a meal of ramen. Hyeonseo is not in the scene in the beginning, but it turns out she was lying down for a nap. She wakes up and eats with them. This scene, however, is imaginary because Hyeonseo is held captive by the monster at that point in the film.

The fact that the one scene that has all the family members in it is imaginary has important implications, especially for a film about life-and-death struggles to protect the said family. In a world swept up by the winds of neo-liberalism, the only thing we dream of is the family. The family is our only wish. Park Kang-du, who was asleep when he first appeared in the film, cannot fall asleep at the end of the movie. This suggests that perhaps he believes he has lost Hyeonseo to the monster because he was asleep. An eerie feeling still hangs over the riverside park on Han River at the end of the movie. Even though the monster is dead, the feeling that something else might strike again remains. Perhaps this is why Park Kang-du cannot fall asleep. But physically falling asleep and being intellectually alert cannot be the same thing. Park Kang-du is awake, but one cannot say that he is alert. He remains certain that his private space needs to be protected, but chooses to remain in the dark as to the truth behind the monster that threatened his happiness. He has seen the monster in person and experienced its horrifying power, but he chooses to stay within his house, the private space, to protect his family rather than venturing out into the public space to find it. The monster is not the sort that can be defeated by protecting the private space. The films in the second half of the 2000s deal with a variety of disasters that threaten the private space and yet give us no other alternative but to fight and fight again to protect the family. As long as this persists, the monster will return time and again. By An Shihwan

Man of Vendetta (2010)

Midnight F.M. (2010)

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Vol.13 Autumn 2011

Interview

Telling the Lives of the Poor Novelist Kim Joo-young This May I went to the KLTI U.S. Forum held at UCLA with the writer Kim Joo-young. The theme of the forum was “Looking to Prosperity from Within the Ruins: Korea in Korean Literature,” and Kim spoke with warmth and candor about his eventful past. If one had to sum up Kim’s work in one word, through its journey from ruins to prosperity, that word would be poverty. He comes from Jinbo-myeon, Cheongsong-gun, North Gyeongsang province. While few Koreans who remember the Japanese annexation and the Korean War could say that they did not suffer from poverty, Kim’s impoverished childhood growing up with a single mother sets his experience apart from many others. Back in Seoul I met the author again at a café in Gahoe-dong one summer day, with the rain that had kept the city hostage for weeks still pouring outside. In order to ease into the lush garden of Kim’s work, which focused on poverty and the mother figure throughout his life, I first asked about his eccentric sleeping habits.

support my family. I would always have a monthly income of so much. And I stuck to that. I haven’t been very good to my family in any other way, but I have kept to that. At home my wife has the upper hand, of course. Uh: Now that we’re talking about money, let’s talk about poverty. You’ve been known to say that you were poor “the minute the umbilical cord was cut.” What does poverty signify in your work? Kim: I haven’t told anyone about this yet, but I’m working on a novel right now. I’ve written about 140 pages so far. At the moment I’m calling it My Mother’s Memoirs. It’s going to be the definitive answer to where Kim Joo-young’s poverty comes from. My mother had to support two households, hers and her brother’s, because my uncle was useless. I was depressed because we were so poor, always

Uh Soo-woong: They say that you slept in the living room for 20 years. Kim Joo-young: More than 20 years. If I may exaggerate, it doesn’t necessarily have to be the living room—I don’t sleep well in the dark, is all. I have to have a light on. I don’t go to dimly lit coffee shops or cafes. Don’t want to. Why don't I want to? When I was a boy I lived entirely indoors. I hid in closets and slept there. I also had a stutter. Was it ever a pain to get rid of. Back in the day I hosted a talk show on MBC, in black and white. I did it on purpose to get rid of my stutter. Uh: It only seems natural that a good speaker like you should be offered a job like that. Kim: I knew one of the writers. He put in a good word for me. I warned him, “I stutter. I’m not very articulate.” But the writer, he says, “That’s why you’re likeable, because you blunder.” After that I decided to change my ways, seek out the light, sleep in bright places at home. That’s when I started sleeping in the living room. You could say I went from one extreme to another. I was a country boy with not a soul to call kith or kin in the city, trying to make it on my own, so I thought I had to change my ways to make something of myself.

1. The Sound of Thunder Kim Joo-young, Munidang 2000, 366p, ISBN 8974561484

Uh: What does your wife think about your shunning the bedroom forever? (laughter)

2. Tradesman (9 volumes) Kim Joo-young, Munidang

Kim: I’ve kept to one thing since I got married. I promised myself I would do anything short of stealing or doing con jobs to

3. A Skate Fish Kim Joo-young, Munidang 2009, 294p, ISBN 9788974564254

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Vol.13 Autumn 2011

Interview

novelist Kim Joo-young and reporter Uh Soo-woong

alone, always picked on. I tried to be strong but I couldn’t. It’s what I’ve been asking myself for the past 70 years: What has poverty done for me? Now I try to look on the bright side. I would never have become a writer if we weren’t poor. In the first place, poverty has a way of making people cringe and crawl. It makes you subservient. I never fell in that trap. And in the second place, I wrote about the kind of life poor people live. So I kind of lived off poverty. And lastly, being poor gave me the strength to survive on my own in the big city. It’s my pride. I used to be ashamed of it. But one of my friends gave me a piece of advice. Said I was too old to be ashamed of anything, and I’d be a healthier man to give up my hang-ups. I figured I’d take that advice.

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1. Ein Fischer bricht das Schilfrohr nicht Kim Joo-young, Peperkorn, 2002 2. El pescador no tala Kim Joo-young, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 1996 3. Рыбак не ломает камышей Kim Joo-young Московский государственный университет, 2003

4. Le pêcheur ne cueille pas de roseaux Kim Joo-young, Éditions du Petit Véhicule, 2000 5. Sardellen Kim Joo-young, Peperkorn, 2007 6.《鳀鱼》 Kim Joo-young, 吉林大学出版社, 2010

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Uh: But everybody was poor back then. Going without lunch at school and such was fairly common. Kim: It was different for me in a more all-encompassing way. I didn’t just go without lunch. I didn’t have a father, and my mother had to work every day to put food on the table. The other children may not have had lunch but they all had normal families. They had a farm, a dad and a mom. They weren’t called trash. I was. My mother died two years ago. She was over 90 when the government tried to give her this ‘Outstanding Mother’ award. She was in her hometown Cheongsong, North Gyeongsang province. And she wouldn’t budge to come to the award ceremony no matter what they said. She said she didn’t deserve it. (laughs) She wouldn’t come even though I told her the prize was a golden hairpin, said she didn’t have enough hair to put up anyway. I wished she would have come. Uh: You worked at the tobacco co-op in Andong, North Gyeongsang province for about 10 years after you graduated from Sorabol Arts College. What made the young Kim Joo-young, tobacco co-op worker in Andong, return to literature? Kim: Actually I hadn’t graduated when I started working in Andong. I worked there and came to Seoul to take my exams. It all comes down to poverty. Kim Dong-ri was teaching back then and he let me get away with it. That job paid a lot. Everyone wanted it. So the problem was, I started drinking. Every day. Only went to places that had girls, too. I drank so much I ruptured my bowels. And

suddenly one day I realized, I could ruin my life this way. Nobody gave me advice along the way in my life. I learned everything the hard way. My mother had remarried and was preoccupied trying to make ends meet, so I was alone. I had a flash of clarity that I couldn’t continue going on like that. So I quit. And I wrote my first story. It won Honorable Mention in the Wolgan Munhak (Literature Monthly). Not a bad start. And that’s how I went back to literature. Uh: Now, poverty and the mother figure form the foundation of your work, but the building blocks are your vocabulary. I remember reading about the novelist Lee Mun-ku calling the vocabulary in your signature works such as Tradesman and The Sound of Thunder your “blood and capillaries.” Kim: Back then historical f iction was written from the perspective of kings and lords. Tradesman is written in the perspective of a commoner. It’s about traveling peddlers. Its greatest strength and weakness, however, was that there were too many obscure words. I wanted to write the novel in the language peddlers actually used in the olden days. It was a right pain researching that novel. I don’t think there’s a market in the country I didn’t visit, and I even sent off to Japan for some information. I am proud of one thing, though. There isn’t a word in the book that’s not in the dictionary. And I’ve never changed a single word in all the editions that have been printed since it came out decades ago. I was that thorough.

place right next to the Uljin Nuclear Plant, too. I’ll be working on that next year. And then I want to write about little things, flies, mosquitoes, mice, those kinds of things. I want to write the stories of creatures that are never given any thought, sort of half-novel, half-fairy tale. I went through a dry spell for three years or so since I’ve been trying to quit smoking. Bit of a side effect, if you will. Couldn’t concentrate. But now I’ve rested three years I feel like I’ve recharged my batteries. (laughs) I was given a glimpse of the author’s famous laugh towards the end of the interview. Seeing Kim grin ear to ear is to experience all of one’s problems mysteriously vanish away, if only for a moment. And to read his most famous works—Tradesman, A Skate Fish, The Sound of Thunder—is to experience that laughter again. The people in those books stick together. They may be poor and sad and lonely by themselves, but they always have a rollicking good time together. In the end, Kim Joo-young’s work comes down to that—the solidarity of the poor. By Uh Soo-woong

Uh: Don’t you think, however, that while writers don’t necessarily have to write with a global audience in mind, that using obscure Korean words makes it harder for your books to be translated? Tradesman and The Sound of Thunder must be hard to translate with all of those distinct words. Kim: Lee Mun-ku and I talked about that when he was alive. He was an ardent defender of the Korean language and he knew that I lean towards that side as well. He said, “You and I, we’ll never be translated.” There are a lot of words in Korean that are difficult to describe. The meaning depends on the nuance. Lee Mun-ku and I use those kinds of words a lot. But you can’t translate the way those words are interpreted. You shouldn’t use those kinds of words, period, if you want your work to be translated. So of course they’re hard to translate. But I was determined that if that was the way the Korean language was, I was going to keep on using those kind of words. But I do believe that the literary message will prevail. There’s a woman in The Sound of Thunder named Kil-nyo. She’s a sweet woman, uneducated, everyone takes advantage of her. She doesn’t even know the word for love, but she loves with all her heart. The word love doesn’t even appear in this novel except at the very end. I think maybe that has to do with what is truly Korean, what Korean literature means.

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Uh: Now that everyone is living longer, I think we can expect more from even those of our writers who have already earned their place in the literary canon. What are your plans for the future? Kim: I plan to finish the novel about my mother that I was talking about by this year. Next year I’m going to write the tenth book of Tradesman. I was going to stop with nine books, but now I have an excuse for another one. I was passing by a place called Uljin in North Gyeongsang province when I learned that there was the only surviving peddler’s path in the country there. I poked around for a couple of days and I found all the old memorial stones, the taverns, the spring, the commemorative marker. I rented a

1. Раскаты грома Kim Joo-young, РИК Культура, 1999

5. Der Stachelrochen Kim Joo-young, Peperkorn, 2001

2. The Sound of Thunder Kim Joo-young, Sisayongosa, Inc., 1990

6. Mopcka Komka Kim Joo-young, CEMA PШ, 2006

3. 《惊天雷声》 Kim Joo-young, 上海译文出版社, 2008

7.《洪鱼》 Kim Joo-young, 上海译文出版社, 2004

4. ‫دعرلا توص‬ Kim Joo-young, Dar al-Adab, 2006

8. La raya Kim Joo-young, Solar Editores, 2009

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Excerpt

The Sound of Thunder The sun was nearly down when at last she arrived back in Hamyang. After the journey, Kil-nyo was skin and bones and her clothes were little better than rags. She pushed open the gate and walked in to find the whole house a wreck. Murderous looking men wearing red armbands were busily ransacking the house. What little furniture there had been in the main room had been thrown into the yard along with all the kitchenware. As the men rushed about they kicked things out of their way. Kil-nyo’s mother, the baby held tight in her arms, was sitting there vacantly watching the house being turned inside out. Among the men running amok, Kil-nyo spotted one who looked familiar. It was the short man who had come when her father was arrested and taken away. She recognized him first, but he was the one who first spoke to her. A cigar was in his mouth as he emerged from the outbuilding where her father had been staying. There was nothing out of the ordinary about the man’s behavior. As soon as he saw Kilnyo come into the yard, he rushed over to her and, pulling the cigar out of his mouth, said, “You’re the daughter of this family, aren’t you?” Pointedly, as if to preempt her fabricating an alibi, he went on immediately. “You are Shin Kil-nyo, correct?” Through the wide-open door Kil-nyo could see her seated mother’s hand patting the baby’s back. The sight made her feel calmer. “I am the daughter.” “Where have you been? Where did you hide Cha Pyongjo?” Inside, her mother was shaking her head back and forth. “Hide who? I have no idea what you’re talking about.” “Cha Pyong-jo. You know that reactionary, don’t you?” As Kil-nyo moved over to the edge of the wooden floor and sat down, the man summoned the others from inside to come out into the front yard. After sending them outside the gate, he continued, “Cha Pyong-jo is your husband, isn’t he?”

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“….” “Isn’t he?” “Yes.” “Where is he?” “I’ve been gone for eight days to get some food and just got back.” “You’re lying.” “I swear on my ancestors’ name.” “Swear on their name? You think that’ll save you? I’ll kill you.” “….” “Listen, comrade, if you mean to lie, you’d better do a better job than that. You say you’ve been gone for eight days in search of food. So how is it you’re coming back here empty-handed?” “I failed.” “You didn’t just walk out of here on a whim, did you? You had a plan. And here you are, eight days later, with nothing but empty hands. Where did you hide that bastard?” “I never hid anybody.” “Very well. Show me some proof, then. You’ve got to have some evidence that you actually went out to get food.” Proof. Who could have had more proof than she? But when pressed, Kil-nyo couldn’t come up with a single piece of evidence to satisfy him. Like a crow pecking away at a hatchling in its own nest, she had swallowed every bit of proof there ever was. If she had not, all those ragged bits and pieces of half a lifetime would have hounded her ‘til the end. In a way, her whole life up to that point had been an endless series of struggles to bury the signs and clues of her past: to forget. There was not a single trace of her past about which she could feel proud. And yet, the monumental efforts she had made were all melting into air. To conceal the fact of her coupling with Cha, she had abandoned a newborn baby—but Hwang Chom-gae was still around to testify to that. And the second baby, a child still unnamed, was living evidence of her tie to Chi Sang-mo. And starker than any such physical evidence was the fact of her wretched fate itself, now had become an incurable disease of some kind, penetrating to her very marrow. Compared to these traces of her shameful past, what the short man wanted from her was a mere trifle. Still, as the man said, it was a trifle that would determine whether her entire family lived or died.

What would her mother expect her to do, Kil-nyo wondered. Would she want her to produce something to prove she had hidden Cha away? Or would she accept the evidence that her daughter had gone off to see yet another man? In the end, however, the one actually in control of this desperate predicament was not Kil-nyo but the short man. She fumbled through the folds of her skirt, took out the silver ring and laid it down on the edge of the floor. The man looked down at it. “What’s this?” “A silver ring, what else?” “You know what I mean.” Kil-nyo knew. “The family I went to see gave this to me. Times are so bad they were more willing to part with this than to give away any food. They told me to sell it for my trip back.” The short man picked up the ring. He rubbed it against his pants and held it up in the air. No matter how long he examined it, the ring was not going to turn into a precious jewel. Still, he went on rotating the tarnished metal this way and that in the twilight. Then he put it in his mouth and bit, leaving a tooth-mark on the edge of the silver. Abruptly, he said, “Try it on.” “What?” “You have to prove it’s not your own ring.” Kil-nyo felt her heart sink. Why had she not thought of trying it on these past four days? Since leaving Kanggu, her only thought had been to get back home as soon as possible. In fact, the ring didn’t even cross her mind during the journey. If only she had slipped it onto her finger just once, she would not have felt so utterly lost now. If it hadn’t fit her finger, she could now smile secretly to herself. What’s more, if it hadn’t been the right size for the ring finger of her right hand, she might have tried her left hand, instead. What Chi had said flashed back into her mind: show your left hand to the bastards who like left hands, and if you run into a bastard who likes the right, put your left hand in your pocket and stick out your right. Only four days had passed since she heard those words from Chi Sang-mo. At the time she’d paid them little heed, but now she’d fallen into a fix she could neither ignore nor escape. A dead end: she hadn’t the slightest idea whether the man wanted her right hand or her left. Chi must have been the kind of man who could sense which hand might be better to offer. But she, a woman who knew no better, could only wait in vain for revelation. To

stick out your left hand to another would be unseemly—but more to the point, there was no time to dwell on such things. If the lifeline of the whole family depended on which hand she now extended, she might as well go with both. The short man stared at the two hands held out before him. Now it was he who had to choose. Suddenly he raised his left hand and slapped down her right. “Take that away. No woman wears rings on her right hand.” Then, like a blacksmith’s helper working at a bellows, he tried the ring on every finger, slipping it on and off of each with astonishing speed. It fit none. A look of embarrassment replaced the expression of smug anticipation plastered across his face just moments before. Disappointed, he briefly glanced at Kil-nyo and muttered to himself: “Well, seems the reactionary sneaked out of here at dawn today, after all.” It was not until much later, long after the short man was gone, that Kil-nyo realized he had taken the ring with him. “Close the gate and come in, dear.” Her mother’s voice was soft. Translated by Kyung-Ja Chun

The Sound of Thunder Kim Joo-young, Sisayongosa, Inc., 1990

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Vol.13 Autumn 2011

Interview

Free Spirit Wandering the Roads Novelist Sung Suk-je

Having started his career out as a poet, novelist Sung Suk-je continues to reinvent language in the novel form.

On an afternoon in mid-July during a break in the monsoon rains, author Sung Suk-je appeared at our prearranged meeting spot near Hongik University wearing heavily-faded jeans and a simple T-shirt. Down to the laptop rucksack on his back, he blended naturally into the neighborhood, which is a popular haunt for the young. Born in 1960, he is already in his 50s, but his choice of apparel was fresh and his eyes still possessed a boyish curiosity. There wasn’t even a hint of “older generation” staleness about him. He began his literary career 25 years ago in 1986, debuting as a poet, and beginning in 1994 he began writing fiction, becoming one of Korea's most respected novelists. The author of more than 10 short story collections and novels, he continues to be loved by readers and respected by critics. He has also won several of Korea's most prestigious literary prizes, attesting to his outstanding achievements in literature. He could secretly revel in his literary authority, but authority itself is far removed from the author's tastes. Sung Suk-je is young and free. More accurately, I should say his work is young and free. Let's take a moment to go back to the mid-90s when poet Sung Suk-je reinvented himself as a novelist. Around that time, the stoic and heavily politicized works which made up the mainstream of Korean fiction was facing a massive backlash which began to gush forth in various forms. The emergence of novelist Sung Suk-je from this flood of works was particularly noteworthy. The work which is most often credited with Sung's arrival as a novelist is The Last 4.5 Seconds of My Life (1995), which exemplified the characteristics of his novels that would issue forth in the years ahead. As hinted at by the title, a car traveling over a bridge crashes through a guardrail and plunges toward the river below. This book is about a rural gangster boss and his “last 4½ seconds.” To aid the calculation of the time the car was in free-fall, the author slyly provided facetious scientific footnotes, yet his readers didn't take offense. With the

last words, "Mommy, I'm scared," the gangster boss leaves this world without providing any ponderous truths or hidden meaning concerning life. Readers enjoyed Sung's unencumbered imagination as well as his deft and liberal use of language narrating a 4½ second accident. The skillful irony that turns a macho gangster's poignant tragedy into a farce is achieved through every word and sentence that manages to make the reader laugh. Finally, the distinction between the absurd and the real becomes blurred in the entire novel, creating a delightful transcendence. The country gangster's bravado wasn't the only thing that took a dive—the enlightened point of view and strained infusion of meaning characteristic of traditional Korean fiction at that time took a plunge as well. Koreans had forgotten that novels were originally supposed to be fun to read, but the sudden emergence of novelist Sung brought this truth back to mind. Of course this so-called fun can include human insight, multiple layers of irony, creative renewal of language in fiction, and diverse literary formats—with such elements, the Korean novel could be sufficiently modern and stylish. In terms of Sung Suk-je’s literary innovation, the “narrative world” is probably referred to the most. It still exerts pressure on modern novels whether this fact is acknowledged or not, yet he has the ability to creatively build his story worlds. Thanks to his verbal fecundity, monikers such as “consummate storyteller” and “master of the oral tradition” soon followed. He liberated language from the shadow of meaning, creating a chain in which words begot more words, a style which came to mark his novels. Hoodlums, drunks, dancers, gamblers, and other such vulgar characters are the protagonists of his stories. By focusing on eccentrics and good-fornothings, the unique anthropology of his works has also become a focus of attention. Recently, however, critics have rightly pointed out that his novels have become heavier and darker. What has changed? list_ Books from Korea

Vol.13 Autumn 2011

Interview

novelist Sung Suk-je and critic Jung Hongsoo

“I just weave words together, and eventually they might become stories, but to me the expression ‘what to write for’ doesn’t exist. I think novels themselves have an urge to exist.”

Sung says, "I've been more interested in and am still fascinated by outsiders rather than everyday characters. It's true that my eye is drawn toward people possessing some dramatic elements—those who like to play much more than ordinary people, inveterate liars—it's much easier to write stories about such characters. But these days, I feel that the authenticity of such stories is suspect. My standards—my yardstick—for what I feel is realistic has changed a little bit, although I don't know if this is for the better or the worse. I'd like to think it's a little for the better." Drawing out fundamental truths about humanity through extreme and exceptional characters in tragicomic situations has been the essential hallmark of Sung's novels. In terms of realism, his characters have either lacked or transcended typicality, but the peculiar dynamism that such figures have brought to his works is much beloved by readers. The lush, drinking night and day in “Liberation,” and the country idiot with a heart of gold in “Thus Spoke Hwang Man-geun” inexplicably made an indelible impression on this critic, too. Intrigued by Sung's change in course, I yearned to hear more: "As in other arts, the openings created by suffering and ruin can be used as a window into the human soul. Likewise, I used to think that using them could amplify a novel's impact. When performing folk songs, tonal imperfections can help the listener experience 30 list_ Books from Korea

Vol.13 Autumn 2011

musical sublimity. Likewise, presenting irregular, distorted, or exaggerated situations can help readers discover human nature. The problem with this approach, however, is that characters invariably end up spilling blood or being treated like imbeciles. I think this is no longer the way to go. I kind of feel like I'm using artifice; I just want to express my sentiments in a realistic way, following my thoughts for as long as I am able. That's why I've removed a few of the sensationalist elements from my work." Come to think of it, last year when reading Sung's short story, “The South” published in the winter edition of a literary journal, I was puzzled by his spirit of restraint, but now I think I understand a little bit about where he's coming from. In this story concerning a middle-aged man on a trip to Laos, the old Sung Suk-je would have visualized a more comic and brash character, yet this time he moderated these tendencies. The sentences were lucid and the rhetoric was restrained. The blank spaces resulting from such restraint conveyed the weariness of life with even greater sorrow, which could be an example of the author's new yardstick of realism. On the other hand, Sung is still as much himself as ever. In his recent novel Pomp and Circumstance (serialized in four installments, of which three have been published) the fun and dynamism of his stories are still intact and could even be described as being masterful. In the story, a man having overcome all sorts of personal

difficulties finds his way to a riverside village in the country and forms a quasi-family. A rag-tag gang shows up and tries to terrorize the village, but goes through all kinds of unexpected humiliations, vividly portrayed using the author's wit and literary flair. Yet there isn't even the slightest hint that the writer is trying to make the story unfold in a ridiculous fashion. It is as if his original dynamism has been tempered, creating an aesthetic balance that is the foundation for a more solid novel. In his most recent works, the theme of family disintegration has appeared often, perhaps reflecting another change in the author's interests. Sung ref lected on this change: "Although I can't remember exactly when it started, I've become increasingly aware of the reality of family breakups. Whether it's for economic or other reasons, such separations have become commonplace. The anger and fear that these families experience is as widespread as smoke from a stove in the evening. I have no intention of slipping social messages or remarks into my work, but recently I’ve noticed the suffering resulting from such breakups and that’s what’s important." During our interview I learned once again that the author Sung Suk-je feels very uncomfortable about being boxed in by any concept or framework. Whether his work is consistent with realism or not, such critiques are secondary and only concern him after the fact. Stated more emphatically, viewing mankind through a fixed mold is something that Sung should avoid. To him, who has written fiction for almost 20 years, novels are still amorphous, without any fixed format or appearance. If so, I asked him, then why does he write novels? He said, "I think the functional approach epitomized by 'writing for something' doesn't apply to me. I just weave words together, and eventually they might become stories, but to me the expression 'what to write for' doesn't exist. I think novels themselves have an urge to exist. This urge—and I can't explain why, or why it has to be me—this urge uses me as its medium. I wasn't one of those kids who, when they were little, placed their head on grandma's lap while

listening to her stories. There weren't any writers of fiction in my family, either. I can't pick out a solid reason why, but anyways today I write novels. I feel it's because novels have a will to exist...and that's it." Should we cry out for joy that novels will themselves into existence? Or should we cry out for joy that the novelist Sung Sukje exists? As far as I know, only time and enough alcohol while freely wandering the roads can make one immune to the synthesis of these two beings and their continuous activity. Upon finishing the interview, it was still a bit early but I noticed the author looking around for a place to get a drink. By Jung Hongsoo

1. Thus Spoke Hwang Man-geun Sung Suk-je, Changbi Publishers, Inc. 2002, 300p, ISBN 9788936436667

2. Die letzten viereinhalb

Sekunden meines Lebens

Sung Suk-je, Peperkorn, 2009

3. The Last 4.5 Seconds of My Life Sung Suk-je, Kang Publishing 1996, 268p, ISBN 9788982180538 4. Possessed Sung Suk-je, Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd. 1998, 268p, ISBN 9788932011189

1. Sammi Superstars’ Last Fan Club Park Min-gyu, Hankyoreh Publishing Co. 2003, 304p, ISBN 9788984311046 2. Castella Park Min-gyu, Munhakdongne Publishing Corp. 2005, 336p, 2 ISBN 9788982819926 3. Legends of the World’s Heroes Park Min-gyu, Munhakdongne Publishing Corp. 2003, 187p, ISBN 9788982816796

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Excerpt

The Last 4.5 Seconds of My Life He heard the sound of a small bomb exploding. A BOOM—no, a BANG—no, it was like a gang of safe crackers tunneling into the earth finally demolishing a reinforced steel wall. It was like a plane breaking the sound barrier. Is it important—the sound? No. This is just the way it is. There is no sound when there’s no one to hear; and since there is no one there to hear it, its nature cannot be established. A car is falling. It is beginning to accelerate. Just before it began its fall, it violently transferred its energy to the guardrail of a bridge, and the front end is smashed. Smoke is puffing from the hood, which is crumpled on one side like a folded umbrella. The engine is still running. The energy created by the 6-liter engine of the 4-9-seat SUV still turns the wheels with great force. The tires are only spinning in the air, not speeding the car along a city street by creating friction against the pavement; they can no longer propel the car. Nor can they stop it. Floating through the air, the car looks like a long jumper demonstrating a nightmarish hurdle jump. No. No one is looking, and thus there is nothing to see. This is just the way it appears. 0.5 seconds have elapsed since the tires lifted into the air. The man inside the car regains consciousness. He had been speeding around a curve just before the fall. The road connecting to the west side of the bridge has a sharp curve and a slope. A speed limit sign is posted there, a warning sign, even a danger sign. But the man did not reduce his speed; he wasn’t careful. He had been angry. The woman in the passenger seat sat with her body hunched the whole time the man was angry. That was before the crash. She is unconscious now. When the car collided with the guardrail she hit her forehead against the windshield. The man also hit his head. That’s why he was momentarily unconscious. Isn’t it good news at a bad time to regain consciousness within one second? Good news? As soon as he’s conscious, the man is angry. There are babies that cry when they first wake from sleep, and among adults there are those who wake up angry. It’s a habitual thing. Like for the man—habitual anger. He realizes something is wrong. He sees what it is. From perception to comprehension, it takes him a total of 0.2 seconds. He realizes he is inside a car plunging off a bridge. Is it good for him to know this? Is it good that he regained consciousness? He doesn’t know how to fly, let alone what to do if he were f lying. So it’s not possible for him to calculate how much time it will take for his expensive car to fall. Couldn’t someone just put on a pair of wings, like an angel, and explain from outside the windshield? We don’t know if angels really exist, nor do we know if there are truly angelic people, but let’s say for a moment that there are angelic people and that they

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have white wings and have no reservations about flying through the air in broad daylight—but then, even if they did have wings, why would they be flying by a car that happens to be falling from a bridge, just so they can say, to the man who is falling, “You have X number of seconds before you plunge to your death.”1 There’s absolutely no reason for it. Let’s say there was a car that fell from a height of 80 meters. It would take about four seconds to hit the ground. But what good would it do the person inside the car to be able to calculate that? If an angel or an angelic person were to convey that information, and if the falling man were to listen, wouldn’t it be a shame then to have to hit the ground? Knowledge is power? Well, it’s not the angel who’s falling. Never, in his life, had the man encountered an angel. But now the man who is falling is falling and knows he is falling. He—the party in question—also knows something else. That there is no parachute in the car, and that no matter how expensive this SUV happens to be, it is not an airplane, not an airborne unit, not an armored car, not an amphibious assault vehicle. A whole airborne regiment, 5,000 armored cars, 10,000,000 amphibious assault vehicles—what use are they now when he’s falling with no intervention? There’s no point in making such calculations. Those are just thoughts that come floating up in his head. But he also has a realization. That he will not live through this fall. It’s his sixth sense, which has never been wrong. Let’s respect that. He’s escaped mortal danger many times because of it. But will this unique, precious sixth sense save him this time? Will his sixth sense—clanging like a school bell, whimpering like a puppy—get him out of this predicament? No. So he could scream like a man in despair. There are many types of screams. Waaaaa, ack, ooooh, ggghk, What am I gonna do, huh, huh? If he picked one, opened his mouth, commanded his breath and let it resonate in his chest, belly, and larynx, the car would hit bottom before he could even make a sound. There’s a question whether such a calculus exists somewhere in the world, and he decides not to scream. Because another thought floats up—that if he is going to die he will die like a man. If he were dangling from a pine tree on a precipice, he would do the right thing and let go if he were a brave man. Who was it that originally said that? There is no way to find out now, there’s nothing to know. He used to repeat it to himself whenever he had a chance. There were countless people who heard those words. 100? 200? 50,000? He even spoke those words to the guests and well-wishers at his wedding. Perhaps he had the wedding ceremony just so he could say those words. That’s right. It was because of that speech.

1. “And yet it still moves!” (“E pur si muove!”) is what Galileo Galilei said when he was forced to recant by the Inquisition. It is thanks to Galileo that we can calculate how long it takes for the car to fall through the air. Ignoring atmospheric resistance, the velocity of an object falling to the Earth is free fall. Free fall velocity, when the distance between the falling body and the Earth is relatively small compared to the Earth’s radius, follows gravitational acceleration g (9.8m/sec2). If we say the object begins its fall from a height of h meters, then, after t seconds, the distance of descent would be s meters. If, in that span, we say the velocity is v meters/ second, the distance of descent would be half of the square root of the speed multiplied by the time. This can be represented by the following formula: s = 1/2gt2, v = gt. So let’s say a bald eagle had a heart attack and fell from a height of 100 meters. The time it would take to hit the ground would be 100 = ½ x 9.8 x t2 with t = 4.5175394. Also, the peak velocity of the eagle, as it hits the ground, with v = 9.8 x 4.5175394 would work out to 159.37878 km/hr. Poor eagle. How could its bald head ever survive?

He had invited his coworkers and his senior and junior colleagues to his wedding. There were more than 200 people there. At the entrance to the wedding hall, the large congratulatory wreaths sent by Mr. D’s “Big Brother” and Mr. O prominently displayed their good taste. Mr. D’s Big Brother was his direct boss. Mr. O had gotten his own organization started when he built a hotel near a recently-developed hot spring. Naturally, he was modeling himself on Mr. D and Mr. O. But there was no hotel in this area. Not even an amusement park or a hot spring. Mr. D’s Big Brother didn’t understand how a competent leader like him would want to be some back alley boss in a small town, but if it was something he really wanted, Mr. D’s Big Brother was willing to let him have it. Perhaps he’d held the wedding ceremony just so he could make that one request of Mr. D’s Big Brother. The bride was unimportant. As were the parents, the relatives, the friends, the well-wishers. Mr. D’s Big Brother sent 20 family members along with his wreath. They all wore black suits with black socks and black shoes, with blinding white shirts and black bow ties; they were all lined up beside the wreaths. Each time a guest arrived, these ushers would bow 90 degrees at the waist, and with voices resonating, they would shout, “Welcome!” When a guest presented gift money, the wedding hall would echo with the lively energy of a rehearsed “Thank you!” from the ushers. It was all Mr. O’s idea. Not a single guest was permitted to leave before the end of the ceremony. If someone tried, the ushers would bar the way with their arms outstretched and whisper, “Where are you going?” If a guest asked, “Where is the dining hall?” the ushers would glare, putting their hands beside their mouths as if to tell a big secret, and say, “There isn’t one. Please wait till the ceremony is over.” He didn’t have formal pictures taken after the wedding ceremony. He didn’t even bother with the usual greetings and gifts for the guests, the parents of the two families, the relatives. Instead, he made that remarkable speech. Standing before the assembly, from which the officiator had sneaked out, he said, emphatically, “Dangling from the branch of a pine tree on a precipice, I am prepared to let go, to sacrifice myself for the sake of developing this region for my associates, for solidarity.” And that is how he started his organization. Now the fall transitions into a parabolic phase. Having broken through the guardrail and flown into the air, the car initially follows a straight trajectory due to inertia. But soon, slowed by the gradual, tenacious power of gravity, the direction of movement changes from a straight line to a parabolic curve. If the car had continued in a straight line, it might have safely reached the east embankment on the opposite side of the bridge. If it continued in a straight line, its speed would gradually diminish due to air resistance. If it continued in a straight line, and the angle of its trajectory remained parallel to the ground, it would orbit the earth like a satellite for dozens of years before finally descending someday. 2 But if, regardless of its initial

2. If a rock is thrown at a velocity of 7.9 km/sec it will not fall back to the ground. It will circle around and around the Earth. If it is thrown a bit harder, say at a velocity of 11.2 km/sec, it will leave Earth’s orbit. At above 16.7 km/sec it will leave the solar system. The problem is whether an arm exists that would be strong enough to throw a rock at such a velocity. Also, since the object in question is a car and not a rock, it would be more efficient to use a rocket launch system instead of a strong throwing arm—as if there were ever an occasion when a car was launched in such a fashion.

velocity, the car’s speed gradually slowed, it would descend to the Earth like a round trip into space, a helicopter, a f lying superboard. But that is not possible. Gravity, as pervasive as air, water, or man; gravity, capable of enduring days, months, years, a lifetime—regardless of whether such intervals actually exist; gravity will not permit the car, which has broken through the guardrail, to fly however long it desires. Hours? Minutes? No. Gravity drags it down—10 meters in the space of a tick, 20 meters in a tick-tick. The bridge spanning the river, which runs north-south, connects the east and west banks. It took four years for the 450-meter stretch of road, with a total passenger throughput of approximately 20,000 per day, to be completed. It’s been a month since the construction was finished. In attendance at the inauguration ceremony were the district’s chief engineer, the regional assemblymen, the provincial governor, and local community leaders with all of their friends, acquaintances, and junior and senior colleagues; there were also people associated with the construction and even the mobile satellite teams from the local networks. Since the construction was an event of no small proportions, there was a huge media circus to match its stature. In the first car to fall from the bridge, he is thinking, Why did it have to be me? Why am I here? Without warning, without comprehension, without reason, without intention, without hope. A precious instant of time, the span of a single thought, passes away.3

3. A thought moment: a Buddhist unit of time. According to the system outlined in the Abhidharmakosha, 1 ahorata (24 hours) is equal to 6 kala or 30 muhurta. A muhurta is 30 lava in duration, the lava being a long interval 7,200 times the length of a ksana, which is the smallest unit of time. Is a thought moment the amount of time it takes to have a single thought? The Abhidharmakosha says that there are 90 ksana in a single thought moment, but that seems rather slow, since that would make a thought moment just short of 1 second. “Thought moment to thought moment”is generally equated with“ksana to ksana.”Here is a chart to help simplify things: 1 ahorata = 6 kala = 30 muhurta = 900 lava = 54,000 tatksana = 6,480,000 ksana 1 thought moment = 1 ksana = 1/75 second They say that in Journey to the West, the Monkey King riding his magic cloud could travel 108,000 li in a single breath. Those interested in the history of mathematics and measurement can calculate the relative difference between“a single breath”and a thought moment. In my estimation, it would take about 75 ksanas for a 7-year-old child in front of an ice cream parlor to call,“Mommy!” “Daddy!”would take about 100.

translated by Heinz Insu Fenkl

The Last 4.5 Seconds of My Life Sung Suk-je, Kang Publishing 1996, 268p ISBN 9788982180071

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Vol.13 Autumn 2011

The Place

Mullae Ironworks Alley: Artists Forge a New Home

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Artists have set up workshops in the Mullae steel market transforming the industrial neighborhood into streets decorated with eclectic shapes and multicolored artwork, bringing tourists and art lovers. Seoul's Mullae neighborhood in the Yeongdeungpo district changes utterly between day and night. By day, tough-looking men wearing black coveralls diligently pound away at pieces of metal, while by night artists focus on their work in various iron foundries in the neighborhood. Since 2000, policies for factory relocation and local redevelopment have led to the gradual decline of the Mullaedong Industrial Complex. As factories leave the area one by one, poor artists have set up shop. The intersection of ironworks and art has resulted in the exotic sights which can only be seen in Mullae.

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Vol.13 Autumn 2011

The Place

Bok-gil's Restaurant

nworks Mullae’s Iro

Alley

CLANG, CLANG, CLANG. Here and there the sound of metal striking metal reverberates noisily. As soon as you enter the alleyway leading to Seoul's Mullae steel market in the Yeongdeungpo district, the sounds of clanging metal can be heard. Iron foundries are concentrated along this alley, and you can see men wearing work clothes stained with metallic dust busy with their tasks. Yet after the daytime heat has lifted, Mullae's steel alley undergoes a transformation. Around 6pm, shutters are gradually lowered while on the second and third floors, lights are flipped on one or two at a time, revealing multi-colored pictures. It is around this time that artists living in Mullae begin their work in earnest. Young artists began f locking to their new home in Mullae around 2005. In the first few years of the new millennium, factory relocation as well as redevelopment policies were carried out, causing iron foundry tenants in the Mullae Industrial Complex to start leaving one by one, giving an opportunity to impoverished artists, who were attracted by the cheap rents in the area. They began to set up studios in abandoned iron foundries. In several buildings in the Mullae neighborhood, artists have made their mark from the signs adorning charming art studios to the humorous graffiti scrawled on the shutters of ironworks. Since artists began Gallery cafe

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“Cotton Seed”

Vol.13 Autumn 2011

moving to Mullae the atmosphere of the industrial complex is unrecognizable from its former self. Thanks to the exotic sights created by the intersection of ironworks and art, Mullae has become a fashionable spot in Seoul. In recent years, it has been in the limelight as a filming location and unique tourist destination for foreign visitors, making the neighborhood even more popular. As the number of visitors increased, certain places became regular attractions, the most famous being “Chungnam Trading Co.,” which is a supermarket also known as the “yellow store,” and “Bok-gil's Restaurant” on the second floor, which is decorated with the owner's photographs. The real charm of Mullae, however, is the living and breathing art adorning every nook and cranny of Ironworks Alley. Interacting with artists at work is quite easy. There are currently 180 active artists in the neighborhood working on anything from paintings, installation art, sculpture, design, illustration, photography, video art, calligraphy, film, animation, and other genres of visual art to dance, theater, street performances, traditional arts, music and other performing arts as well as cultural criticism, script writing, and cultural planning. Most of these workshops also double as artists' living spaces, so meeting artists in person is quite easy. Among the many art studios located in Mullae, there are many that are open to the public. If you'd like to appreciate art while also interacting with artists, you shouldn't limit yourself to admiring the exterior of studios—you should venture inside. You'll be able to see the process of creating art and if you're lucky, you might even share a cup of tea with an artist, with permission of course. If you'd like to converse with the artists of Mullae in more depth, you should go to the gallery cafe “Cotton Seed.” It opened in July last year and is a popular hangout for the neighborhood's

Artists’ Studio Performan ce

artists, who are likely to be engaged in conversation while at the cafe. Cafe Cotton Seed is a non-profit exhibition space, which is why many artists come here to chat or take a break. It's like killing two birds with one stone, as you can meet artists while viewing the free art exhibitions there. The Seoul Metropolitan Government has also begun to support the artists who have flocked to Mullae. The Seoul Foundation for Arts and Culture's (SFAC) Art Space team, which operates “Seoul Art Spaces,” opened the “Seoul Art Space_MULLAE” on January 28, 2010. The “Seoul Art Space” program seeks to promote the arts by reinventing unused structures as new places where young artists and the general public can satisfy their artistic interests and desires. Seoul Art Space_MULLAE is supported by the artists of Mullae, helping it develop and promote local culture through the MEET (Mullae Emerjing EnerjeTic) program. At the same time, new talent residing in the Mullae neighborhood is being discovered through the Mullae Arts Plus (MAP) project. In addition, once Seoul Art Space_MULLAE became a fixture in the neighborhood, a new location made its debut, the “Mullae Creation Village.” Frankly speaking, Mullae’s unique charm is hard to discern at first glance. If it's your first time visiting, you might think that this neighborhood is much like any other possessing deep, dark alleys and hidden recesses. Furthermore, the fact that not all artists’ studios are open to the public and are mostly located in building basements or on rooftops, makes it difficult to locate where they are. That's why last March, with the permission of neighborhood artists, I created a map indicating the locations of art studios in Mullae. To obtain this map, however, you must visit the neighborhood in person. If you want to properly enjoy all that Mullae has to offer, it's a good idea to check the schedule of various performances and exhibitions in advance. Every month, there are scores of artistic concerts, street performances, and exhibitions, so there's always a lot to see. Up until now, the performance schedule for the Mullae Creation Village has been disseminated by individual artists, but as the number of visitors to the neighborhood has grown, the performance schedule is now available both on-and-offline.

The neighborhood's most well-known artists operate an online community (www.blogmoon.co.kr) where each month's calendar of performances and exhibitions can be found. On the 25th of each month, the site is updated with new content. This July, the Mullae Newsletter was founded by the Mullae Creation Village, providing offline news about local events. This monthly publication contains a schedule of various performances and no-nonsense articles about local artists. As the old streets of Mullae put on a new artistic garb new worries have cropped up—namely the issue of communication between artists and those still operating ironworks. Although it is said that the neighborhood is transforming into an artist's village, even today the sound of pounding metal is common. Iron workers are still unaccustomed to the stark difference between day and night, but there is a common thread linking the two groups. Both groups totally devote themselves to their work, whether it's in an iron foundry or art studio. As each side recognizes this trait in the other, interaction between the two groups is probably not too far off. To learn more about Seoul's exotic neighborhood, Mullae-dong, referring to a book on the area might be a good idea. My Beautiful Ironworks (written by the Center for Art & Urban Society) was published on June 20th, containing pictures describing the vivid stories of this neighborhood. In 2007, the Center for Art & Urban Society began operating in Mullae, and since then this organization has researched the neighborhood which is its home and center of activity. By Cho Hyunju

Co. rading nam T Chung

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The Seas of Korea Landlocked to the north, and surrounded by water to the east, west, and south, South Korea connects to the world through its seas.

Korea is an island nation! A brief glance at a map immediately reveals that Korea is not an island nation, but rather a peninsula sitting to the right of China and the Asian continent. Peninsular Korea is located between China and Japan, which is an actual island nation, yet I still insist that Korea is an isle, for reasons that can be found in its historical and political background. Yes, I'm referring to the division of Korea—in the 60 years since the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950 and national division into the North and South in 1953, South Korea has been an island nation. Let's look at the map again. Korea is a peninsula that extends from south to north, but South Korea's only link to the continent is blocked to the north by the DPRK, leaving the sea as the South's single available outside link. Therefore the sea is the only physical connection to the world for South Koreans. The seas around Korea, which occupy a corner of Northeast Asia, surround the “island nation” from the east, south, and west. Korea has named these the East Sea, South Sea, and West Sea (Yellow Sea), respectively. Korea is a very small country, yet surprisingly the three seas surrounding it have completely different traits. These three seas are

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so distinct from one another that the people who make a living from them are equally distinct. What these seas all have in common, however, is a desire to interact with the world. All the world's oceans have been mediums of communication and interaction, yet this is more so for Korea, as the South’s only terrestrial link to the continent has been severed.

Sunrise Coast of the East Sea To Korea's east is the East Sea, across from which is Japan. This is also the body of water which Korea calls the East Sea and which Japan refers to as the Sea of Japan. The East Sea is located at the westernmost end of the Pacific Ocean, so fish ranging about the Pacific also stop here as well. Salmon are one good example because they are a species ranging across the North Pacific. Salmon laying eggs in Alaska also do so near the East Sea coast. Whales, those great mammals that make their homes in the vastness of the Pacific, appear frequently in the East Sea, particularly in the waters off Ulsan. There was a poet who liked to endlessly recite poetry whenever they appeared:

If you suddenly long for the sea / You were probably a whale in your previous life / For me, 'whale' is a synonym for love / Both love and whales swimming in the sea are mammals / Whenever their hearts are filled with longing / Suddenly, urgently, they push their heads above the horizon.

the East Sea sunrise. The poet describes the sunrise and the fish living in the cloud-covered sea in terms of raising something up. "Hooked between its gills, blood" is visible, while "The fish splashes water" as the sun pierces the sea and rises out of the water. Mankind bows its head before the grandeur of nature. To Koreans, the East Sea is the subject of worship and respect:

"For My Whale," from the collection On Waiting by Chung Il-keun (Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd., 2009)

Going out to set fish traps / Whenever the waves rise and fall, a small fishing boat / Raises its bow high before plunging into the waves / … / When seen from land, the horizon looks like a long line / But beyond these tens of thousands of overlapping furrows, land surely exists / After riding the billows, like a grandmother, like the red sunset / In this place where birds on their maiden flight sometimes plunge into the sea to their doom.

The East Sea is similar to the ocean proper. The continental shelf near the coast is narrow with a steep slope, leading to nautical depths of over 3,000 meters. The East Sea coastline is uncluttered, possessing just a few islands. As a result, the waves are high because they form in the deep sea, unhindered by any obstacles until they reach the coast. To Koreans, the sun rises in the East Sea, so this body of water has always symbolized their hopes and dreams. That is why on New Year's Day many Koreans visit famous vantage points to take in the East Sea sunrise. The sun, which blazes forth from the depths of the East Sea, infuses Koreans with life: Deep-sea fishermen straddling the clouds / They’re reeling in a big fish / Madly thrashing its tail / The fish splashes water everywhere / Hooked between its gills, a little blood is visible / It's said that not even a sliver of light can penetrate the depths of the sea / So how was the fish caught with its luminous coiled body / Swimming a thousand leagues under the sea / Tranquilly to and fro. "Deep Sea Fish," from the collection Ripple by Kim Myungin (Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd., 2005)

"Furrow" from the collection Flowerhead by Kim Myungin (Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd., 2009)

People Live in the South Sea The South Sea has so many islands that it is sometimes referred to as the “Sea of Many Islands.” Thanks to this jumbled southern coastal scenery, there are two marine national parks in this region. The South Sea coastline is as complicated as that of the west coast. Large and small bays of various shapes undulate inland and back out again to create the coastline. Among countless bays, countless harbors are located. The South Sea is Korea's most famous fishery because the high salinity and water temperature in this area provide ideal conditions for fish to lay eggs and raise their young. That is why aquaculture has existed in the South Sea since antiquity. From laver to abalone,

The sunrise on the East Sea inspired Kim Myungin, born in a small seaside village at the southern tip of this body of water, to write the poem above—such is the solemnity and magnificence of

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soft-shell clams, and flounder, and nowadays even tuna, can be raised in these waters. The South Sea is abundantly full with things to eat. While the sea is abundant, those making a living from it don't live in affluence. Novelist Han Chang-hoon is better than anyone at conveying the true voice of those living such exhausting lives. He lives alone on Geomun-do (island), which is two-and-a-half hours away from the port of Yeosu by boat. Born in Geomun-do, after finishing school he wandered about aimlessly on the mainland for around 20 years before returning home in 2006. Since his return, he

has spent his days fishing, drinking, writing, and living in solitude. Perhaps this is why his tales are not related even in the slightest to island stories filled with romantic vistas. In fact, island dweller Han Chang-hoon might be the only one on Earth capable of crafting the following lines: Islands are not easy places for falling in love or for getting married in. Although island life is tolerable for men, there is a great shortage of women. If one were to select the world's most beautiful island, the first condition would be a place where women want to live. On the other hand, mainlanders come to islands dreaming of love. Men and women who have fallen in love come out here, while others come here and fall in love... Once love has blossomed, fights soon follow. Marriage relations are marked by the process in which the man yells first, followed by the woman. So when island men feel an argument is getting out of hand, they hop on a boat and head out to sea, and their wives let them. For fishermen, the sea is a place where they can earn something. from When Exhausted, Go to the Sea by Han Chang-hoon (Munhakdongne Publishing Corp., 2010), p. 337

Like a poor fisherman's diary, Han Chang-hoon's stories of the sea are sincere, concerned with life and the desperate struggle for survival. The South Sea is a sea of mankind: Here the road begins and ends with the sea. Wild winds crash against the cliffs and dissipate. The rocks cry... In fact, the fishing boats that departed are now coming in one after the other. People here depart for a horizontal world at dawn, and return to vertical houses at dusk. An island rising out of the middle of the oceanâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;life is maintained at the intersection between the two, like a cormorant flying level before suddenly diving.

from Han Chang-hoon's Feast by Han Chang-hoon (Joongang Books, 2009), p. 98

1 Flowerhead Kim Myung-in, Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd. 2009, 121p, ISBN 9788932020013 2. Ripple Kim Myung-in, Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd. 2005, 116p, ISBN 9788932016146 3. On Waiting Chung Il-keun, Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd. 2009, 127p, ISBN 9788932019413

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Tidal Flats of the Yellow Sea Koreans refer to the West Sea as the Yellow Sea because its water is turbid rather than blue. It is a shallow sea lying between China and Korea, which is why the sand on the ocean floor gets stirred up by the high and low tides, clouding the water. Korea's West Sea is one of the world's important natural resources as one of the five largest tidal flats in the world is located sited, in the West Sea. In South Korea alone, there are about 2,489 sq. km of tidal flats, and about 5,400 sq. km when North

Korea is taken into account. No other place in the world has such widespread tidal flats. Although Korea's land mass is small, its tidal flats are large. Strictly speaking, tidal flats are part of the ocean, legally defined as "Public Water Surfaces." When the tide comes in, the flats become part of the sea, but when the tide goes out, they become land again. Thus tidal flats have an ambiguous identity: The legal ownership of tidal flats belongs to nations, therefore the term “public” in Public Water Surface actually means that the state has sole ownership, rather than the shared ownership implied in the word “public.” Therefore coastal residents making a living from aquaculture or fishing around tidal flats have no right to make a profit because those seas are owned exclusively by the state.

from Bicycle Trip 2 by Kim Hoon (Thinking Tree Publishing Co., 2007), p. 85

Just as author Kim Hoon mentioned, West Sea fishermen who depend on the tidal flats for their livelihoods have no rights to use national property. Among them, however, is one poet. This poet originally came from deep within the interior of South Korea, but since 1996 he has been living in Ganghwa-do (island), where the tidal flats are still mostly intact. This poet is Harm Min-bok. In Korean literary circles, he is called "the last holdout against capitalism." To drive a stake into tidal mud, / whether it's a stake for a fixed shore net or a laver stake, / a short stake for a shrimp net, or a curved spade stake for stabilizing a big stake, / grab the stake with your hands or feet / and shake it from left-to-right or front-to-back / rather than driving it down forcefully / shaking the stake will soften the tidal mud as water flows in / keep doing this until the tidal mud embraces it and holds it fast / you must shake it from left-to-right or front-to-back.

1. When Exhausted, Go to the Sea Han Chang-hoon, Munhakdongne Publishing Corp. 2010, 367p, ISBN 9788954612708 2. Han Chang-hoon’s Feast Han Chang-hoon, Joongang Books 2009, 256p, ISBN 9788961889469

3. Soft Power Harm Min Bok, Munhak Segye Sa 2005, 132p, ISBN 9788970753317

from "How to Drive a Stake into Tidal Mud," Soft Power by Harm Min-bok (Munhak Segyesa Publishing Co., 2005)

Such is the life of this poet—he drives stakes into the tidal mud, sticking his arm inside the resulting holes to catch octopus, just to barely scrape by. When he runs out of rice at home, from off the clothesline he takes a few poems which he has hung out to dry, and sends them to the publisher to earn a bit of money. With this he buys a few kilos of rice, while the remainder is spent on drink. Many people who care about him are concerned about his welfare because of his utter lack of planning for his life. This unpredictable poet, however, will be getting married this spring, late in his life.

Now he sells ginseng together with his fiancée on Ganghwa-do. We should probably thank the tidal flats for this occurrence, for embracing all living things, and sucking them in. The soft, sluggish, and powerful tidal flats seem to have extinguished the poet's wanderlust. By Son Minho

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Vol.13 Autumn 2011

Overseas Angle

Disturbing the Peace

Poems of Kim Seung-Hee Walking on a Washing Line Kim Seung-Hee translated by Brother Anthony of Taizé and Lee Hyung-jin Cornell Univ. East Asia Program, 2011

When poet Kim Seung-Hee’s most recent volume, Pots Bobbing, was awarded the poetry prize in Korea’s 2006 “This Year’s Art Awards,” I decided that I ought to translate it. I had already translated a few of her earlier poems, and admired her work for its originality and vitality. She suggested adding a few poems from a previous volume and also gave me some poems she had not yet published. The resulting book was published earlier this year in the Cornell East Asia Series. It is very difficult to find a publisher for translated Korean poetry, or for Korean literature in general, and we are immensely grateful to this series for accepting translations from Korea. The most important characteristic of Kim Seung-Hee’s work is that it is written by a woman and is almost entirely about being a woman. Korean male literary critics have notoriously been inclined to belittle women’s literary ability; their insistence that they should always be called “women poets” to distinguish them from “real” (male) poets, and should invariably write pretty little verses in a delicate, “feminine” style, derives from deeply-rooted paternalistic, 42 list_ Books from Korea

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Confucian attitudes that to a westerner seem positively preVictorian. The most appealing aspect of Kim Seung-Hee’s writing is her toughness. Her work has often been termed “feminist, surrealistic” and this is hardly surprising given her interest in feminist literary theories. In addition, she has long been an admirer of the work of Sylvia Plath. The underlying theme in very much of her work, naturally enough, is the pain of being a woman in a strongly patriarchal society. What makes her poems especially interesting is the way this very Korean experience of pain is expressed with humor and related to the life of women in general. The last poem in this book is a pastiche of a conventional Korean death-announcement for a widow who had no sons. She is only identified as the mother-in-law of four men, her daughters’ husbands. It seems that conventionally, only the male members of a family are mentioned by name in such cases. The poem remarks: “It should be obvious that several names are missing here. Five of them in all!” The reader is left to wonder if the fifth absent name is that of the dead woman herself or of a daughter who had no husband! References to pot-banging demonstrations by women in Argentina, to a famous Mexican woman artist gravely wounded in a traffic accident, to the tragic life story of Marina Tsevetaeva, and others are interspersed with mentions of familiar Korean figures such as Yun Sim-deok and Na Hyeseok. The sometimes dark humor of many of her poems is what has always appealed most to me; laughter (which includes tears) plays an important role in Kim’s work. In Walking on a Washing Line, there is the laughter of unexpected reversals: “The table prepares the rice. The rice eats me.” There is the smile caused by a poem devoted to varieties of ice cream available at Korea’s Everland (Neverland). The glimpse of a homeless person dressed in a cardboard box marked “Fragile goods; handle with care” leads to a realization of human fragility. Some poems evoke strange nightmares: “I awoke one morning to find my head caught in a lion’s jaws.” Her poems move in seemingly haphazard directions, leaving the reader to find meaning where they can. A piano perched on a narrator’s chest leads her to the Aztecs’ offerings to the sun, then on to a saint seeing Jesus exchange his heart for hers, before ending with Frida Kahlo’s blood-stained skirt. One poem evokes the last moments of a woman falling in flames from the World Trade Center. This kind of poetry is probably more disconcerting for ordinary Korean readers than for western readers, exposed as they are to all the variety of Modernist and Post-Modernist writing. The famous American critic and literary theoretician, Marjorie Perloff, recently wrote to say of the book: “It is indeed an unusual book for Korean poetry—very frank and daring—it does remind me of Sylvia Plath. She is obviously a remarkable poet and the translation seems so natural, although of course I can’t tell! Your introduction is excellent and sets the stage, telling the reader just what to look for!” This kind of comment is always encouraging. Another American poet, Zack Rogow, told me that he felt the poems were some of the best Korean poems he had seen. I am glad of that, for it means that the translations work! The main problem is that a book like this will not be reviewed, or stocked in bookstores alongside American poetry, or noticed by most readers of poetry in North America. There is little we can do about that, though. By Brother Anthony of Taizé

* Brother Anthony is a member of the Community of Taizé (France). He is currently professor emeritus in the English department at Sogang University and department chair for creative writing at Dankook University. He has published nearly 30 volumes of modern Korean literature in English translation.

How I Discovered Korea Déliek, északiak Lee Hochul, Balassi Publishing House, 2011

Even as a small child I was attracted by the history and culture of far-off, unknown countries, and it cannot have been a coincidence that at university I studied history as well as Hungarian literature and language. Combined with general curiosity, a personal experience played a role in forming my interest: My father was a surgeon, and in 1950 as a member of the first group of doctors sent to Korea he spent a whole year on the front, dropped right in the middle of the Korean War. A hospital train took the group of about 30 doctors and other health workers through Moscow and Beijing to Korea, where a hospital train equipped by the Hungarian state was waiting for them. They did not know in advance where they would be working, or in what circumstances. The train set off, joined by Korean health workers, then travelled from one unknown place to another, stopping now and again to receive the wounded, moving steadily closer to the front line. After a few months the train suffered a direct hit (fortunately they were not on board), and they were left in the middle of the front with practically no equipment, background knowledge, or contact with others. They performed operations by the light of a pocket torch; they had no food or anywhere to wash, and they tried to withdraw from the front to a calmer place. These experiences, just a few years after the end of the Second World War, were draining for all of them. And as well as the daily threat to their lives, the sight of the infinite poverty of Korean villages, the lack of development, and the starving, ragged inhabitants, took its toll on them. All this, naturally, I learned only later, when after my father’s fortunate return home we looked at some of the sur viving photographs in which they smiled into the lens, arms around the shoulders of their Korean colleagues, as if everything were all right. Although it was a very long time before I understood the reason for the war and its history, the suffering and poverty that I had learnt of first-hand made an extremely deep impression on me. As did the fact that for years after my father’s return home, he received letters and photographs from the friends he had made there. I preserve these documents to this day: postcards, LP records, and small souvenirs. So when a Korean translator living in Hungary, citing an acquaintance we had in common, suggested that we publish a book based on Lee Hochul’s personal experiences about the events of the Korean War, I was pleased to accept. Reading the manuscript, I finally understood the extremely complex human, social and political situation, and the Korean people’s suffering of the immeasurable trials that were unleashed on them.

The book was translated very quickly, and launched in April 2011 at one of the highest-ranking book events in Europe, the 18th Budapest International Book Festival, in the presence of the author. The audience listened most attentively to the writer's account of his experiences and of the many meetings in which he participated in countries all over the world, for Hungarian was the 10th language in which the book had appeared. After this success, naturally we will be happy to undertake publishing other Korean-themed books, particularly ones that match the publisher’s basic profile. By Andrea Soóky

* Andrea Soóky is a director of the Balassi Publishing House. She majored in Hungarian and History at Eötvös Loránd University. Twenty years ago with others she founded Balassi Publishing House, which was one of the first private publishing houses in Hungary. She edits books about history art, music, and theatre.

* Balassi Publishing House was formed 20 years ago, immediately after the political regime change of 1989. Balassi’s main areas of interest are achievements in the humanities such as literary studies and theory, historical scholarship and related studies, ethnography, cultural anthropology, art history and art theory, musicology and theatre studies, archaeology, and architecture. The most important of the publisher’s undertakings is the Hungarian Lexicon of Cultural History, now in the 11th volume, and from time to time publish books in other genres: collections of interviews, memoirs, poems, and artist’s albums. Balassi is also in charge of the publishing of two academic journals. www.balassikiado.hu.

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Book Lover's Angle

Please Look After the Japanese Edition of Please Look After Mom

1. Please Look After Mom Shin Kyung-sook, Changbi Publishers, Inc. 2008, 299p, ISBN 9788936433673 2. Please Look After Mom (U.S. Edition) Shin Kyung-sook, Knopf, 2011 3. Please Look After Mother (British Edition) Shin Kyung-sook, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2011 4. 離れ部屋 Shin Kyung-sook, Shueisha, 2005

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I once read something penned by Kawakami Hiromi ( 川上弘美), the writer. She said she was surprised, while reading a Korean novel, by the close resemblance between the way a Korean woman and the way a Japanese woman broiled a fish. The recent popularity of Korean soap operas in Japan may be based on such resemblance between the two countries. The two countries have grown remarkably closer through the 2002 Korea-Japan World Cup and the Korean Wave. Shigemu Toshimitsu (重村智計), a former journalist and a professor at Waseda University, says in his recent publication that, “Out of all the peoples in the world, the Japanese relate the most to the South and North Koreans.” I agree. A Japanese person who has any interest in Korea at all will probably nod in agreement. How are things looking in the field of literature, then? Now and then, my eyes pop wide open while I skim through bestseller lists and I exclaim, “Wow, a book by a Korean author!” but most of the books are on diets and so forth, so it seems that there’s still a long way to go. I feel quite pressured, trying to publish a Korean novel in Japan that has “sold two million copies in Korea! 100,000 first editions published in the U.S.! 20,000 in France! Into the third printing in Spain!” The book in question is Please Look After Mom, a novel by Shin Kyung-Sook. An Isolated Room, another novel by Shin, and A House with Mountains, a House with a Well, a book of correspondence between Shin and the Japanese writer, Tsushima Yuko (津島佑子), were released by the publishing company for which I work, so I’ve had the opportunity to get to know her. The first time I met Shin was at the 6th Korean Literature Symposium held in Wonju in 2002. Translating the title An Isolated Room into Japanese (離れ部屋) was a difficult task. Traditional Japanese houses do come with a “separate building ( 離れ),” but the “isolated room” in the novel refers to a room in an

apartment, and is different from a “separate building.” The translation of a work begins with the translation of the title, and Please Look After Mom was no exception. In the Japanese language there exists what’s called “ruby characters,” which indicate how Chinese characters should be read. We were agonizing over how the title, Please Look After Mom, should be translated into Japanese. We pondered over several possibilities, and in the end decided on “母をお願い,” then affixed the ruby, “オムマ,” meaning “mom” in a large, conspicuous font above the Chinese character, “母.” It was out of a desire that Japanese readers may read and understand the title as Please Look After Mom. The word “mother,” too, has become quite familiar with the Japanese people, through Professor Kang Sangjung’s bestselling novel, Mother (母オモニ). This time, we wanted people to become familiar with the word, “mom.” There is a clear difference between the words “mother (母さん)” and “mom (母ちゃん)” in the Japanese language, too. Seeing how the word “mom” was used instead of “mother” in the English title, and “maman” instead of “mère” in the French, I felt convinced that the nuance of the word “mom” should be emphasized in the Japanese title as well. Let’s stop here for a moment! The consonant “ㅁ” in the Korean word “엄마 (mom)” sounds like “M” in English or French. Did you know that in all the Romantic languages, the word “mother” comes with an M? It’s amazing—in nearly all the languages in the world, the word “mother” comes with an M. It’s the same in the Slavic, German, and Tibetan languages. In the Japanese language, the Chinese character 母 is read as “haha,” but can also be pronounced as “mo.” Since 母 is a character that comes from China, it’s probably connected closely to the Chinese language. The foreign rights of Please Look After Mom has been sold to 25 countries around the world. It was interesting to think about how many of those countries will come up with a title with an M in it. Now, to go on to the main issue, I’d like to talk briefly about the plot of Please Look After Mom, for those who are unfamiliar with it, since this magazine targets readers of the English-speaking world. “It’s been one week since Mom went missing,” the novel begins, and goes on to say, “It’s been nine months since Mom went missing” in the last chapter. When the mother suddenly goes missing one day, the children go searching for her in a flurry. The children have left their home and aged parents to

live their own lives in the city. They invite their parents to Seoul for a birthday celebration, but none of the four siblings are able to meet them at Seoul Station. When the father, who is about to get on the subway, turns around, he discovers that his wife, who should have been right behind him, is gone. Upon hearing the news, the children go desperately in search of their mother, distributing fliers and inquiring here and there. Their mother has actually been suffering from Alzheimer’s. Some reports come in, saying that someone presumed to be their mother has been spotted, but nothing substantial is learned that actually leads to their mother. Only then do the children realize how they had taken their mother for granted when she had given them such great love, and regret how indifferent they had been to their mother, preoccupied with their own lives. They long desperately for their mother. Seeing her in a different way now, each from a different point of view, they realize that their mother is a person, and a woman, before she is their mom. The weight of her existence is felt only through her absence—how paradoxical. Where in the world could she be? The West is showing great enthusiasm for the book, with 100,000 copies of the first edition published in the United States, 20,000 copies in France, and reprints in Spain. How many copies will sell in Japan? I hear that in the U.S., a veteran editor at Knopf who was in charge of Memoirs of a Geisha, handed out copies to the persons concerned at three different times, which puts me under even greater pressure. I’m doing the best I can, asking Kakuda Mitsuyo (角田光代), the writer, to write a word of recommendation that will be printed on the book jacket. In the end, it all depends on the book itself. By Iwamoto Nobuto

* Iwamoto Nobuto graduated from Waseda University. He joined Shueisha in 1977 and was in charge of editing two girls’ comic magazines for over 20 years. Since his transfer to the foreign literature editorial department in 1999, he has been in charge of editing mostly novels in English and French, as well as nonfiction books. A visit to Korea stirred up his interest in Korean literature and culture in general, and today he also works with Korean novels, novel versions of Korean films, reviews on Korean films, and even beginner’s books on learning Hangul.

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Reviews Fiction

A Short Life, Long Lived My Palpitating Life Kim Ae-ran, Changbi Publishers, Inc. 2011, 354p, ISBN 9788936433871

My Palpitating Life is the first full-length novel by the critically and popularly acclaimed Kim Ae-ran. According to the author’s prologue, it is “the story of the youngest parents and oldest child in the world.” The protagonist has just turned 16-years-old, born to parents who had him in high school. He suffers from the rapid aging affliction progeria. So the stage is set for the story of the impossibly old child with impossibly young parents, told from the perspective of a 16-year-old with the face of an octogenarian whose parents are still in their early 30s. The narrative of My Palpitating Life is split into two parts. One deals with events of the protagonist’s last year of life in the present, when the novel is set, while the other concerns the protagonist’s imaginings of his parents’ past, putting together his own versions of how they met and why they had him. In the former part, which makes up the bulk of the novel, the protagonist appears on a fundraising television program in hopes of raising money for his medica l care when he becomes pen pals with a teenager watching the show. Exchanging letters with her becomes the highlight of his days. It turns out however that she never really existed, whereupon the protagonist dies of shock and grief.

The latter part of the narrative may be seen as a reiteration of the family romances featured so memorably in the author’s previous works, the short story collections Run, Pop, Run! (2005) and Mouthwatering (2007), that raise the question of where the self comes from. Even without referring back to Freud’s “Family Romance,” it is plain that all children wonder why they were born and desire to find meaning in their selves while they try to solve this mystery. All of us have been there. What meaning can the protagonist attach to his life, however, when he is destined to leave this world so soon? While the question mig ht be t he sa me, t he prota gonist undoubtedly has the tougher riddle to solve. To himself he asks, “Why do people have children?” To which he answers, “To relive the life they do not remember.” And “To see again the self that one never saw. To once more become a child by being a parent. Was that not the reason why people had children? What could my parents have seen in the baby who started aging when he was two years old…another question soon arose to bother me. ‘What purpose did God have for me?’ Unfortunately I have no answer for that yet.” Faced with this enigma, the 16-year-old protagonist suffering from an incurable disease is touchingly mature. Rather than question

the meaning of his existence, he asks what he means to his parents, and to other people. His considerate nature prompts him to try to please his parents to the very end, and to leave them with a final gift. What are gifts for, if not to give joy to the recipient? In this sense the protagonist was a gift to his parents and the world. The gift he left, or rather, the gift he was, will be remembered long after he is gone. By Yi Soo-hyung

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Reviews Fiction

What Is Rubbish? A Familiar World Hwang Sok-yong, Munhakdongne Publishing Corp. 2011, 234p, ISBN 9788954615037

A cracked, splintering wooden pestle, a twig brush all worn down at the end, a rubber clog missing a heel, a silver hairpin covered with rust, a cracked button made from an animal's horn, a broken pipe, a fine-tooth comb missing teeth, a thimble broken along the seams. Are all of these now useless items rubbish or not? If they served their true purpose in life to the very end in the hands of judicious, caring owners, discarded only when used up, then these deserve to be called rubbish. If they were discarded with still plenty of use left on a whim of their owners, however, they cannot be called rubbish in the strict sense of the word— they are false rubbish. Disturbingly enough, more and more false rubbish is littering the world. Hwang Sok-yong’s A Familiar World paints a dramatic yet bleak picture, against the backdrop of Nanji Island, a colossal landfill built in the 1970s, about the twisted desire in society today that creates rubbish in order to keep the engine of capitalism running smoothly. A s can be inferred from the author’s prologue, the landfill is

Tales Pulled from the Past Namiseom Jeon Sang-guk, Minumsa Publishing Group 2011, 287p, ISBN 9788937483677

Fiction writers find their inspiration from various sources. In the case of Jeon Sangguk, his fiction is inspired by stories that make no sense at all, stories that may not be that uncommon but defy any logical explanation. His stories in Namiseom border upon the surreal. Eons of time pass in an endless loop for one character, another falls in love with a woman who resembles a water nymph. Mysterious as these stories are on the surface, however, their meaning is quite different at the core. This is because all the supernatural events in Namiseom are linked to historical fact. The incredible stories of neighbors killing each other, the irrevocable damage they have wrought, are in fact the stories of individuals lumped together under the name of history. The title story “Namiseom” illustrates this perfectly. Namiseom is now a tourist 48 list_ Books from Korea

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attraction known for being the location of a popular television drama, but nobody can agree on how it came by its name. Folklore holds that the island is named after General Nami, but Jeon Sang-guk believes it has to do with a woman named Nami. No page of the island’s history is left unturned in his search for stories that go back to Nami. Under the watchful gaze of the author, Namiseom, now merely a playground for tourists, is revealed to be an island haunted by a nymph that symbolizes all of its past tragedies. The island is the same place, but the stories were forgotten as the nature of the place changed. Accordingly the author calls it “the black box where memories come to die.” Only the eyes of an author such as Jeon Sang-guk could have decoded its secrets. In a world where everything must be decoded, living and growing old is like navigating a maze. Nothing about life is ever easy to answer, no matter how long it lasts. By Kang Yu-jung

a metaphor for the very real yet invisible under world that supports the endless cycle of waste that goes on in the visible world to support the empty bubble that is the consumerist lifestyle. The forsaken souls and forgotten objects of the city are sketched in painstaking detail, suggesting that it is possible to become rubbish even in the heart of the city far away from the landfill, and that it happens every day. Today’s brutally competitive society may merely be a reflection of the race to not end up as rubbish as well. But is becoming rubbish truly such a terrible fate? At the end of the novel the protagonist Ddakburi tentatively tries out a new way of life at the landfill, taking care of abandoned dogs, and holding a memorial service for objects that have lost their usefulness (real rubbish). This reflects the fact that the landfill is the only place in the novel that has the potential to truly become “a familiar world.” By Shim Jinkyung

Spotlight on Fiction

The House with the Sunken Courtyard (an excerpt)

By Kim Won-il Translated by Suh Ji-moon

The House with the Sunken Courtyard

Now, to enumerate the inhabitants of that house is no small task. They were legion. But I remember every one of them as distinctly as if they were items in my pocket. The room right next to the city water bin was occupied by the Gyeonggi family who had fled the war from Yeonbaek, Gyeonggi province. There were three people in the family. The mother of the family was in her early fifties, and she was a graduate of a high school in Gaeseong, which means that she was exceptionally welleducated for a woman of her generation. Her

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son Heunggyu, a tall and thin bachelor, was a dental technician working at a dental clinic on the outskirts of the city. Like most tall and thin men, he was always smiling good-naturedly. His sister Miseon flaunted a buxom and sinewy body line and dressed stylishly. She was always chewing gum, and was constantly making small clacking noises from popping the bubbles against her teeth. The room next to that was inhabited by a retired military officer who was a wounded veteran. That family also had three members.

The veteran, who had two steel hooks attached to a rubber arm for his right hand, stared at people with hostility, as if he were looking at an enemy on a battlefield, and was a man of few words. His wife was in an advanced stage of pregnancy when I joined the house, so her belly was greatly swollen. Their only child till then, Junho, was five-years-old, about the same age as Boksul, the son of the Gimcheon woman who ran a snack store, so the two constantly quarreled and made up. My youngest sibling Gilsu tottered after them all day long and exhibited his low intelligence. This wounded veteranâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s family was from Pyeonggang, Gangwon province, and joined the house last of all the tenants, moving in during the spring of the year I came to live in the house. The room next to that was occupied by a family from Pyongyang. There were four in the family. The mother of the family, who was in her late forties, mended and sold old military uniforms on the black market. She had a daughter and two sons. The daughter, Sunhwa, had an oval face and attractive double-lidded eyes, and was of marriageable age. The eldest son Jeongtae, who was gaunt and always looked to be seething with fury, was loafing at home because of his bad lungs. The pimply second son, unlike the eldest, was stocky and was a senior at

Gyeongbuk High School, located not far from the house. So, the four families occupying the middle quarters knew each otherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s circumstances just as if they were one family. Each family knew what the other families were having for side dishes at each meal, and what ratio of Vietnamese rice and barley the other families mixed with white rice for their staple diets. When dividing up the electricity and water bills there were disputes as to a fair division, but we were all families doing our best to make an honest living. There was gossiping, inevitably, and a little hypocrisy, but we all understood what hard work it was for refugees to keep alive, and did not stint emotional support to one another. The landlords were a family of prestige originating from the Euiseong area of the North Gyeongsang province. The great-grandfather of the present owner had been a high-ranking official of the city of Daegu in the last years of the Joseon era. It was this dignitary who built the house in Janggwan-dong. The gentleman retired to his hometown after serving in the office, but the house in the city was used by his son, who was an important officer in the Orient Settlement Company, the Japanese outfit for land exploitation in Korea, and by his grandchildren who went to school in Daegu. The present

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landlord, who was the grandson of the officer of the Orient Settlement Company, was the lucky inheritor of the house. It was in the year of liberation that he became the owner of the house, and he was already a businessman of note by then. The landlord’s family consisted of eight members. The head of the family was a very busy person, so we only caught glimpses of him when he went out in the morning or returned home in the evening. He often slept out, and when he returned home at night he was usually heavily drunk. He ran a textile factory in Chimsandong, on the outskirts of Daegu. His wife, our landlady, had a fair and glowing face and was well-built. She seemed to have no aptitude or taste for housekeeping, and her arena of activity was outside the home. With the help of her businessman husband she was able to open a shop near Songjuk Cinema selling jewelry and timepieces, and she also managed private mutual aid financial associations. As she added to the household income but neglected household management, her mother-in-law ran the house. The mother-in-law was in her seventies, but she was erect of stature and mentally alert, so that when going to the market she took the helper with her but made the purchases herself. The mother-in-law roundly abused her daughter-in-

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law behind her back for neglecting the household and paying scanty respect to her mother-in-law. The Gyeonggi woman, who did not have to work because her son and daughter earned their living, was her conversation companion. Owing to her educational background, the Gyeonggi woman was able to give the old lady appropriate cues and sympathetic responses. The landlord and landlady had three sons. The eldest was a college sophomore, and the youngest was in the second year of middle school. Seongjun, who was rumored to have been admitted to the law department of a private university by making a hefty donation, went to school in a formal suit and tie, hair sleek with pomade oil. He was never seen to study, and when at home he always played the stereo at full volume and practiced dancing on the living room floor, so we tenants of the middle quarters nicknamed him “playboy.” The second and third sons of the house, a junior in high school and an eighth grader in middle school, were tutored by Jeongmin, the younger son of the Pyongyang woman, for two hours every day of the week. Of course, Jeongmin thereby earned money. There was also a high school girl in the family, a niece of the landlord, who came from Euisong to attend high school in Daegu and was in her senior year. Lastly, there was the helper,

Mrs. An, who originated from Goryeong, North Gyeongsang province. Although she had her hair done in a bun like a matron, she was a young widow in her mid-twenties, and was diligent and kind-hearted. So, this was the make-up of the inhabitants of that houseâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;sixteen in the middle quarters after the baby was born to the military veteran and his wife, and eight in the inner quarters. Besides these, there were the two members of the Gimcheon family in the outer quarters. Twentytwo people preparing for the day in the morning created a bustling scene, just like a marketplace in the morning. As there was some distance between the inner quarters and the middle quarters, of what went on in the inner quarters, we only heard the old lady waking up her grandchildren in the morning, but we could hear every small exchange going on in any of the rooms in the middle quarters. I can still vividly recall the mornings in the sunken courtyard. When the day began to brighten, the four households made fires in their portable stoves first of all. Smoke then veiled the front of the rooms, and the whirl of fans working at fires resounded in the courtyard. My sister Seonrye, who was in her final year of middle school, woke up early and began studying for the high school entrance exam, so I was the one who made the

fire in my family. The Gyeonggi family was the latest to rise, so Miseon, their daughter, often went around the other rooms to exchange three or four pieces of unused charcoal for two lit ones. Miseon sometimes gave me a piece of American chewing gum as a bribe when she asked for a live piece of coal from my stove, smiling prettily and showing her dimples. I liked the chewing gum, but I liked the good trade in charcoal exchange even more. So, being anxious for Miseon to buy live charcoal from me, I sometimes made the offer on my part, saying â&#x20AC;&#x153;Miseon, my stove is lit.â&#x20AC;? Unlike Sunhwa, Miseon was sophisticated and always emitted a whiff of fragrance. The most remarkable feature of the morning scene involved the use of the toilet. In front of the improvised toilet near the middle gate, built with pieces of planks stuck together, there was always a queue. The toilet was built for the tenants of the four rooms in the middle quarters and the family in the outer quarter, but some busy mornings the students of the inner quarters came across the courtyard to use it, too. Therefore, in the early morning there were always one or two people fidgeting in front of the toilet. Of course, the inner quarters had a clean tile-plastered indoor toilet, but it was not available to the tenants. So, the families in the middle quarters had chamber pots and used them in emergencies.

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The one most often seen fidgeting in front of the toilet was the Gyeonggi woman. Her sallow and puffy face indicated that she had digestive problems, and sure enough, she was the first to use the toilet in the morning. Then, within half an hour she had to use the toilet again. By then the toilet was sure to be occupied by someone or other, so she had to wait. At those times she would smoke, squatting in front of the toilet till the cigarette almost burned her finger, and complain about people who could stay so long in the toilet inhaling the stench of feces. She claimed to have begun smoking after she had her first child because she suffered severe stomach pain. She must have had grave digestive problems, for she not only used the toilet frequently but also broke wind a lot. My mother wasn’t too happy about the Gyeonggi woman occupying the toilet so often. She muttered to herself that the Gyeonggi woman ought to pay a double portion of the sanitation fees. But ironically, the Gyeonggi woman insisted, at those times when the sanitation bill was divided up, that it was unfair for her family to bear an equal portion, as her son and daughter were absent from home all day, and only she herself used the toilet during the daytime. She insisted that her family and the wounded veteran’s family should count as

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half households, since her children and the war veteran couple were away from the house from morning till evening. After breakfast was cooked and eaten, the students were the first to leave the house. There were four students in the inner quarters, and in the middle quarters Jeongmin, son of the Pyongyang woman, and Seonrye, my sister. Giljung, my younger brother who had just entered primary school, alternated between morning and afternoon classes from week to week. Of the grown-ups, the earliest to leave the house was the son and daughter of the Gyeonggi family. As the mother of the family had to spend a good part of the morning inside or in front of the toilet, it was always her daughter Miseon who made breakfast. Heunggyu, her brother, was good at whistling, and when leaving the house in the morning swinging his lunchbox, often gave melodious whistling recitations of such popular tunes as “Parting at the Busan Terminal” and “Serenade at the Frontline.” He is said to have picked up dental skills in the army working as a medical aid at a dental clinic in Gaeseong during the Korean War years. The woman from Gyeonggi always referred to her son as “my dentist son.” Miseon left the house attired in a Western outfit, a purse slung on

her arm and silky hair streaming in the breeze, making staccato sounds with her chewing gum. When she crossed the courtyard swinging her hips to the beat of her high-heeled shoes, all the young men of the house furtively eyed her figure. Miseon worked as a sales clerk at the Command Post Exchange of the Eighth U.S. Army during the day, and in the evenings she changed into a student uniform and went to night school to finish the schooling interrupted by war. After the young people left, the head of the house and the wounded veteran left for work at about the same time. When the master of the house left for work, his wife came out only as far as the edge of the living room to see him off, but his mother followed him to the main gate to bid him good bye. And she always saw him off saying, “My dear, don’t go to a drinking party tonight, but come home early. Have mercy on your stomach.” Then the middle-aged son would try to placate his mother by saying, “You know business is just beginning to pick up after a long slump. Demand for textile isn’t constant. One must make money while the boom lasts.” That his business was thriving could be seen from his expanding girth and his sleek face. The landlord’s textile company Oseong Textiles had stopped operating for a long time due to low demand and the difficulty of purchasing thread.

I suppose it was during that time that they took in tenants to earn tuition for their children and help with the household expenses, even though, having paddies and fields in their hometown, they had no difficulty finding enough to eat. But when the war entered the armistice phase, production of thread increased, so the thread supply could be secured, and with refugees shaking off poverty and beginning to look after their appearance, demands for fabric soared. The landlord’s factory produced textiles night and day. True to the precept that at the end of a war food and garment industries thrive, the master of the house was raking in money. He was expanding his factory, and it was rumored that with relatives in the government and the armed forces, he had no difficulty cutting through red tape and winning contracts. Junho’s father, the wounded veteran, went out clad in a military uniform and an officer’s cap without the insignia, and carrying a small military duffle bag containing his lunch box. He was always neatly clad, as his wife laundered his garments frequently and ironed them neatly. “He’d better be neatly clad. Nobody would defer to a handicapped veteran in squalid clothes,” his wife would say. According to his wife, the veteran worked at the Veterans’ Relief Section of the Second Army Headquarters, but nobody

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in the house believed her. His wife always came out as far as the main gate and saw her husband off deferentially, then did the dishes, prepared a lunch for Junho, and afterwards went out to sell fruit. Her haggard face was tanned copper and her neck and arms were emaciated. I don’t think I ever saw a smile on her face which always looked fatigue-ridden. How she came to be a tenant in this house was well known to the rest of us. When she showed up to rent a room, she was accompanied only by the real estate agent. She told the old lady of the house that she had only one child and that her husband had been a teacher in a primary school in her hometown in the North but joined the army as an officer when the war erupted and was now demobilized and working as a civilian in the Second Army Headquarters. The old lady liked her quiet demeanor and goodnatured eyes, and decided to take the family in. As rooms were scarce, landlords could have their pick of tenants. But as most tenants had multiple children and no source of stable income, it didn’t seem a bad choice at all. When, ten days later, the family moved in, the father of the family had steel hooks for his right hand. Everyone in the house winced to see the hooks. Junho’s father had some bedding bundled on his back and a worn leather suitcase slung from his shoulders, and

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was carrying an urn in his arms. Junho’s mother was carrying on her head a big wooden tray with pots and pans stacked on it and a portable meal table in her hand. Little Junho was carrying a winnowing basket draped over his head. Those comprised all their belongings. Seeing their poverty, the old lady of the house regretted her decision to take them in, but it was too late. Sometime after Junho’s mother went out with the fruit basin on her head, the Pyongyang woman and her daughter Sunhwa left to do their business. The Pyongyang woman, who lost her husband to American bombing while f leeing from the Communist Chinese intervention in the war, wore bloomers made from a military uniform and a loose military jacket. And she had a money pouch strapped to her waist. Like most women from the North with thick, husky voices and stocky figures, she was also very diligent and aggressive. She went out of the house carrying about fifty sets of military uniforms bundled on her head and with a portable stool in one hand. She sold the uniforms in the black market until sunset. She had no stall of her own, so she spread out her wares on the ground. Sunhwa went out with her mother carrying old military uniforms in a big laundry basin. She washed the uniforms in the Bangcheon Creek and came home around lunchtime. On reaching home, she hung the

washed uniforms on a laundry line and spent the afternoon mending them. Then, she cooked dinner and afterwards went to the market to help her mother carry her merchandise home. Most of the time, the mother and daughter came back with an additional bundle, which contained soiled and worn military uniforms to be washed and mended for sale. The lady of the house was the last to go out. After eating breakfast she put on elaborate makeup, donned a classy Korean dress, and went out with brisk steps. When she passed wearing a gold necklace and bracelet and carrying a beaded bag, the women in the neighborhood muttered, “There goes our lady.” When all those who had work to do or business to look after went out, the house sank into deep silence. Only the old lady of the house and the young helper remained in the inner quarters, and in the middle quarters there was only the Gyeonggi woman, the consumptive patient Jeongtae, and my mother and myself. The war veteran’s son Junho and my younger brother Gilsu played in the alley or made expeditions to the wide thoroughfares with Boksul, the Gimcheon woman’s son. 2 It was one spring day in early May, when a profusion of azaleas adorned the courtyard. My

mother, myself, my younger brother Giljung, who was attending class in the morning that week and was back from school, and the youngest Gilsu had just finished lunch. My mother, sitting at her sewing machine, bade me come close to her, took some notes out of the drawer of the sewing machine, and handed them to me. “See how much there is.” W hen I counted the money there were eighty hwan, which was worth four packs of the “peacock” cigarette. I thought my mother was going to send me on an errand. But she eyed me keenly and said, “Listen, Gilnam. You are the eldest son in this family with no father. You have seen how the world treats people whose only crime is their poverty. I’m sure that, young as you are, you have experienced through grinding hunger the sorrow and bitterness that poverty causes. As you know, those who have nothing but their brawn to rely on must work twice as hard just to put food in their mouths. You must realize you are very differently situated than our landlords’ sons. Those boys have wealthy parents, an imposing house, and plenty to eat. So, they can go to college if only they study hard, and can get good jobs after graduating. And they can get on in the world easily. It’s true that even if you study twice as hard as those boys until you come of age there may be exactly the same gap between

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you and them. But you can’t just stand by and leave everything to fate. That’d be like a farmer doing nothing but praying in a severe drought. Rice doesn’t grow of its own accord. It’s true that even ten years later we may still have to look up at landlords from down below. But you must try as best you can to improve your lot. As for me, my mission in life is to support the four of you until you can become independent. I have no life of my own apart from raising you.” Mother’s voice had become tearful. I raised my head and looked at her. Her eyelashes were wet. She was not yet forty, but she was talking like an old woman. As a matter of fact, from being a vigorous, blooming woman in her thirties in the days before the war, she had become a dryskinned and tired woman, as if twice her real age. She blew her nose into her handkerchief and continued: “Gilnam, you have your whole life before you. So, you must make up your mind very firmly to get out of this poverty. As I see it, there are only two options for you. One is for you to study very hard and become twice as able as the others. Look at Jeongmin. He has no father, either, and his mother sells second-hand military uniforms, but because he’s an excellent student, he earns money by tutoring the landlord’s two younger sons, and he does his own studies until midnight.

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So, he is the best student in his class and the class president year after year. I’m sure he is going to be a judge or a prosecutor or a university professor. “Another option for you to make headway in this life is for you to master the ways of this world by plunging right into it. If you’re not very bright and you have no aptitude for study, you must work hard. Look at Junho’s father. He only has one arm, but he goes out every morning to make a living. A man has to go out as soon as he finishes breakfast if he’s to fulfill his duties as the head of a family. So even though you’re still a teenager, you shouldn’t be loafing at home all day every day. That’s why I’m giving you this money.” “What do you want me to do with this money?” I asked, completely at a loss as to what Mother might have in mind. “G i l n a m , w hy d on’t y ou t r y bu y i n g newspapers with that money and selling them on the street? It doesn’t matter how much money you can make. The important thing is for you to realize the value of earning money. That will give you a good sense of the hardships of making your way in the world. And that will be a valuable asset for getting on in this world. You know the proverb, ‘Invest in hardship early, whatever the cost,’ don’t you?” I dared not disobey such an

earnest command from Mother. In retrospect, I think it is certain that my mother meant to make me earn money when she called me up from our hometown. She left me alone to roam the streets for about ten days, to let me familiarize myself with the ways of the city, so that I could earn my tuition engaging in some trade. She must have thought ten days would give me sufficient time to get a good sense of the city’s layout and its ways. I left the house with the money in my pocket, but with no plan in my head. As I was leaving, my mother said, “If you don’t think you can sell newspapers, you can use that money to go back to Jinyeong and become a servant in a tavern or a vendor in the market.” That was an ultimatum that spurred me to buck up with desperate courage. If I returned home in the evening after just roaming the streets, my mother was quite capable of making me skip dinner and even throwing me out of the house. She was a very stern and harsh parent.

The House with the Sunken Courtyard Kim Won-il, Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd. 1988, 322p, ISBN 9788932010120

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About the Author

Kim Won-il has written extensively on the Korean War. This is related to the fact that his father defected to North Korea during the war. Kim was a senior in high school when the war started and broke his family apart, an experience that was to haunt him throughout his life and prompt him to write about the war and its aftermath for the greater part of his career. His novels include Sunset, Wind and River, Winter Valley, A House with the Sunken Courtyard, Evergreen, The Way to Auraji, and The Rite of Fire. He is the recipient of numerous awards including the Hanguk Ilbo Literary Award, the Yi Sang Literary Award, and the Hwang Sunwon Literary Award.

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Reviews Fiction

A Reality All Too Fragile The City of Familiar Others Choi In-ho, Yeobaek Media 2011, 391p, ISBN 9788958660941

Choi In-ho is an author who enjoyed great literary stature in the 1970s. He represented the view of a subculture, giving expression to an era of rapid industrialization. At t he time, when ma ny Korea n writers aimed through literature towards resisting contradictions in the military dictatorship and industrialization, Choi countered the process of industrialization by employing a lowbrow culture code. The fact that so many of his works were made into films contributed to his tremendous popularity. T his time, howe ver, in t he ne wly published The City of Familiar Others, it is interesting that Choi has concentrated his attention on aspects other than cultural subversion. The most prominent strand in the novel represents a spiritual investigation into the relationship between reality and fantasy, the real and the fake, good and evil, and beauty and ugliness. One day, the hero K senses his present reality becoming unfamiliar. He suddenly feels that his wife, his daughter, his puppy, and everything surrounding him have become unreal. In the course of uncovering the cause of this

Violence Begets Violence My Hands Turned into Hooves Park Bumshin, Munye Joongang 2011, 487p, ISBN 9788927802235

Park Bumshin’s 39th novel, My Hands Turned into Hooves, is one that explores the violence of this world through “hooves.” In the words of the author himself, “This novel is an introspective work on how our society is one that has not escaped from the brutal, violent society of earlier days,” and is one in which he attempts to make philosophical inquiries into the ideas of violence and death that to this day secretly exist behind the façade of our capitalist civilization, packaged into concepts of “life” and “well being.” In this sense, Hooves is an extension of the critical perspective of Park’s last novel, Business, a critique of the heartless, business-style capitalism and our violent reality that have led to the destruction of human life as it was once known. Within the novel, violence is expressed most bluntly and directly in the f inal scene, in which a hoof emerges from the

narrator’s hand, representing an eruption of latent violence. In addition, the special forces commander from Myeonganjinsa, who had abused the narrator in the past like a “strangled dog,” as well as Yeorin, the one and only person the narrator had ever truly loved, are both mercilessly killed by the narrator, their blood sucked, and cannibalized. What is interesting about this is the way in which the narrator, at one time the victim of violence, is driven into an extreme situation and becomes a perpetrator of violence, doling out violence exponentially greater than that which he had experienced. As paradoxical as it may sound, one could also say that if the world is structured under a fixed, violent order, then the agent of violence exists as a victim of the world’s violence. Within this novel the narrator, once the object of extreme violence, becomes saturated with and then mechanically repeats the internalized violence of the world. Thus, through the metamorphosis of the narrator’s hand into a hoof, stained with the violence of the world, the results is a complete loss of the

phenomenon, he testifies that the reality that ma kes up our lives is an illusion that can easily be smashed. K’s life, as if manipulated by a matrix, has been formed as some sort of program. And such a life can easily be broken with even a slight crack, as is symbolized by the sudden earthquake which brings reality crashing down at the end of the novel. As has been theorized, post-industrial reality is composed of thousands of signs, and in our life we can never be free from the order of those signs. We regard it as self-evident that reality exists, but in fact a reality made up of signs is fragile. Choi advances ideas such as these using a religious frame. The outcome is that Choi poses questions fundamental to our lives: Is our familiar reality ours, or an unfamiliar place made by strangers? Isn’t it possible that what we consider to be our lives and reality are fake, master-minded by a matrix? For those of us living in a post-industrial society, these are serious questions. And with this work, too, Choi offers undeniable evidence that he is enriching Korean literature in new ways, over and beyond his achievements in the 1970s. By Jang Sungkyu

self. Of course, the narrator, in addition to the impossibility of escape from the world of violence, is infected by violence, giving birth to a zombie-like state in which the self is all but lost. By Shim Jinkyung

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Reviews Fiction

Imagining the Ultimate “Bed” Bed Choi Suchol, Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd. 2011, 582p, ISBN 9788932022130

A lthough not mentioned by the writer himself, throughout the course of reading Choi Suchol’s Bed, there is a certain image that never leaves one’s mind, and that is none other than the idea of the bed which appears so famously in Plato’s The Republic. This bed is a concept, an image in one’s mind; there is a bed that exists in the real world, a copy of the idea of the bed; and finally there is an artist’s rendition of the bed, or a copy of the copy of the concept. Choi Suchol’s Bed reads like a reversal of the three levels of Plato’s theory of imitation, based on a poet’s exile. Here we have a bed imagined by a writer. From that bed, we have a real-world nation (Korea) along with the incredible, miserable (and for that, important) twists and turns its modern history has taken. Then, in the end, we have the “ultimate bed,” or the idea of the nation. Some are born from that bed, and some perish there. Some experience torture, some love, some plunder, some cry, some go insane, some dream of utopia, and some find peace. Fundamentally there are an infinite number of stories that are found

here and spring forth from it. As there is nothing this nation has yet to experience, the bed itself is a storyteller, a philosopher, a conspirator, and a shaman. It encompasses the man, the woman, and exists fluidly between mythical and modern times. It is third person, then first person and moves from the point of view of an omniscient narrator to that of an observer. In the end, this bed is a divine one, an “ultimate bed.” As such, the language of this bed begets a novel that melds both ancient and modern times with wisdom. There is satire, there is allegory, digression and illustration, philosophical dialogue and theater. For as much as this novel is a mixture of so many different elements, Choi’s Bed demonstrates exactly how wide the range of those elements is. By Kim Hyoung-joong

A Love that Overcomes Can You Go Insane? Kim In-suk, Hankyoreh Publishing Co. 2011, 302p, ISBN 9788984314726

An earnest and passionate writer, Kim Insuk has been writing fiction continuously since her literary debut at the age of 20. Her novels merge an acute critical awareness of contemporary society with a deeper, existential ref lection on human life, and she has consistently attracted both critical and popular attention, sharing with us a profound, sorrowful world that is all her own. For the past several years, earthquakes and tsunamis have occurred around the world with great frequency, and as an author who responds sensitively to the issues of the day, Kim has taken such a disaster site as the main setting for Can You Go Insane? On an island in the area of the South Pacific, the heroine, who has killed her husband’s lover, is swept away in a tsunami together with everything else on the island. The author takes popular subject matter, the love and 62 list_ Books from Korea

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separation of a man and woman, and adds to it a deeper layer of critical awareness with the dramatic incident of the tsunami: the characters are healed and reborn through the experience of love. Wallace’s Line, continental drift theory, and plate tectonics, all mentioned in the novel, act as entertaining metaphorical devices within it. Just as earthquakes and tsunamis are disasters that arise from the clash of plates on the earth’s surface, clashes continuously break out between the story’s heroine, Jin, and her husband, Jin. Even if they share the same name, they are like different plates colliding. Not only that, but discord among strangers creeps into all the relations of the characters featured in the novel. That the natives and foreigners mixed together in the story are like strange, deserted islands to one another is evocative of the novel’s setting and plate tectonics. However, through the ending in which the foreign heroine and the native Iana begin loving each other in the midst of the tsunami’s ruins, the writer offers the possibility that a disaster caused

by a collision of plates may be overcome by regeneration and healing. The title of the novel, Can You Go Insane?, refers to the influence that you and I have in forming each other within the great dialectic of love. By Park Hyekyung

Reviews Fiction

Trying Hard Not to Play Nice Come Back Home Yun Young-su, Munhakdongne Publishing Corp. 2011, 273p, ISBN 9788954614320

Even as Yun Young-su has been faithful to the principles of realism, she has crafted a world of her own with f ine, st ylish sentences, and a delicate, controlled sense of balance. What is strikingly characteristic of her novels is that even though the writer hovers freely over the characters’ consciousness and their interior and exterior psychology, she does not try to exercise moral control over them. Yun uses restraint and maintains observational distance from the characters; instead of asking readers to side with particular characters or to identify with their perspectives, she offers us a penetrating view of their psychology and actions, and perhaps the overall meaning of the situation in which they are placed. Because of this, when reading Yun’s novels, readers come to observe the characters rather than approve of their lives. Come Back Home features so-called bad people who want to be nice and socalled nice people who don’t want to be so nice. Through this character composition, Yun depicts our society’s double standard in a very entertaining fashion. “Nice,”

the word used to praise someone’s virtue, gradually brings ridicule to that person, or causes trouble. Also, in her novels, selfish desire enlists the aid of good intentions, perverting goodwill itself into a means of self-preservation. By portraying a world of hypocrisy in which people’s good intentions are in collusion with vulgar desire, she captures t he way in which t he mora l standard of good and evil becomes tightly enmeshed with the social mechanism known as the food chain, in which the strong dominate the weak. However, the fact that the writer coolly sees through human moral falsehood does not ultimately mean she has a cold eye. In fact, from time to time she is even humorous. This is because despite the fact that society endows people with every worldly, selfish desire, Yun never abandons her belief that humans are fundamentally possessed of good intentions. By Park Hyekyung

In Search of a Stranger I Met Lo Gi-wan Cho Hae-jin, Changbi Publishers, Inc. 2011, 200p, ISBN 9788936433857

It all starts with the initial, “L.” Right now, here, in this place, living in Seoul, a woman is gravely wounded. It’s not clear what has wounded her, but with this stimulus, she finally decides to write a novel rather than a script for a radio broadcast. The woman takes this one initial, “L,” and leaves as if possessed, but why has she gone in search of Lo Gi-wan? In Cho Hae-jin’s I Met Lo Gi-wan, a woman goes in search of Lo Gi-wan, but ultimately her journey can be regarded as one of finding herself and returning. Whether she meets Lo Gi-wan or not is probably immaterial. As a traveller, exile, and a fugitive, Lo experiences foreign living for the first time. To him, day-to-day life abroad verges on being a death-defying adventure. Several times the narrator becomes entangled in his feelings, using his diary as the basis for

pursuing herself. Cho Hae-jin’s I Met Lo Gi-wan is no fanciful tale; it bears the truth of a writer plunging herself completely into a stranger’s life. The novel’s protagonist and narrator goes in search of Lo Gi-wan in order to find herself. Saying she understands him is the flip side of saying the character “I” understands herself. This is related to the guilt she feels for regarding “Yun-ju” as only the “main character” of radio scripts. Ultimately, one can see that through a novel, the story of someone else’s life, one can undertake the process of understanding oneself. After flying over ten 10 hours on an airplane to a foreign land, and encountering Park, Yun-ju, and Lo Gi-wan, eventually the woman discovers an empty place in herself. Nothing is understood; nothing is settled. The novel teaches us that this inadequate answer is the most honest revelation. By Kang Yu-jung

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Vol.13 Autumn 2011

Reviews Fiction

Impressed by Failure Hidden Eve Kim Ujine, Munhakdongne Publishing Corp. 2011, 207p, ISBN 9788954615099

T he majorit y of novels a re ones t hat have met failure. However, the history of literature has been driven by failures that are actually meaningful, clear successes. What is important is to not allow certain “successful failures” to pass us by. Kim Ujine’s Hidden Eve is an impressive failure. But how is it that one comes to use the word “failure?” Well, this is because the novel in question is one that is not written in our expected form, the narrative. A narrative is comprised of three elements: people, events, and place. These are exactly the elements Rene Wellek and Austin Warren outlined in their landmark classic, Theory of Literature (1949): characterization, plot, and setting. It appears as though this work takes no interest in fulfilling these expectations in any customary form. The setting—in both terms of time and space—is obscure. Ironically, the more the writer attempts to flesh out the occupations of the characters, the impression of who they are becomes on l y m o r e n e b u l o u s . M e e t i n g s a n d separations, fires, and fleeing all take place; however, somehow all these events seem but a portent to something else, giving the

reader a feeling that, “Surely something is about to really happen.” On the other hand, there is something special that this novel has. Some would put it as simply as to say the writing is “poetic,” but to take from the aesthetic critique point of view of philosopher Gilles Deleuze, one might say that this work is one that creates affect. For instance, literary scholar Claire Colebrook notes the fear and ennui of Emi ly Dick inson a nd Ha rold Pinter, respectively, as magnificent works of affect. Similarly, the affect given by the children of Kim’s novel—their solitudes, affections, anxieties—are both lightly and subtly done, even to the point of objectification. Really, the hero of this novel is the affect that is it creates. Kim has done this with poetic rhythm and images that exhibit a depth of description that delves deep below the surface. Hidden Eve represents not a customary path to success, but rather a personal path of failure. That said, one can only encourage Kim Ujine with the famed line from Samuel Beckett: “Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” By Shin Hyoung-cheol

Using and Abusing the Body Welcome Kim E-seol, Jaeum&Moeum 2011, 195p, ISBN 9788957075661

Writer Kim E-seol is certainly a writer who has a body; or, perhaps I should say “bodies.” This is because Kim’s novel, Welcome, is an exhibition for the body. Her novel is a veritable smorgasbord of horrible tribulations that bodies suffer and from which they break—the beatings and rapes that take place throughout a life of arduous labor. The protagonist of Welcome is both the narrator and the broken body. At first, the main character attempts to become the breadwinner of the family in place of her husband, a man unemployed but pretending to be in the midst of qualifying exam preparations. The protagonist takes up work in a chicken soup restaurant and, while working there, her family becomes the cause of a series of accidents. The protagonist, unable to handle the expenses, 64 list_ Books from Korea

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decides to sell herself. As she toils away in the restaurant she also spreads her legs for male patrons so frequently that her thighs bruise. Her labor, including prostitution, is work that wears out the body. Within the novel this severe degeneration of the body goes on and on with no end. In Welcome the protagonist is someone who can only revive herself through her body, someone only able to assure herself through the physical. This is a body that cannot be veiled even by fantasy, thus can provide no sexual fantasy, and one that is literally completely stripped of everything. At this point the body represents not the locus of the self, nor the inner world of the self externalized through social interaction, nor an extension of reality that moves beyond the individual, but rather a mere consumer good that is worn down to the point of nonexistence as it is used and abused. As such, the tale of degeneration of the protagonist’s body in Welcome attempts to map out such a process. Welcome serves as a documentation

of the process through which the protagonist’s body is exhausted as a medium of exchange between energy and the physical, as well as the process of normalization in the everyday life of prostitution. By Shim Jinkyung

Steady Sellers

Revisiting the Stories of Shin Kyung-sook The Blind Calf Shin Kyung-sook, Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd. 1993, 304p, ISBN 9788932104289

In 2008, Shin Kyung-sook published her novel Please Look After Mom, which sold a million copies in Korea. Recently, the book was translated and published in America to positive reviews. Shin’s work became popular with Korean readers with the publication of her short story collection The Blind Calf in 1993. A woman reminisces on her past affair with a married man in the title story “The Blind Calf,” where Shin demonstrates her unique sensitivity and style. An unfamiliar woman moves into the house of a girl with three older brothers and a baby sister. This woman has usurped the position of the girl’s mother and the girl understands that there must be a conscious distance bet ween herself and the new woman. But at the same time, the girl is

drawn to this woman who is different from the other farmwives that are busy cultivating their fields and taking care of their homes. The girl finds herself wishing, “I want to be like this woman. This wasn’t merely because the woman wrapped the baby in a daffodil colored blanket, or because she knew to place green lentil jelly on top of bean sprouts at dinner. The woman saw me amidst all my brothers and recognized me for who I was. A mother is important for a girl at the threshold of womanhood, but equally needed was someone who understood me.” Thus, this woman who bought pretty new clothes for the girl was preferred over the mother who loved the daughter deeply but dressed her in her brother’s old hand-medowns. This woman who brought into the farmhouse a different mood beyond that

of the typical countryside, represents the girl’s hidden dreams and hopes. Yet, the woman murmurs to the girl, “Don’t… don’t become…like me,” before she leaves them for good. The na rrator of The Blind Calf is ret ic ent. She doe s not of fer det a i led explanations of her feelings when moving into a house where the children regard her as the enemy, or what she felt about the anguish of the woman who left because of her, and neither the anguish she herself felt to have eventually left the man she loves and his family. Furthermore, she does not offer an explanation of love, family, or her identity as a woman in such a situation. She leaves in silence much of the various debates that could surface in such circumstances. Time passes and the little girl grows up to be a woman and falls in love with a man. She realizes then that she is in the same situation as the woman from long ago: “Some time ago, the woman who moved into our home…she lived with my father … this woman… please forgive her…Am I not that same woman?” What the narrator wishes to say is embodied in the ellipses. What the narrator hopes to relay is the hesitance that accompanies the understanding that love can devastate a family, which leads to the decision to let go of the man she loves and the lonely integrity that remains. “My father used to put hand cream on the woman after she finished washing the dinner dishes. I don’t know why that’s the one thing I remember. It felt like a dream to see the hands of my father and this woman tangled together in such an open display. The radiant look on my father’s face was one I had never seen before.” The girl, now a grown woman, thinks back on the happiness of her father and the other woman. This kind of happiness was not present before the woman came or after the woman left. Nonetheless, this woman from the past, and the girl who is now a woman, must renounce such happiness and return to their lonely lives. The Blind Calf does not offer the answer to the controversy of extramarital affairs but the irony of not knowing when one might run into such ironies in their own life. The title The Blind Calf signifies the same thing. What once was is no longer there and the only thing left is the empty space. The harmonium that once stood in the corner of a village elementary school that conveyed the hope of a different life to a little girl, is now gone. And the absence of the harmonium is the only thing that can be confirmed. By Yi Soo-hyung

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Vol.13 Autumn 2011

Reviews Nonfiction

Setting Korean Culture Apart Korean Culture Textbook Choi Joon-sik, Sonamoo Publishing Co. 2011, 399p, ISBN 9788971390764

The title includes the word “textbook” but this book is very different from the textbooks circulated in classrooms. In this work, 53 items that encapsulate Korean culture are introduced through a storytelling format. Through a colorful a rray of abu nd a nt pic t u re s, Choi introduces Korea and its architecture, art, music, food, religion, language, books, and philosophy. Choi is the writer of a popular Korean website, and his work is based on an accumulation of articles posted during the past year. Thus, the information will be interesting and easy to understand even for those with little knowledge of Korea. Many people cannot differentiate the architecture of classical buildings from China, Korea, and Japan. Classical architecture in Korea has definitely been influenced by the architecture of China, especially regarding its exterior surface. However, traditional Korean building structures include the ondol—a unique floor that keeps the cold winters warm. Also, traditional Korean homes have a wooden living room section that opens up to the outdoor area called the mahroo, which helps keep the hot summers cool. This is one of the few building structures in the world that simultaneously keeps summers cool and winters warm. Both Chinese and Korean houses, called hanok, decorate their roofs with tiles, but the difference is that traditionally mud

was placed under Korean tiles to block the heat and the cold. The traditional Korean paper hanji is used as wallpaper and also used on doors. This controls lighting and humidity as well as assisting in ventilation. In this way, very few housing structures in the world simu lta neously employ mud, stone, wood, and paper such as traditional Korean houses do. The ecofriendly material allows the architecture to blend in seamlessly within Korea’s natural environment. For this reason, a number of people have recently begun to build houses in the traditional form again. Chopsticks are used in Korea, China, and Japan. But in Korea, spoons are used just as often as chopsticks. The Chinese and Japanese do not use their spoons as much. Why is this so? This is because Korean cuisine includes various soups and stews as part of the main meal. The writer notes that not many people in this world enjoy hot soup as much as Koreans do. For instance, mixing rice into soup is a large part of the food culture that is unique to Korea. On the other hand, not many people know that Koreans were the first in Asia to devise a way to document the high and low notes as well as the rhythm of a music score. King Sejong of the Joseon era first invented a music score titled “Junggahnbo.” The score records a 550-year-old royal classic of Korea called Jongmyo Jeryeak

(Royal Ancestral Shrine Music) in its original form. Jongmyo Jeryeak is registered as part of UNESCO’s Intangible World Cultural Heritage. There are many books that introduce Korean traditions, customs, and tourist attractions. But very few books cover in depth or breadth the variety and distinct characteristics of the Korean culture as Choi has masterfully done. Choi studied history in college and went on to obtain his doctoral degree in religious studies at Temple University in the U.S. He has written over 10 books on Korean culture, including one written in English. It goes without saying that Choi is a writer who is well equipped to write about Korea. Choi himself has also expressed a desire that his work be translated into various languages, so that readers around the world would be able to encounter the richness of the Korean culture. By Pyo Jeonghun

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Reviews Nonfiction

Hidden History Revealed Korea’s Modern Era Through Paintings Lee Choong-ryul, Gimm-Young Publishers, Inc. 2011, 296p, ISBN 9788934950882

The collapse of the Joseon era, the Japanese colonial period, a much-awaited liberation followed by the division of the nation, and the Korean War—the modern history of Korea is nothing if not an amazing drama of ups and downs. The era f illed with painful memories is often remembered as the lost and forgotten period. But we cannot truly heal our wounds unless we confront modern history, nor is it possible to start a new era without doing so. This self-reflection prompted author Lee to work on this book and pose questions: How did Korea’s modern era begin? What caused the country’s culture and arts to blossom? What were the primary concerns for Koreans in the modern era? What did Korea get and lose in experiencing the turbulent period? The author, who went to the United States in 1976, is a journalist who attempts to shed fresh light on a modern Korean history that has been widely neglected and sidelined in the study of paintings. He tracked down 86 paintings by Koreans in and outside Korea, secret documents stashed away by the Japanese colonial government

Making the Most of Maps Maps: The Frame of Thought for Reading the World Song Kyubong, Book21 Publishing Group 2011, 264p, ISBN 9788950930899

Song Kyubong, a leading expert on GIS (Geographic Information Systems), explores the role and function of maps in an era characterized by the digital and global. Maps have been widely used as a communication a nd e x plor at ion to ol e ven b e fore t he invention of writing systems. Today, maps are regarded as a new framework that can open up new insights going beyond the traditional role of identifying locations. A single map comes with tens of thousands of stories, and this imagination-rich medium is bound to stimulate our imaginations. The book offers a collection of intriguing stories in relation to the past, present, and future of maps. In the mid-1990s, the New York police adopted GIS and drew up a map of crimes in the city, which resulted in a dramatic decrease in the number of crimes. Starbucks is utilizing GIS to map out new store plans and marketing strategies. Mobile carriers 68 list_ Books from Korea

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track down the location of their subscribers, while credit card firms set up maps showing customers’ spending patterns based on the day of the week and location. Imaging technology now allows for doctors to draw a map of the body in detail. South Africa, a resource-rich nation, relies on geographical statistics to mine its underground resources. Maps are now tightly connected with every aspect of life, including politics, economy, society, culture, and science. Maps, in other words, are one of the dominant forces that shape the world. The history of maps—their creation and evolution—contain humans’ longstanding search for better, uncharted landscapes. As a result, maps are essentially future-oriented and starting points for creating something new. This book will help readers rethink the role of maps and expand their own imaginations. By Richard Hong

a nd t he Foreign Ministr y, U.S. State Department documents and court rulings, as well as newspaper clips and records in various annals. As such, he reveals hidden facts and stories in the 300 paintings and related documents he found. E l i z abet h K eit h a rrived i n Kore a shortly after the March 1st Independence Movement in 1919 and worked on various paintings that offered a lively portrait of modern Korea. German-American painter Willy Seiler visited Korea three times in the 1950s and focused on images of traditional markets and rural areas, illustrating the life of ordinary people in the aftermath of the Korean War. Other painful yet memorable moments are captured in various paintings included in the book. By Richard Hong

Reviews Nonfiction

Travelling Through the Past Travels in East Asian Classics Sim Kyung-ho, Korea University Press 2011, 462p, ISBN 9788976417473

Traveling has been a popular subject with Western and Eastern writers as well as with readers. Many writers have documented their travels through various genres such as novels, poems, and essays. Today traveling is associated with leisure and rest but was this true in the past as well? What was the meaning of travel in traditional East Asian society, and what shapes and forms did these travels unfold? Sim, a scholar of East Asian classics, answers these questions through studies that include Korean, Chinese, and Japanese classics detailing travels in East Asia before modernity. The 10 classical travelogues mentioned in the book include Yuan dynasty’s Zhou Daguan’s (周達觀) account of Cambodia’s Angkor and the Khmer empire “Zhenlafengtuiji” ( 真臘風土記 : The Customs of Cambodia) and Joseon’s Shin Yuhan’s (申維翰) diplomatic expeditions in Japan titled “Haeyoolok” (海游錄). Sim emphasizes that travel documents are important historical records. For example, in “Haeyoolok,” Shin Yuhan mentions the hygienic conditions of 18th century Japan. This information

can be important in understanding Japan’s medical history. Information on unfamiliar customs, natural environments, and cultural standards as well as expectations of the times, are some of the areas in which travel writing sheds light on history. Sim has translated various Asian classics into a contemporary dialect with detailed explanations of the historical backdrop of the travels. Travels in East Asian Classics is an anthology as well as a guidebook of classical East Asia that will not disappoint its readers in discovering or rediscovering the classical times of the Orient. By Pyo Jeonghun

Where Tradition Lives On In Search of Traditional Villages in Korea Han Pil-won, Humanist Publishing Group 2011, 520p, ISBN 9788958624035

South Korea has pulled off modernization and industrialization at a fast clip. As with modernization in other countries, Korea had its traditional assets destroyed or neglected in its desperate attempt to move forward. Modernization was deemed as progress and an advance; pre-modern tradition was regarded as an obstacle to overcome. This perception persisted in the architecture and public spaces. As a result, many traditional towns and houses in Korea disappeared quickly. The author, Han Pil-won, trained as an architect, attempts to rediscover the value of traditional Korean villages. For Han, traditional Korean towns are a treasure trove of “ancient wisdom.” To that end, the author visited the majority of remaining traditional villages; the book is a result of such time-consuming field research. What’s notable is that the book contains not only

the results of his architectural research but also the history and culture of the traditional towns. One of the most important characteristics of Korea’s traditional villages is environment-friendliness. Korea’s houses in the past were designed and planned in a way that would minimize their impact on the surrounding ecosystem. In addition, such eco-friendly houses used a minimum of natural resources while utilizing energy efficiently. As humans and nature were perceived a s interdependent ent it ie s, residential structures were designed largely for their harmony with nature. The book is a great guide for readers interested in Korea’s culture and geography as well as for those who pay attention to architecture. Plenty of photos and design plans by the author himself also help readers gain a better grasp of the traditional houses in Korea. By Pyo Jeonghun

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Reviews Nonfiction

Every Scene Has Its Story There’s No Accidental Landscape Kim Yeon-geum, Namudosi Publishing Co. 2011, 224p, ISBN 9788994452067

Familiar scenes we encounter on a daily basis tend to pass unnoticed, but some images are quite unusual, unfamiliar, and even strange. We may happen to face such scenes as if they are without any meaning; however, every scene in the world has its own story and embraces the episodes of the residents there. Kim, who obtained a doctorate degree in landscape architecture at the University of Seoul and has written about the “harmony between architecture and scenery” in the past decade, says there’s no such thing as an “accidental landscape.” Each landscape comes with its own story, and the book provides 15 such stories embedded in various scenes. Starting from Oksu-dong in Seoul, the author covers the traditional street of Insa-dong; Jongno 3-ga, a venue for the elderly; the beer street in Euljiro; and eight other local scenes. Foreign landscape stories in Thailand (Pai), Japan (Shiragawago Village), and Edinburgh (Royal Mile) are also featured in the book, offering an intriguing mix of landscapes and anecdotes. Soaring sets of stairs in Oksu-dong

stand in a forest of houses, as if aiming toward the sky, forming a dizzying angle for passersby. After the Korean War, a number of Koreans rushed to Seoul to find a new life, reaching to the then far corners of Seoul like Oksu-dong, known for its rocky terrain. Soon box-like houses, called “haggobang,” sprouted up in the area, along with countless stairs that are mostly twisted yet friendly for residents. The steep stairs offered a pathway through which numerous Koreans renewed their will to lead a better life. The landscape in Oksu-dong, therefore, can be called a scene of hope and courage. Knowledge opens up a new territory, which in turn gets appreciated in an entirely new way. As such, readers will love the place at a deeper level once they finish reading this wonderful combination of the landscape and the people living in there.

Propaganda Entertained Them Manchuria Film Association and Korean Films in the Japanese Colonial Period Kim Ryeosil, Korean Film Archive 2011, 152p, ISBN 9788993056310

In 1931, Japan began to establish a colony in Manchuria (Manchukuo). Immediately thereafter, Japan founded the Manchuria Film Association, and from 1938 to 1945 pro duc e d over 6 0 0 f i l m s . Given t he historical context, Korea, China, and Japan naturally had different perspectives about Manchuria during the 1930s and 40s and their positions regarding the Manchuria Film Association varied as well. Kim focuses on the Manchuria Film Association not from any particular country’s point of view but from the perspective of East Asia in general. Thus, this book first focuses on the history and activities of the Manchuria Film Association known as “the largest movie factory in Asia” as well as the relationships between Manchuria, the Manchuria Film Association, and the Korean peninsula under the rule of Japan. The primary goal 70 list_ Books from Korea

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of the association was to propagate the legitimacy of Japanese occupation in China. However, because the movies produced by the association were incredibly entertaining, many of them failed to relay the original propagandistic message intended by the Japanese. In other words, the films reflected an inconsistency vacillating between the goal to indoctrinate as well as to entertain. Kim’s work is not merely about the history of the Manchuria Film Association. A l a r g er t heme i s at work , one t h at encompasses the East Asian film scene in the 1930s and 40s and the significance of Manchukuo to East Asians. The body of the text includes unique documents such as film still cuts, posters, and newspaper articles about the association. This book will be a jewel to readers who are interested in modern East Asian history and the history of East Asian film. T he end i ng of t he book i nclude s supplemental material such as “Movie Theaters in Manchukuo” and “Existing Manchuria Film Association Films.” By Pyo Jeonghun

By Richard Hong

Reviews Nonfiction

K-pop Uncovered Idol: The Cultural Phenomenon of Idols from H.O.T. to Girls’ Generation Lee Dong-yeun, et al, Imagine Books 2011, 408p, ISBN 9788993985467

The popularity of Korean pop stars such as TVXQ, Girls’ Generation, Kara, 2PM, and Big Bang has reached a tipping point. Once an East Asian phenomenon, their reach can now be felt throughout the world. SM Entertainment held a live concert in Paris in June 2011 to great success, and Japan’s Korean Wave is expanding beyond its niche in K-dramas as well. A number of Japanese music programs now actually have spots devoted to K-pop that take up a third of their air time. The recently published Idol offers an in-depth look at the biggest stars in K-pop today. Ten culture experts examine how today’s pop idols are manufactured and consumed. Besides researching the history and pedigree of pop idols, the experts point out how the idol craze acts out a symbolic function in culture and society. This in turn exposes the disturbingly twisted desire that underlies the whole institution. No study of Korean idols would be complete without at least three premises. The first is that idols are cultural capital. Korean idols start out as trainees who

work for years perfecting their act. Even after making a successful debut, their image remains subject to the meticulous planning of producers and marketers. Only companies that can afford to invest in this sort of long-term grooming create idols, and their success in turn allows the company to accumulate more revenue. The second is that idols are cultural symbols. To disillusioned teenagers, idols embody the thwarted desires they have no occasion to act upon. As for the latest addition to the idol demographic, men and women in their 30s and 40s, these groups represent the emasculation of men and the growing power of women in Korea. Finally, the idol craze has led to the creation of a culture of fandom. Fandom is quickly growing into a cultural force with social clout. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in what goes on behind the glitter and panache of the idol industry. By Han Mihwa

In Search of a Home A Room of One’s Own Jung Min-woo, Imagine Books 2011, 384p, ISBN 9788993985498

British writer Virginia Woolf once said women need “a room of one’s own” to secure intellectual freedom. A specific requirement to gain independence and freedom is none other than a room reserved for the self. Based on interviews and field research, this book analyzes Korea’s reality in which young people find it hard to get their own room. In particular, the book lays bare the conditions at gosiwon, a facility packed with tiny single-room accommodations, and explores their social implications in detail. A single room in a gosiwon is about 3.3 square meters, and since its monthly rent is cheaper than other facilities, low-income workers or young people usually live there. The author lived in a gosiwon in Seoul for a month in February 2011. In the wake of the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s and the global economic turmoil in 2008, Korean society saw the

disparity in income deepen dramatically. As a result, people between 25 and 34 struggle with unstable jobs and intensifying competition. Without help from their parents, they cannot handle housing, jobs, and marriage. In Korea, a house is the very place where the problems with job security, unfair housing, and uncertainty in managing life cycle converge. Unstable housing leads to instability in life itself. For youth, such dire conditions make it virtually impossible to become an independent adult and citizen. The harsh conditions are challenging not only young Koreans but also other youth around the world. And on this front the book succeeds in tackling the universal theme of the ‘sociology of habitation.’ By Pyo Jeonghun

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Vol.13 Autumn 2011

Reviews Nonfiction

A Place to Figure Out Your Life You Asked If I Was Alright Kim Sun-woo, Chungrim Publishing 2011, 304p, ISBN 9788935208814

You are certainly doing your best! You are giving life all you’ve got! But still there is an anxiety that makes you wonder if others might be working harder and succeeding more than you. Even though it’s high time you developed a tolerance for this kind of anxiety, you still feel life seems to bring moments of pain. The poet Kim Sun-woo visits Aurovill, an international township based in South India near the Bay of Bengal. Aurovill is not the only community where people with similar beliefs have congregated together. Seoul boasts a similar educational community called Mount Sungmi Village, and in Bordeaux, France, the monk Thich Nhat Hanh founded Plum Village. Yet the poet has chosen Aurovill. You Asked If I Was Alright is a record of what kind of place Aurovill is as well as what kind of life the village can offer. In the peaceful, forested environment of Aurovill, Kim has written essays that offer readers clarity and peace of mind. Aurovill is an ecological community where families can abide together for as long

as they want. The ethics Aurovill boasts regarding work and education encompass the highest human ideals. In this place you are able to try new things that you have always wanted to try but never have. Playing with children and making fertilizer out of flowers are all considered work. The hours of work are flexible and if you don’t feel like working you don’t have to. People there believe that the satisfaction you feel through work is just as important as the work itself. Aurovill encompasses an educational philosophy where baking croissants and fixing bicycles are just as important as receiving good grades in traditional subjects at school. Of course, Aurovill is not a perfect utopia. Human conflicts are present here because human life exists here. Money is required here as well. But here you are given a space to ponder the question of what it means to live a better life.

Finding Hope in the Everyday After the Flowers Wilt, We Notice the Leaves Yi Hae-in; Illustrator: Hwang Kyu-baik SAMTOH Publishing Co., Ltd. 2011, 288p, ISBN 9788946418035

Poet Sister, Cloud A ngel, T he Lit t le Consoler—Sister Yi Hae-in is called by names that reflect winsome titles of poetry. She was diagnosed with cancer in 2008, but while fighting the deadly disease, she has not ceased to love the world or to be passionate about writing poetry. “I live every day as if it’s the first day of my life,” confesses Yi. Through this collection she offers a wonderful message of hope and encouragement. M o s t p e o p l e w a nt t o b e a r o u n d colorful, blossoming f lowers. But as an ascetic, Yi sees the green leaves that can only be fully appreciated with the withering of the flower: “After the flowers wilt, the leaves still speak of hope…” Yi experienced gratitude in being alive while observing the everyday things in life. It is only when one loses their loved ones that they understand 72 list_ Books from Korea

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the value of the time spent together, and it is only when one loses something of value that they understand the significance of it. As we see the world through the eyes of the dying poet, Yi’s collection of poems helps readers to understand the joys of everyday life. “These days I am happier than ever. I live every day of my life as if searching for a treasure island in the midst of the vast ocean. When I open my heart, I see that so much of life is a precious gem. I have lost much of the treasures of life due to my foolishness but I have also rediscovered much of it.” Yi’s words offer bountiful love to the world and its inhabitants. Her poems help us to realize the vanity of worldly pursuits and give us the courage to face the difficulties of life. By Richard Hong

By Han Mihwa

Writer's Note

My Impressions of the KLTI Forum in the U.S.

In order to introduce Korean literature to America, KLTI held its first-ever forum in the western part of the U.S. from April 27 to 29. I participated along with Kim Joo-young, Ch’oe Yun, and the literary critics Wu Chan-je and Kim Yonghee. KLTI Director Kim Joo-youn accompanied us in addition to three staff members, who were very helpful in organizing and managing the forum. On April 27th the forum at UCL A began with keynote addresses by KLTI Director Kim Joo-youn and UCLA's Director of the Center for Korean Studies, Dr. John Duncan. Next, novelist Kim Joo-young made a presentation titled, “Poverty as the Raw Material of Korean Fiction and the Indomitable Spirit of the Nation,” followed by literary critic Wu Chan-je on “Looking to Prosperity from Within the Ruins: Korea in Korean literature,” novelist Ch'oe Yun on “A Tradition of Oppression: Laying the Groundwork for Individuality and Democratization,” and my own presentation, “The Current of Experimental Fiction in Korea.” Discussions followed the presentations. On April 28th, literar y critic K im Yonghee and Professor Lee Nam of the Dodge College of Film and Media presented “Korean Literature in the Screen Age: Literature and Film, the Desire of the General Public, and Social Institutions in Korea” and “Screen Adaptations of Korean Literature and the American Market,” respectively, at the Korean Cultural Center Los Angeles (KCCLA). On April 29th at USC, Korean-American poet Nicky Schildkraut, Ch'oe Yun, Leonard Chang, and I participated in a poetry

reading and discussion. In addition to those named above, many experts made presentations and participated in the discussions, helping make the U.S. forums a success. Although audience participation and response differed between events, overall the first forum to introduce Korean literature to the western U.S. went well. The large audience at UCLA in particular, where the Center for Korean Studies is garnering good results, hints at the improved status of Korean literature. Through these forums, more students became interested in the literature and culture of South Korea, which will lead to more research in this field. It seems to me that after a certain point in the 20th century, there was a loss of inner vitality and an onset of a sustained slump in American literature. I continue to read the major American literary journals, but it's hard to find innovative work. Through my French and German friends in the literati, I have also heard that European literature, which was once the world's dynamo, is in much the same state as that of the U.S. today. In contrast to American and European literature, young writers in Korean literature are changing the literary landscape with bold imagination and unique styles. I believe that it won't be long before the world appropriately recognizes the worth of Korean literature. More accessible work of several Korean writers has served as the vanguard for entering the global literature market, and if more stylized works are translated and published abroad, I believe the status of Korean literature will be further enhanced. W h i le I w a s a ble to se e t he p otent i a l for t he globalization of Korean literature, I keenly feel that many obstacles still remain. First of all, it seemed that Americans with some kind of connection to Korea were more inclined to attend these events introducing Korean literature to the U.S. rather than a general audience. Second, major media outlets didn't provide any coverage of our forums. In order to raise the level of interest and acceptance of Korean literature, renowned local writers should also be invited to participate to arouse greater local interest. Also, we need to make a greater effort to get more exposure for our events in the local media and with foreign rights agents. By Jung Young-moon

* Jung Young-moon is a novelist. He has published the short story collections Black Chain of Stories and Vague Sunday and the novels Bloodless Soliloquy and Moonstruck Clown.

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Reviews Children's Books

Showing Interest, Showing Love Do Not Listen, Do Not Look Byun Sun-jin, Baram Books 2011, 40p, ISBN 9788994475172

The 6-year-old storyteller starts her story this way: “Adults were born adults. They don’t know anything. Especially the reason that I cry.” It’s true. Adults know nothing. A d u lt s t h i n k t h a t c h i l d r e n a r e frightened about the following: going to the dentist, vaccinations, and sleeping in the dark. They also think that children cry because they imagine some kind of monster lurking in the walls. But the children in this book spea k out and explain that these are not what children are scared of. And these are not the times that children really want to cry. It is adults that have lost their inner vision, that can see and know nothing except that which is directly in front of their eyes. Adults tilt their head and say, “So tell us, what is it that really makes children cry?” Of course, all adults were children once. All adults share certain childhood memories: running to their mother in order to share the hurt feelings of being wrongfully misunderstood by a friend; being scolded by a teacher; experiencing the inexplicable death of a favorite pet. But the mother may not be interested in the child’s pain. The mother is usually more interested in whether or not her child is wearing clean clothes, if her child is being polite, and if her child is doing well in school. The child intuitively realizes that her parents are interested in the child only externally. The child shuts down. The

child reveals its deep secrets sometimes to her siblings or close friends. And then, when the child becomes an adult, the child simply forgets the times the child’s parents failed to understand the child, and the times the child felt wronged. The (now adults) say, “I don’t understand why my kids are so upset. Why are they crying?” It is easy for adults to find out the real reason children cry-even for those adults who have long forgotten their past. All they need to do is show interest. They need to smile and look their children in the eye, praise their accomplishments, cheer for them, sympathize with their pain and sadness without over-analysis. A s t he b ook e x pl a i n s, t he m a i n character bursts into tears when she meets an uncle that has no particular personality, when her favorite and much cared for goldfish dies, when her mom and dad forget her birthday and leave her to watch TV on her own, when her mom and her dad fight and her dad raises his voice; it is these times that she is overwhelmed by fear and loneliness. It is then when she says, “Adults don’t know anything.” At the center of a ll relationships is interest, and showing interest is an expression of love. Adu lts may have forgotten this, but these young children have not. The storyteller explains that physical pain is not as bad as emotional pain. A nd this explanation does not require many words. The book has only sparing text and expressive illustrations,

but it contains the same wisdom as a thick book of child psychology. The book does not urge or preach to adults. In it is only a child that tells her story in a calm manner. Ju s t a s t h i s b o o k i s s h o r t a n d insightful, looking into the heart of our children is not difficult to do. If adults look at children with interest, children’s feelings will be visible. Even if they resist with all their might, their feelings will be visible. If children are listened to with love, their hearts’ song will be heard. Even if they resist, they will be heard. By Lee Jiyoo

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Reviews Children's Books

Nothing Can Stop the Baby A Tough Daughter Born on a Train Kim Jin-wan; Illustrator: Kim Hyo-eun, Sigongjunior 2011, 46p, ISBN 9788952760685

There are things in the world that are beyond human control. Burning volcanoes and gigantic tsunamis are of such enormous power and scale that they bring terrible devastation upon humans. It is for this reason that the phrase “beyond human control” in itself is an expression of fear. However, there is one thing that is beyond human control, yet it instills not fear but great joy. And that is the moment of birth. Babies are extremely stubborn. When they decide to come into the world, nothing can stop them. There is not a child-bearing mother in the world that can carry her child inside her forever, and not a child in the world who wishes to remain inside, either. The child does not plan or choose the time and place of its birth. When it is ready for the world, out it comes. And for those waiting on the other end, they have no choice but to wait and allow the baby to take the lead. Who can resist the desire of that delicate, young being, born naked into this world? In A Tough Daughter Born on a Train, a train running through a snowstorm

contains a baby waiting to be born. And there is nothing that can stop her. When her mother goes into labor, the train comes to a halt. The train’s carriage turns into an emergenc y room. People go to the neighboring village to find and bring back warm water and food. They collect money on behalf of the mother and the child that will soon appear, turning the train into a festive celebration. The child is born. A nd before she has a chance to open her mouth, she has already asserted her control over those in her company. This is because people cannot possibly be greedy in the presence of a newborn. Such is the power of life. By Lee Jiyoo

Lessons Learned Through Nature My Father's Fishing Net Hwang Sun-mi; Illustrator: Yoon Bongsun Sigongjunior 2011, 96p, ISBN 9788952761675

Myongha and Kuiyongi, who live by the sea, are in constant competition with each other. Fearless Kuiyongi catches eels in his net. The sea spills into the village stream bringing countless eels with it. But Myongha has no net and no courage, so he stays along the sand and looks for clam holes. Of course, Myongha would like nothing more than to catch eels, sell them at the store, and get snacks and money for himself, but he cannot muster the courage to do so. Myongha’s dad fathered him at age 50, and the family is still grieving for his older brother who was lost at sea. Kuiyongi often teases Myongha about his dad, calling him “Grandpa.” He thinks Myongha is a coward because his father was so old by the time he had him. And when Myongha steps into the sea to show Kuiyongi that he isn’t a coward after all, he 76 list_ Books from Korea

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loses one of his precious shoes. Myongha thirsts to show off a large catch of eels to his father; even more, he wishes to prove to his old man that he is no longer a child. Myongha’s father knows all this, and so the old fisherman prepares a silver fishnet for his son. Myongha takes this net and sets off in search of eels. He encounters vicious rains and great danger. And yet after Myongha finally becomes adept at casting his net, the sea eels stop coming into the village stream. A seawall has been built which is killing off the delicate life forms of the mudflats and sea shallows. Pre v iou s m a s t e r pie c e s by a ut hor Hwang Sun-mi, who penned one of Korea’s bestsellers, Leafie, a Hen into the Wild, focus also on the negotiation between the providence of nature and human will. This work, too, deals with the will of a young boy and the process of his growth and maturation through confrontations with nature. Hwang’s work traces her character’s development into a fearless individual, but at the same time captures the despair he feels when environmenta l da ma ge

results in the emptying of the mudf lats. The powerful message of her story is that once the environment is destroyed, we are also doomed to the loss of life and vital energy. The book is suitable for readers of approximately 10 years of age. By Kim Ji-eun

Reviews Children's Books

Confessions Brightly Lit Have You Seen That Man? Kim Ryeo-ryeong; Illustrator: Chang Kyeong-hue Munhakdongne Publishing Corp., 2011, 175p ISBN 9788954614542

The novel opens wit h t he grumbling confessions of a writer by the name of O Myongnang. O becomes a writer after much personal effort, but after achieving this goal the writer finds his future bleak, with no commissions and no other sources of income. In order to support himself, the writer opens a learning center of storytelling for t he nei g hb orho o d c h i ld ren. T he children prefer this center to their other tedious after-school classes, and the writer distributes among them a copy of his book, and reads it to them a little each day. The book contains confessions and secrets from the writer’s life that are gradually revealed in the book’s pages. But a shift occurs, and suddenly the writer becomes distraught because he loses the ability to distinguish and control the difference between his real, lived experiences and his invented stories. Some of the stories are directly related to the writer’s own experiences, such as the one about the man who lost his twins in a car accident; the story about the child who ends up in the streets in the process of escaping his abusive

father; or the story about the brother and sister left to fend for themselves after their mother abandons the family. The audience of children finds these stories riveting and they wait for the story’s resolution, but there is none, for these are the stories of the writer’s own family’s painful past. This novel, told in the picaresque style, conveys the warm and heartfelt message that it only takes one individual’s earnest words of encouragement and compassion to overcome the greatest of calamities. Here, the writer’s name, O Myongnang, meaning “ bright a nd cheerf u l,” is pa rticu la rly significant. And indeed, the novel’s central image is that of individuals who, lacking both brightness and cheer in their lives, share the last of their strength and overcome their hardships through laughter. The process of repairing the past’s fissures and building a family on the foundation of chance meetings is a moving one. By Kim Ji-eun

Fairytales Do Come True Cloud Bus of the End-of-the-World Village Lim Jeong-jin; Illustrator: Cho Min-kyung, Balgeunmirae 2011, 136p, ISBN 9788965460398

Cloud Bus of the End-of-the-World Village is a sympathetic tale that describes the struggles of seven school children that set out, along with their friends and supporters in the village, to protect their little school. This educational institution is located in the End-of-the-World Village, far from the city. Because of its small student population, the school is threatened with closure, but it so happens that a newcomer from Seoul by the name of Chaerin decides that she adores the school. She likes the free and energetic atmosphere, a nd the ra nge of diverse afterschool activities. She decides that there is no way she is going to sit back and let such a wonderful school be shut down. The children gather and decide unequivocally to save the school. The book describes with great detail the process by which those involved gather their minds and hearts to save this small school—including the

hearts of the children, teachers, parents, and villagers—at a time when the existence of such institutions is being threatened. Central and symbolic to their struggle are their various efforts spent toward obtaining a school bus. The idea of obtaining a proper school bus that will make it possible to transport children to the small school seems not just impossible but downright absurd. For starters, obtaining such a vehicle would take a sum of money that would be impossible to raise. But with the growing number of supporters and a surprising twist of fate toward the end, the impossible dream of a school bus is realized. Even more surprising is that fact that this book is based on a true story. There is, in fact, an end-of-the-world village in Korea, and a “Cloud Bus” painted in child-like grey-green colors that embraces the sincere hearts of countless people. These may be rare events, but such fairytales do come true. They are based on reality, and are therefore all the more emotionally moving and stirring. Quietly, this book turns our

attention to the way in which a school can become more than a mere educational institute; it can become a site of human contact and the building of a community. By Kim Min-ryoung

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Reviews Children's Books

What It Takes to Love Your Family Small-minded Daddy Kim Nam-jung; Illustrator: Kim Moo-yeon Prunsoop Publishing Co., Ltd. 2011, 183p, ISBN 9788971846575

Author Kim Nam-jung is one of Korea’s most prominent young writers for children. He has received numerous awards for his work, including such awards as the MBC Award for Children’s Writing, the Munhakdongne Children’s Book Award, and the Artist of the Year award presented by the Arts Council Korea. The father of the novel’s protagonist (Hyeonju) is an alcoholic: he embarrasses his neighbors with drunken antics, and throws drunken fits in the presence of his family. One day the family becomes aware of a clinic for recovery from alcoholism, and Hyeonju’s mother plans to trick her husband into being admitted to this clinic. The family lures the father into going to the clinic with the excuse that he must undergo a routine health checkup, and there he would be falsely informed that he has cancer and must immediately quit smoking

and drinking. In the process, however, they find out that he really does have stomach cancer. Surgery and chemotherapy give him the opportunity to look back on his life, the entire family opens up, speaks the truth, and they all come to embrace the precious value of family. Cancer can appear anywhere, and at any time. The disease demands its patients, especially those looking only ahead, to reflect upon themselves, their families, and their neighbors. The disease itself may be biological, but it is charged with existential and sociological meaning. It seems that the narrative is inspired by the author’s own brush with stomach cancer. However the author tells his story not with great weight, but with a refreshing hand that is also easily accessible. By Yu Youngjin

Oh, the Many Stories Still to Come! Joon-bum Is New Lee Hearan, Borim Press 2011, 38p, ISBN 9788943308629

It is true that the sky is deep and the ocean is vast, but to children the boundless planet may mean less than we imagine. They are not free to leave their house on their own for obvious reasons, nor do they need a boundless amount of space to run around. It is for this reason that nothing is more important in children’s lives than their neighborhood: their home, the alleyways, and the familiar neighborly faces. Joon-bum Is New takes place in a backyard that is a safe place for the neighborhood’s children to play, and it captures the remarkable ability of children to embrace and comfort friends that are lonely and sad. In the book, little Joon-bum sits in his new, small apartment room in a marketplace alley and stares outside the window after his grandmother has gone off to work. The children in the neighborhood have gathered 78 list_ Books from Korea

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noisily to play in the alleyway alongside the local hairdresser, grocery store, and Chinese restaurant. Among the children are the Hairdresser Princess, Chungwoni and Yewoni from the grocery store, and Kanghee and Kangwoo from the Chinese restaurant. When they spot the child staring at them from behind the glass they signal at him to join them. One wonders how, in the midst of playing, did they notice the child so timidly looking out? Joon-bum, ordered to stay indoors by his grandmother, is nevertheless craving to go out. He ducks away from the window for a moment and then looks out again to discover that the children have disappeared. Instead he hears this call at his door: “Joon-bum! Come out and play!” The author of this book has vividly re-created children’s lively play with deep understanding. The contrast between the bright alley ways and Joon-bum’s dark room is drawn with clear distinction, so much so that Joon-bum’s state of mind is almost palpable. So is the sunlight that comes streaming into Joon-bum’s room

when the children enter. This is the second book written by this author that features these children, and it leaves the reader with expectations regarding the many stories yet to be told. By Kim Min-ryoung

Steady Sellers

Into the Beautiful Night Last Bat Princess "Migaya" Lee Kyung-hye; Illustrator: Yang Hye-won, Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd. 2000, 204p, ISBN 9788932012186

The appeal of book titles that are strikingly unfamiliar or clever is powerful. Such was the case with Last Bat Princess “Migaya.” The words “Bat” and “Migaya” are visually alluring. The appearance of bats and foreign names, both of which are uncommon in Korean children’s books, piqued my curiosity. The word “bat” immediately conjures up images of vampire bats’ bloodstained mouths, crafty eyes, Dracula-like teeth, and their treacherous smiles. The book’s cover, however, proved to inspire a feeling remarkably different from the anxious fear of bats that I harbored in the past: the bat on this cover was smiling and adorable, and had long, f loppy ears. I became curious about that smile and fascinated by the adventures of this bunnyeared creature; I hurriedly read on. It was the first poetic line that piqued my curiosity: “Blizzard in the dead of winter. A deep cave lies beyond a frozen waterfall.

The cave is silent as a grave. Not a soul is to be seen. But wait. Something is there: a single, small bat, hanging on a wall. It is immersed in a deep, wintry sleep. Its fur is fine and soft, its ears larger than its head: it is the brown long-eared bat, the Plecotus auritus. And yes, the lonely, sleeping bat is none other than the bat princess Migaya.” Bats are usually very social creatures. So why, I wondered, is Migaya sleeping by herself ? And where does her name come from, anyway? I had only to read a few pages more to solve that mystery. It turns out that Migaya is not a foreign name after all. The name is based on three Chinese characters: 美佳夜, meaning beautiful, lovely night. The story narrates the circumstances of Migaya’s loneliness in a rather tragic manner. At the center of the tragedy are people, of course. Long ago there were countless brown long-eared bats. But human greed reduced the numbers of these

bats. The final blow came when, some months earlier, humans set out to poach the last few hundred existing bats, claiming that they would be used for medicinal purposes. The bats were then driven practically into extinction. The only remaining survivors are Migaya and one of her attending bats. The two bats set off, barely escaping human gazes and traps. In the process, they overcome some desperate situations and encounter near-death experiences. But as a result of these experiences, Migaya comes to a new appreciation of life and nature. For example, even while devouring a moth she reflects, for the first time, upon the poor fate of the moth. She sympathizes with him and says, “I had no choice—it was a question of my own survival. But the moth must have been in considerable pain. I am sure he did not want to die.” I imagine that young readers will be enticed by this kind of portrayal and will come, quite naturally, to a new appreciation of the value of life and the meaning of death. But that is not a ll. The young reader will also become acquainted with the profound and mysterious bat. This is because the descriptions of the bat’s life and habitat are detailed and vivid. The reader might also gain a vague understanding of the way in which bats and other animals were once treated by our ancestors. The dialogue between the bats and other animals delivers sharp and pointed messages. One of these messages is that, seen through animal eyes, both nature and animals appear in a new light. “Humans m ay c ate gor i z e t he a n i m a l k i ngdom according to animals’ presumed intelligence, but that’s pure foolishness. Animals’ skills are as varied as their faces. It is impossible to judge who is better and who is worse.” It is the badger that pronounces the accusation of just how many animals are killed at the hands of humans, either knowingly or unknowingly: “There used to be nine of us. Mother and eight of us offspring lived together. Mother died after eating a frog that had ingested pesticides, my eldest brother died in a trap prepared by humans, my second brother met his death at a potato patch when he was bitten by a dog, and the rest of my siblings were killed at the hands of hunters.” Once I had read the last page of Last Bat Princess “Migaya,” I realized that my hands were damp with sweat. It was because I had felt that, for a moment, I had been transformed into a bat and had barely survived its tribulations. My preexisting prejudice and fear of bats had vanished. By Oh Yunhyun

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Vol.13 Autumn 2011

Meet the Publishers

Hangilsa Publishing Co., Ltd.

Still going strong after 35 years, Hangilsa Publishing’s legacy of social consciousness is a veritable history of Korea’s democratization and intellectual thought.

1. The Land of Scholars Kang Jae-eun, Homa & Sekey Books 2. Land and Life Choe Yeong-jun, Jain Pubilshing Company, Inc. 3. Korea’s Pastimes And Customs: A Social History Lee E-wha, Homa & Sekey Books

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Vol.13 Autumn 2011

To the northwest of Seoul lies Paju Book City, the hub of Korea’s most prestigious publishers. The building of Hangilsa, one of Korea’s top publishers in the humanities and social sciences, stands out even amongst the impressive designs of other buildings vying for attention. Hangilsa’s building is shaped like a row of massive books standing on one end, with bronze paneling on the walls that has acquired a natural layer of rust from being exposed to the elements—a building evocative of the company’s venerable history itself. Hangilsa was established in 1976. It has published over 2,500 titles over the past 35 years. Number-wise this is not the greatest record in Korea. There are older and more prolific publishers; however, the name of Hanglisa stands unchallenged in the history of Korean publishing. Throughout the authoritarian regime of the 1970s and 1980s, Hangilsa published a steady stream of titles with great social impact. It became an icon of the era, a symbol of resistance among the intellectuals of the day. Hangilsa’s founder, Kim Eounho, started out as a news reporter. After being laid off for demonstrating for the freedom of the press, Kim decided to pursue his lifelong dream of publishing. In 1977, after nine months of planning, Hangilsa published its first three books in the series titled Thinkers of Today. They were off to a rocky start. Leftist intellectual Lee Younghee was arrested for violating the National Security Act upon

the publication of Idols and Reason, which was a collection of his columns. The government found his defense of the North Korean delegate’s speaking in Korean at the UN General Assembly and his favorable review of Mao Zedong distasteful. The fifth book in the Thinkers of Today series published the following year in April 1978, economist Park Hyonchae’s Economics for the People, was banned within three months. Banning something often has the effect of making it more desirable. The government’s ban on the books only served to fan the public’s interest. Ironically Economics for the People became a hit after it was banned, with college students passing bootleg copies amongst each other. Founder and President Kim remembers thinking that “Masterpieces weren’t born out of a vacuum, they were created by a specific readership during a specific period.” It was also during this period that he came to think of books as “the republic of reason and intellect, of knowledge and philosophy” as well as “the republic where the contemporary intellectual’s reason is realized and celebrated.” Ha ngilsa’s book s stay true to this philosophy. The company has published the complete works of Lee Younghee in 12 volumes, including A Dialogue, a collection of transcripts from when the author was living. They have also published the complete works of Ham Seokheon, the eminent Korean thinker. Other titles that continue this tradition include Ham’s Korean History from a Spiritual Perspective, a treatise on Korean history as compared to world history written from a Christian viewpoint, and the Korean translation of Gandhi’s autobiography. Understanding Before and Af ter the Liberation, f irst published in 1979 and now with six volumes standing, is another one of Hangilsa’s outstanding titles in the social sciences. This epic series is considered to have been one of the major influences on the 1980s student movement, encompassing the scholarly works of the progressive left on the post-liberation period and the division of Korea. The Thinker Series in Humanities is targeted at a more popular audience. Titles in the series include The Righteous of Joseon, an introduction to 24 scholars who devoted their lives to Confucianism, 20 Years of Toil on the Shores of Hongcheon, the tale of a former college professor’s decades-long struggle with farming, and Classic Korean Poets, an introduction to 26 of Korea’s most well-known classic poets. Books such as novelist Park Taesoon’s travelogue My Country, My Countryside (set of three volumes), and Three Circles, a collection of interviews with English professor and literary critic Kim Woochang, have both local and universal appeal. Translations of such works as Korea’s Pastimes and Customs: A Social History, The Land of Scholars, and Land and Life were introduced at the 2005 Frankfurt Book Fair.

1 3

5 4 6

1. Classic Korean Poets Song Jaeso 2011, 518p, ISBN 9788935662302

4. My Country, My Countryside Park Taesoon 2008, 466p, ISBN 9788935658893

2. A Dialogue Lee Younghee 2005, 746p, ISBN 9788935655540

5. The Righteous of Joseon Park Seokmoo 2010, 526p, ISBN 9788935662227

3. Korean History from a Spiritual

6. Three Circles Kim Woochang 2008, 781p, ISBN 9788935658848

Perspective

Ham Seokheon 2006, 504p, ISBN 9788935654635

By Shin Junebong

list_ Books from Korea

Vol.13 Autumn 2011

New Books

Recommended by Publishers Korean editors have handpicked their favorite titles among the collections from their own publishing houses. The following list contains hidden gems in Korea’s publishing industry. For further information, please contact the agents directly.

Fiction

Expulsion from the Rose Club

The User Manual for Cheol-su

The Hint Is in the Title

Who Killed the Marlin?

Lee Chung-hae, Minumsa Publishing Group 2011, 292p, ISBN 9788937483622

Jeon Seok-sun, Minumsa Publishing Group 2011, 228p, ISBN 9788937483745

Baik Ga, Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd. 2011, 284p, ISBN 9788932022178

An Sung-ho, Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd. 2011, 247p, ISBN 9788932022086

The author zooms in on daily life with a delicate eye, and delineates the innermost human desires through characters that are confronted with the hardships of life. The drama of life is found in stories about a father’s unemployment, a son who inherits his father’s reactionary ideology, and a sister-in-law who runs away with her lover, dumping her baby born out of wedlock on the protagonist.

This book has been praised as the epitome of “loser literature” and gained author Jeon the 35th Writer of the Times Award. Through the solitary struggle of 29-year-old Cheol-su, the author critiques modern society. In response to the social reality where a person is evaluated like a product in a user’s guidebook, the author chose that very format to deliver his message.

In this eight story anthology, the cover story “The Hint is in the Title,” discloses the dilemma surrounding the art of writing a novel through a protagonist who has reached his limits as a writer. “P” shows how the autobiographical form of fiction is an arena where multivalent desires are manifested. “Like, That Source” is about a protagonist from an unhappy family who seeks out his mother.

The author’s cynical black humor and phantasmagorical writing are ubiquitous throughout these nine dream-like short stories: a black fish that feeds on memory, the man who cuts off people’s ears then buries them, the knife that feasts on blood, the cicada born of the aforementioned knife, and a dog that kills itself by dangling from a jujube tree are among them.

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Vol.13 Autumn 2011

Nonfiction

Because of Him

So-hee’s Room

Paladin 1

Black History, White Theory

Lee Gyeong-hye, Baram Books 2011, 204p, ISBN 9788994475158

Lee Geumyi, Prooni Books, Inc. 2010, 304, ISBN 9788957982570

Lee Kyung-won, Hangilsa Publishing Co., Ltd. 2011, 526p, ISBN 9788935660056

This collection of four stories, including one novella, includes an outrageous story about a cockroach that metamorphoses into a human being who then lives the life of another person. Through these often bizarre stories, the author depicts the passion, energy, and life force of teenagers.

It is safe to guess that there is hardly a teenager who has not read Lee Geumyi’s coming-of-age novel, You Are a Korean Wheel Lily. So-hee’s Room, a sequel to that book, is about So-hee, who is now 15 and reunites with her mother who has since gotten remarried. The book shows how a matured Sohee assimilates into her new family and releases her repressed desires.

Mun Jeong-hu and Ryu Gi-un Illustrator: Go Cheol-hwan, ImcCube 2011, 100p, 5 Volumes ISBN 9788996163749

Between Empire and NationState

Ten Lectures on Life for Women

Rhee Suk-koo, Hangilsa Publishing Co., Ltd. 2011, 552p ISBN 9788935660063

Shin Dal-ja, Minumsa Publishing Group 2011, 248p, ISBN 9788937483721

This book explains the theory and genealogy of post-colonialism and a critique of post-colonial American and British literature. Works published by 22 writers from nine countries are viewed in their historical context. Before each formal literary critique, there is an introduction to each chapter with background information on the relevant country or region.

The poet Shin Dal-ja, who is also known as a mentor, offers the essence of her many talks and lectures on life. The poet’s deep introspection and exploration of life, love, family, dreams, and happiness as well as countless anecdotes from other people and her own experience, are told in her typical articulate style.

This epic myth is about knights chosen to embark on a quest for sacred water. It is about the paladin’s warcraft between the imperial power and the coalition of lesser powers for supremacy in the world. In Greenland where it is poor but peaceful, the bloody battles of the paladins take place. Copyright Agent: Yang Hee-eun nxnxn1018@imccube.com 82-2-3444-5595 www.imccube.com

The Pictorial Letter Lee Soo-dong, ARTBOOKS Publishing Corp. 2010, 240p, ISBN 9788961960762

Readers will find this pictorial essay book soothing. Lee Soo-dong became recognized for the drawings he did for the main character of the popular Korean TV drama “Autumn Tale.” This pictorial poetry book contains 80 fairy tale-like pictures, along with heartwarming messages for adults. The writer and artist paints the ordinary nature of life in a warm and empathetic style. Copyright Agent: Halla Kwon kwonhalla@gmail.com 82-31-955-2642 www.artinlife.co.kr

This book comprises 14 chapters about the major theorists who provided the theoretical framework for post-colonialism.While the discourse of prominent theorists such as Blyden, Dubois, Fanon, Achebe, Ngugi, Said, Bhabha, and Spivak are thoroughly examined, their genealogies are also discussed. Copyright Agent: Ahn Minjae anjuri@hangilsa.co.kr 82-31-955-2039 www.hangilsa.co.kr

Kim Young-ha: Traveler in Tokyo Kim Young-ha, ARTBOOKS Publishing Corp. 2008, 304p, ISBN 9788961960137

Kim Young-ha, one of the most prominent young writers in Korea, has depicted Tokyo from his own unique perspective, as part of the Traveler Series books. Kim took the pictures himself and wrote essays on traveling and photography. Kim shows Tokyo in an experimental style, revealing the solitude and happiness that traveling provides. Copyright Agent: Halla Kwon kwonhalla@gmail.com 82-31-955-2642 www.artinlife.co.kr

list_ Books from Korea

Vol.13 Autumn 2011

Nonfiction

Picturesque Mythology Sienna Hwang, ARTBOOKS Publishing Corp. 2009, 316p, ISBN 9788961960304

This book introduces characters from Greek mythology by focusing on a unified theme that transcends time and space. There are 16 stories with 16 mythological characters, along with the artists’ rendition, which unravels tales that are old yet invigorating. The explanations for each picture provided by the author provide insight. Copyright Agent: Halla Kwon kwonhalla@gmail.com 82-31-955-2642 www.artinlife.co.kr

Parents, Hand Down Study Habits to Your Children Han Hee-seok, Myungjin Publications, Inc. 2011, 239p, ISBN 9788976777157

This nonfiction book is about how the author, a laborer and writer of Chinese arts novels, helped his daughter become a better student. As his daughter’s personal study coach, he gives a detailed account of the academic marathon that he and his daughter ran together in order to gear up for the college entrance exam.

Self-esteem

The Heart

Lee Moo-suk, Vision & Leadership 2009, 280p ISBN 9788990984616

Lee Moo-suk, Vision & Leadership 2011, 301p, ISBN 9788990984883

The author shows that self-esteem and inferiority complexes are not derived from an objective condition but originate in one’s sense of selfhood. He explains that one has to drop negative attitudes to regain self-esteem, and argues through diverse examples how an inferiority complex has destructive effects on one’s life. He also shows ways that one can live a confident life.

There are many people who think the heart is made of steel, but the heart is fragile and delicate. Those who take care of their heart are like those adept at computer programming in that they know precisely how to resolve a problem when there is one. They know how the key to happiness lies in one’s heart. Copyright Agent: Lee Sae-ron global@duranno.com 82-2-2078-3285

The Power of Positive Speech

Being a Mom Is Easier by Reading the Heart

Homemade Dishes

Affection

Lee Jeong-sook,Vision & Leadership 2009, 312p, ISBN 9788990984548

Lee Woo-kyeong, PAMPAS 2011, 308p, ISBN 9788993195668

Seo Min-jung, PAMPAS 2011, 300p, ISBN 9788993195675

Lee So-young, Daewon C.I., Inc. 2011, 200p, ISBN 9788925279688

The author wrote this book to show how much more effective the power of warm words is compared to confrontational speech. Even in a conflict situation if one can learn to use positive language, then he or she will be much more persuasive in getting the message across. This book will provide an impetus for people to reflect on their tone and choice of words.

A must-read for mothers whose children are going through puberty! This is a book that will be sure to bring comfort to frustrated mothers whose children are going through a rebellious stage. After reading this book, it will dawn on moms that it is not just their child going through a difficult period, and also shed light on how to get along with their teenage offspring.

This book contains the author’s favorite dishes that she likes to cook for her family. The book includes simple and easy table settings, secret recipes for sauces, a popular drink mix, the rice ball meal-in-itself, as well as a bonus on how to serve fruit in an appealing way. By remembering her mother’s culinary know-how, she presents valuable recipes for homemade dishes.

In the royal court of Joseon, the protagonist, a fraternal twin, is abandoned solely on the grounds of being a girl. But when the other twin dies, she pretends to be a boy and assumes the role of the prince. One day, the Crown Prince encounters a pretty girl in the palace who turns out to be a boy disguised as a girl. This is how their beautiful but sad romance starts.

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Vol.13 Autumn 2011

Graphic Novels

Children's Books

Island of Sea Lions Yoo Yeongcho; Illustrator: Oh Seungmin NURIMBO 2011, 32p, ISBN 9788958761211

This book tells the dramatic story of a natural habitat destroyed by the greed of mankind. Hunters are blinded by the money to be made from sea lion leather, a high-end material for bags and military rucksacks of the time. Island of Sea Lions illustrates the tragic demise of a species that has existed on this planet for thousands of years but is being wiped out by our merciless and inhumane pursuit for insignificant and expendable goods like leather bags. Copyright Agent: Park Misuk nurimbo_pub@naver.com 82-31-955-7391 www.nurimbo.co.kr

In the Full-Moon Night: A Tale of Amulets Kim Jiyeon, NURIMBO 2011, 32p, ISBN 9788958761204

In the Full-Moon Night casts new light on traditional Korean culture, accompanied by striking woodcut illustrations. Samsin Halmae, the guardian spirit of infants; the threeheaded bird that wards off three great calamities; and the wish-granting dragon and the tiger take us to the world of adventure. Yeoni and her older brother set on an adventure at the behest of Samsin Halmae. Copyright Agent: Park Misuk nurimbo_pub@naver.com 82-31-955-7391 www.nurimbo.co.kr

The Sea Cries

The Little Beggar Girl

Um Jeongwon, Nurimbo Publishing Co., Ltd. 2011, 32p, ISBN 9788958761228

Han Park Soon-woo Illustrator: Yang Gyeong-hee Baram Books, 2011, 96p ISBN 9788994475127

Through childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eyes, this illustrated book tells the story of an island completely isolated by an environmental disaster. The muted use of color conveys the despair of people who are helpless in the face of calamity. The powerful image of the sea created with layers of roughly smudged charcoal artfully expresses the intense sadness and despair of the children. Copyright Agent: Park Misuk nurimbo_pub@naver.com 82-31-955-7391 www.nurimbo.co.kr

Bone and Flesh

Pee and Poo

Day and Night

Chaebo; Illustrator: Shin Eun-hye Ahyun Publishing House 2011, 32p, ISBN 9788958781400

Chaebo; Illustrator: Kim Jin-hee Ahyun Publishing House 2011, 32p, ISBN 9788958781394

Chaebo; Illustrator: Cho Min-jung Ahyun Publishing House 2011, 32p, ISBN 9788958781387

Although scarecrows have only bones, animals have flesh on their bones, too. Without the flesh covering the bones, they would break to pieces by bumping into each other. Though they are not visible to the eye, there are nerves and veins running inside our flesh. Thanks to those nerves and veins, we can feel pain and tickles. This book will satisfy any curiosity about the body.

While pee and poo are generally considered taboo, the book shows that they are very important to our physiology and daily lives. If we could not go to the bathroom it would cause many problems for our body. Pee and poo are also great nutrients for plants and flowers. The unique topic of Pee and Poo is sure to broaden the readersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; horizons.

This is a book about day and night, a topic many children wonder about. As heads and tails completes a coin, day and night completes a day. During the day, it is bright and sunny because there is the sun. It is dark at night because the sun no longer shines in the sky. This book will help children learn about the passage of time.

Although Haemin had some things wanting in her life, she was doing fine until the day the TV people visit to cover her afterschool program. After her older sister appears on TV crying, everything turns upside down: anonymous patrons agree to support her family with monthly donations, leaving her mother possessed by greed and her sister hurt by the attention. Copyright Agent: Nam Kyung-mee windchild04@hanmail.net 82-2-3142-0495 cafe.daum.net/barampub

Illustrated World Geography in One Book Choi Sun-woong and Shin Hyeon-jong Illustrators: Kim Jae-il and Hong Seong-ji Jinsun Publishing Co., Ltd. 2010, 248p, ISBN 9788972216780

Travel to more than 200 countries with detailed maps and illustrations. The book introduces 194 countries by continent. It provides various categories of information on each country including history, natural environment, culture, politics and economics. Copyright Agent: Lee Mi-seon jinsunibook@naver.com 82-2-720-5990 www.jinsun.co.kr

list_ Books from Korea

Vol.13 Autumn 2011

Children's Books

Smart Kids Do Paper Crafts Kim Choong-weon Jinsun Publishing Co., Ltd. 2010, 144p, ISBN 9788972216506

This book introduces the concept of cutting out designs through topics that children like such as plants, animals, playing with dolls, and Christmas decorations. The entire paper craft process—cutting a piece of paper, folding the paper, making cuts with scissors and spreading the piece of paper to see the outcome—is explained easily with photo illustrations. Copyright Agent: Lee Mi-seon jinsunibook@naver.com 82-2-720-5990 www.jinsun.co.kr

Illustrated World History in One Glance Jeong Yeon; Illustrator: Lee Byung-yong Jinsun Publishing Co., Ltd. 2011, 40p, ISBN 9788972216827

This book offers illustrated chronological information organized by countries and regions from the prehistoric age to the present, helping children have a lot of fun learning world history. Important historical events, figures, and cultural heritage are clearly organized and provide indepth information for further studies. Copyright Agent: Lee Mi-seon jinsunibook@naver.com 82-2-720-5990 www.jinsun.co.kr

I Love Snakes! Hwang Sook-kyung, Borim Press 2011, 44p, ISBN 9788943308612

The protagonist adores snakes and wishes for one to keep at home, or rather, in her room. Her parents, however, are against the idea, saying that snakes are gross, dangerous, slippery, and smelly. The child does not back down, correcting her parents’ prejudices against snakes one by one. Will she finally get a pet snake? Copyright Agent: Park Jihye jhpark@borimpress.com 82-31-955-3456 (Ext. 147) www.borimpress.com

The Black & White Picture Book Liu Jae-soo, Borim Press 2011, 14p, ISBN 9788943308605

This book is for newborns looking at picture books for the first time. Newborns can only recognize darkness and light. As they develop, they begin to see colors of strong contrast and recognize simple and clear shapes. The Black and White Picture Book can provide great visual stimulus to a baby whose sight and sense of color are developing. Copyright Agent: Park Jihye jhpark@borimpress.com 82-31-955-3456 (Ext. 147) www.borimpress.com

The Rabbit’s Escape

Jaeminegol Village

The Great Mungchi

A Story of King Chumo

Lee Ho-baek, Jaimimage Publishing Co. 2006, 28p, ISBN 9788986565722

Tales of Ethnic Koreans in China Illustrator: Hong Seong-chan Jaimimage Publishing Co. 1999, 32p, ISBN 9788986565263

Goh Gyong-sook, Jaimimage Publishing Co. 2006, 24p, ISBN 9788986565744

Kim Yong-man; Illustrator: Jang Seon-hwan Marubol Publications 2009, 40p, ISBN 9788956634197

The pretty white rabbit Yeppi never stands still. No matter how strong the cage may be, Yeppi always escapes and causes trouble, such as by gnawing on a sliver of soap and making a mess out of the living room drawings. Yeppi’s never-ending attempts for freedom are neatly presented through a wellorganized story and illustrations with a lovely color scheme. Copyright Agent: Kim Oh-hyun jaim@jaimimage.com 82-31-955-0880 www.jaimimage.com

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Vol.13 Autumn 2011

There is a village called Jaeminegol in Jilin Province, one of the few regions with a large ethnic Korean population in China. The book shows us how Jaeminegol was formed and became a village where everyone helps and gets along with each other. It also tells the story behind the village’s name. Copyright Agent: Kim Oh-hyun jaim@jaimimage.com 82-31-955-0880 www.jaimimage.com

Goh Gyong-sook, winner of the Ragazzi Award at the 2006 Bologna Children’s Book Fair for Magic Bottles, introduces another fantasy. Mungchi lives with his aunt “Startled” in a desolate cave. One day, his aunt slips into a coma. Mungchi must travel across seven valleys and seven gardens to find a cure. At every turn a monster appears and forces Mungchi to solve a riddle. Copyright Agent: Kim Oh-hyun jaim@jaimimage.com 82-31-955-0880 www.jaimimage.com

Although this book tells the familiar legend of the birth of King Chumo, it has strengthened historical facts by referencing material such as The History of the Three Kingdoms. The simple and bold lines and reserved color scheme of the illustrations justly represents the grandeur of King Chumo who ruled the great Goguryeo empire. Copyright Agent: Lee Sodam sodam@marubol.co.kr 82-2-790-4150 (Ext. 507) www.marubol.co.kr

A Day at the Park

I Met a Kingfisher

Kang Ju-kyung; Illustrator: Cho Mi-ja Marubol Publications 2000, 40p, ISBN 9788985675765

Lee Wooman, Marubol Publications 2010, 46p, ISBN 9788956633398

In the small city of Chuncheon, there is a park with inviting benches for people to rest and enjoy the scenery. This book offers a glimpse of the heartwarming events that happen at the park throughout the day until the street lights come on. Copyright Agent: Lee Sodam sodam@marubol.co.kr 82-2-790-4150 (Ext. 507) www.marubol.co.kr

My Sole and Precious Home Chung Young-ae Illustrator: Kang Hwa-kyoung YeaRimDang Publishing Co., Ltd. 2011, 152p, ISBN 9788930210348

Nine-year-old Gyeongmo becomes disappointed with his modest home after visiting the huge and splendid house of his friend. The story gives us a peek into the minds of children and offers an alternative perspective on housing. It also reminds us of the futility of being envious of others and helps us appreciate our blessings. Copyright Agent: Kim Boa kimba@yearim.co.kr 82-2-3404-8459 www.yearim.co.kr

This is a precisely written, beautifully illustrated account by the author who recounts his experiences watching birds at Changneung Stream. He watched birds, took notes and pictures of them for several years according to seasons, accumulating a wealth of information. Readers will be entranced by the illustrations that depict birds in an even livelier and more realistic way than photographs.

Learning Grade School English from President Obama Seo Hee-jung and Lee Hye-kyoung Illustrator: Park Rosa Myungjin Publications Inc. 2011, 271p, ISBN 9788976776433

Learn essential English vocabulary at the grade school level through the inspiring story of President Barak Obama’s life of dreams, hopes, and courage. The book also introduces popular English phrases and expressions.

I Want to Become Just Like Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon Kim Kyung-woo; Illustrator: Gha Rang-bee Myungjin Publications, Inc. 2007, 183p, ISBN 9788976772442

Adapted from the bestseller by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Study Like a Fool and Dream Like a Genius, this children’s edition introduces Ban Kimoon as a schoolboy who decides to make a difference for his country after hearing a speech made by the Minster of Foreign Affairs. The book follows his journey. Copyright Agent: Choi Koeun koeun123@gmail.com 82-2-326-0026 (Ext. 112) www.myungjinbooks.com

My Sole and Precious School

Why? G20 Series, Vol. 1 United States of America

I Am Going to Choose My Own Dad

Chung Young-ae; Illustrator: Choi Jung-in YeaRimDang Publishing Co., Ltd. 2008, 96p, ISBN 9788930209700

Nam Chun-ja; Illustrator: CREPAS YeaRimDang Publishing Co., Ltd. 2011, 192p, ISBN 9788930200929

Kim Hae-woo, Prooni Books, Inc. 2011, 160p, ISBN 9788957982709

This book is for children and parents who are making the scary transition of starting grade school. The story follows a girl on her journey through her journal entries as she gets to know her teacher and classmates, and becomes comfortable with the new environment. A great book for lower grade primary school students.

The popular Why Series continues with The World History by Countries. This installment introduces the national history of major countries in the world. With an overview on a country’s history, geography, politics, economy, society and culture, this book aims to create comprehensive understanding of national histories.

This book tells the lighthearted story of 12-year-old Enji who intervenes in her mother’s love life and the events that follow from her innocent meddling. Even with the childish pranks of boys her age and the antics of her romantic mother and sister, Enji manages to lead a peaceful life. Her peace, however, is unexpectedly interrupted.

list_ Books from Korea

Vol.13 Autumn 2011

Children's Books

We Are on the Same Side

What About the Cat?

Chung Young-ae, Prooni Books, Inc. 2008, 128p, ISBN 9788957981580

Hong Eun-kyoung; Illustrator: Oh Chi-geun Gesunamu Publishing House 2010, 131p, ISBN 9788989654629

The story artfully captures the psychology of children who are agonizing over their parents’ divorce, yet are instantly distracted by fun and interesting things. The innocence of the children remind us of what we cannot afford to overlook when dealing with divorce. The story also calls attention to the behavior of adults who force their judgment on children.

This is the story of an apathetic and self-centered stray cat that learns how to care for others thanks to love and attention from its friends. The cat’s apathy and self-centeredness is very much evocative of children nowadays. The story gently nudges us to tear down the walls that isolate us from the world and emphasizes the pleasure of caring for friends.

Sangwoo Disappears into a Cave

Procrastinator Son, Procrastinator Mother

Lee Yeonu; Illustrator: Kim Jeongjin IANDBOOK 2011, 120p, ISBN 9788992830867

Park Hyeonsuk; Illustrator: Ji Mun IANDBOOK 2011, 64p, ISBN 9788992830881

Children love exploring. Among many kinds of exploration, children are most passionate about space, undersea, and cave exploring. This book takes the reader through an imaginative journey through one of children’s favorite places to explore: the cave. The protagonist Sangwoo goes into a cave to discover treasures.

This book is about that terrible habit all children are prone to at one time or another: procrastination. Nuri always puts off doing things and eventually, his mother picks up Nuri’s bad habit of procrastinating. This causes trouble for her one day, and Nuri blames himself for making his mother a procrastinator.

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A Journey to Egypt, Blessing of the Nile Cho Sung-ja; Illustrator: Hwang Jung-ha Sigongjunior, 2010, 200p ISBN 9788952760135

The writer shares tales from her trip along the Nile and provides historic facts, trivia, and stories related to the historic remains. The stories are told by Egyptian Pharaohs or cute characters such as Wind, Fly, and Cat. Copyright Agent: Amélie Choi amelie@sigongsa.com 82-2-2046-2855 www.sigongjunior.com

The Stories Shouldn't Be True Gang Gyeong-su, Sigong Junior 2011, 44p, ISBN 9788952760661

This illustrated book calls attention to children worldwide suffering from natural disasters, child labor, disease, poverty, and war, pressing the importance of children’s rights. The incidents described in the story are chilling, almost too terrible to be true. Author Gang Gyeong-su achieved the remarkable feat of winning the Ragazzi Award at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair with his first book. Copyright Agent: Amélie Choi amelie@sigongsa.com 82-2-2046-2855 www.sigongjunior.com

You Are Still My Treasure

Mother's Face

Kim Ok-ae; Illustrator: Lee Sue-jung CHEONG-GAE-GU-RI 2010, 174p, ISBN 9788990938893

Ko Eun-sul; Illustrator: Sim Moon-sun CHEONG-GAE-GU-RI 2009, 36p, ISBN 9788990938763

This story takes place in Gangjin, the writer’s hometown. The book paints a loving picture of famous Gangjin pottery and calls attention to the importance of Korea’s traditional culture and heritage. With the help of historical motifs drawing inspiration from Goryeo celadon and traditional sailboats, the narrative artfully integrates the life of the past into the present.

This is the story of a group of tadpoles who grow up to become frogs in a way that explores the meaning of family. Unlike other animals, frogs hatch from eggs and must begin fending for themselves the minute they are born. Although the tadpoles long for a mother take care of them, they only have each other. Yet the belief that they will meet their mother someday sees them safely through childhood.

The King Has Donkey Ears

The Snail Castle

Cho Tae-bong; Illustrator: Sim Bo-young CHEONG-GAE-GU-RI 2009, 42p, ISBN 9788990938794

IM Ze-da; Illustrator: Yun Ye-ji Woongjin Think Big Co., Ltd. 2011, 112p, ISBN 9788901124445

This illustrated book is a retelling of the well-known tale of King Kyeong-mun. Unlike King Kyeong-mun, who used his donkey ears to listen to the people’s troubles and thereby became a wise king, the king in this book is ashamed of his big ears. When he sees how unhappy people are in another country where the king has tiny ears, he realizes that listening to others is valuable.

When Aunt Young lived in France, she took a summer job as a companion of an old woman who lived in a castle. One night Aunt hears a strange man’s voice and discovers that he regularly visits the tree house that belonged to Benoît, the old woman’s grandson who died 16 years ago. Readers of all ages will find this story of a modernday witch both refreshing and entertaining.

The Squid and the Purple Puffer Baek Sok; Illustrator: Oh Chi-geun Sonyunhangil (Tomato House) 2008, 32p, ISBN 9788992089609

Why do squids just have a mantle? Why is the skin of the purple puffer all spotty? Questions like these are answered through the amusing story of the fight between the squid and the purple puffer. The much beloved fairy tale poem, “The Squid and the Purple Puffer” by Korean poet Baek Sok, with the illustrations by Oh Chi-geun in ink painting, teaches a lesson. Copyright Agent: Kim Mi-hee island@hangilsa.co.kr 82-31-955-2088 www.sonyunhangil.co.kr

Frientor! Republic of Korea Gumbook, Amoeba 2011, 52p, ISBN 9788965690115

This is the first book in the Frientor! series, a learner-friendly series that uses illustrations, maps, and charts to teach children about countries around the world. Frientor! Republic of Korea is full of information on Korea such as the national language, the national flag and flower, the Han River, Korea’s traditional clothing, and the national baseball and soccer leagues. Copyright Agent: Hong Chan-mi haru@amoeba.co.kr 82-2-3449-0361 www.amoeba.co.kr

I’m Not Talking to You in a Million Years Heo Eun-mi; Illustrator: Kim Jin-wha Woongjin Think Big Co., Ltd. 2011, 48p, ISBN 9788901124438

This story takes a candid look at family life through a child’s eyes. The humor is apparent in the text as well as the innovative illustrations of the everyday. The protagonist’s healthy outburst and subsequent reconciliation with her family brings to mind the saying that home is the place where people can be their true selves and be loved for it. Copyright Agent: Claire Yang shy07@wjbooks.co.kr 82-2-3670-1168 www.wjthinkbig.com

Frientor! United States of America Gumbook, Amoeba 2011, 52p, ISBN 9788965690122

Frientor! United States of America is a guide to the world’s biggest economy, offering information on the English language, the Stars and Stripes, the dollar, the Rocky Mountains, the Civil War, the Statue of Liberty, Disneyland, Hollywood, NASA, Halloween, Thanksgiving, cowboys, teepees, and more. Copyright Agent: Hong Chan-mi haru@amoeba.co.kr 82-2-3449-0361 www.amoeba.co.kr

Let’s Go Camping with Dad! Han Tae-hee, Woongjin Think Big Co., Ltd. 2011, 38p, ISBN 9788901125299

This is the tale of a young girl and her family’s first camping trip. Eunji and her family have a wonderful time pitching their tent, playing in the woods, swimming in the creek, and sitting around the campfire at night telling stories. Eunji finally falls asleep in her father’s arms, counting the stars, sure that she will always remember this special experience. Copyright Agent: Claire Yang shy07@wjbooks.co.kr 82-2-3670-1168 www.wjthinkbig.com

Frientor! China Gumbook, Amoeba 2011, 52p, ISBN 9788965690146

Frientor! China is a guide to one of the world’s rising powers of the 21st century, offering information on the Chinese language, the Five Star Red Flag, the yuan, the Yangtze River, Tiananmen Square, Hong Kong, the Forbidden City, Qin Shi Huang's Mausoleum, the Oriental Pearl TV Tower, pandas, Chinese food, qipao, and Chinese opera. Copyright Agent: Hong Chan-mi haru@amoeba.co.kr 82-2-3449-0361 www.amoeba.co.kr

list_ Books from Korea

Vol.13 Autumn 2011

INDEX Title Original Title Publishers Copyright Agent E-mail Phone Homepage

17p

31p

47p

Sociology of Risk in Uncertain Times (Bulhwaksilseong Sidaeui Wiheomsahoehak) Hanul Publishing Group Jo In-soon toodulyi78@naver.com 82-2-336-6183 www.hanulbooks.co.kr

Possessed (Hollim) Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd. Kim Phil-gyun feel@moonji.com 82-2-338-7224 (Ext. 7122) www.moonji.com

My Palpitating Life (Dugeundugeun Nae Insaeng) Changbi Publishers, Inc. Lee Soonhwa copyright@changbi.com 82-31-955-3369 www.changbi.com/english

18p

31p, 33p

48p

The Last 4.5 Seconds of My Life (Nae Insaengui Majimak 4.5Cho) Kang Publishing Kim Jeong-hyun gangpub@daum.net 82-2-325-9566

A Familiar World (Nachigeun Sesang) Munhakdongne Publishing Corp. Kim Mijeong mijeong@munhak.com 82-31-955-2662 www.munhak.com

The Big Wolf, Blue (Keun Neukdae Parang) Changbi Publishers, Inc. Lee Soonhwa copyright@changbi.com 82-31-955-3369 www.changbi.com/english Ping Pong (Ping Pong) Changbi Publishers, Inc. Lee Soonhwa copyright@changbi.com 82-31-955-3369 www.changbi.com/english Ashes and Red (Jaewa Ppalgang) KL Management Joseph Lee josephlee705@gmail.com 82-10-6239-9154 www.changbi.com/english

18p, 62p Can You Go Insane? (Michil Su Itgenni) Hankyoreh Publishing Co. Kim Yun-jeong simple@hanibook.co.kr 82-2-6373-6713 www.hanibook.co.kr

23p Tradesman (Gaekju) Munidang Jung Sara munidang88@naver.com 82-2-927-4990 www.munidang.com A Skate Fish (Hongeo) Munidang Jung Sara munidang88@naver.com 82-2-927-4990 www.munidang.com The Sound of Thunder (Cheondungsori) Munidang Jung Sara munidang88@naver.com 82-2-927-4990 www.munidang.com

31p Thus Spoke Hwang Man-geun (Hwangmangeuneun Ireoke Malhaetda) Changbi Publishers, Inc. Lee Soonhwa copyright@changbi.com 82-31-955-3369 www.changbi.com/english

90 list_ Books from Korea

Vol.13 Autumn 2011

40p Flowerhead (Kkotcharye) Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd. Choi Ji-in jiin@moonji.com 82-2-338-7224 (Ext. 7111) www.moonji.com

Namiseom (Namiseom) Minumsa Publishing Group Michelle Nam michellenam@minumsa.com 82-2-515-2000 (Ext. 206) www.minumsa.com

Ripple (Pamun) Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd. Choi Ji-in jiin@moonji.com 82-2-338-7224 (Ext. 7111) www.moonji.com

61p

On Waiting (Gidarindaneun Geose Daehayeo) Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd. Choi Ji-in jiin@moonji.com 82-2-338-7224 (Ext. 7111) www.moonji.com

My Hands Turned into Hooves (Naui Soneun Malgubeuro Byeonhago) Munye Joongang Rachel Ahn rachel_ahn@joongang.co.kr 82-2-2000-6024 www.joongangbooks.co.kr

41p

62p

When Exhausted, Go to the Sea (Insaengi Heogijil Twepttyaetwep Badaro Gara) Munhakdongne Publishing Corp. Kim Mijeong mijeong@munhak.com 82-31-955-2662 www.munhak.com

Bed (Chimdae) Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd. Choi Ji-in jiin@moonji.com 82-2-338-7224 (Ext. 7111) www.moonji.com

Han Chang-hoon's Feast (Hanchanghunui Hyangyeon) Joongang Books Rachel Ahn rachel_ahn@joongang.co.kr 82-2-2000-6024 www.joongangbooks.co.kr

Come Back Home (Gwigado) Munhakdongne Publishing Corp. Kim Mijeong mijeong@munhak.com 82-31-955-2662 www.munhak.com

The City of Familiar Others (Nachigeun Taindeurui Dosi) Yeobaek Media Kim Mi-sun sol38@dreamwiz.com 82-2-546-5116

63p

Soft Power (Mallangmallanghan Him) Munhak Segye Sa Kim Yo-an esop98@hanmail.net 82-2-702-1800 www.msp21.co.kr

I Met Lo Gi-wan (Rogiwaneul Mannatda) Changbi Publishers, Inc. Lee Soonhwa copyright@changbi.com 82-31-955-3369 www.changbi.com/english

44p

64p

Please Look After Mom (Eommareul Butakhae) KL Management Joseph Lee josephlee705@gmail.com 82-10-6239-9154 www.changbi.com/english

Hidden Eve (Sumeun Bam) Munhakdongne Publishing Corp. Kim Mijeong mijeong@munhak.com 82-31-955-2662 www.munhak.com

64p

70p

77p

Welcome (Hwannyeong) Jaeum&Moeum Noh Yoolee feelsky666@jamobook.com 82-2-324-2347 www.jamo21.net

Manchurian Motion Picture Association and Korean Film in the Japanese Colonial Period (Manjuyeonghwahyeophoewa Joseonnyeonghwa) Korean Film Archive Kim Ryeosil rskim@pusan.ac.kr 82-51-510-2007 www.koreafilm.or.kr

Have You Seen That Man? (Geu Sarameul Bon Jeogi Innayo?) Munhakdongne Publishing Corp. Choi Youn-mi youn@munhak.com 82-2-3144-3240 www.munhak.com

65p The Blind Calf (Punggeumi Itdeon Jari) Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd. Choi Ji-in jiin@moonji.com 82-2-338-7224 (Ext. 7111) www.moonji.com

67p Korean Culture Textbook (Hanguk Munhwa Gyogwaseo) Sonamoo Publishing co. Park su-hee sonamoopub@empas.com 82-10-3124-8800 www.sonamoobook.co.kr

68p Korea’s Modern Era Through Paintings (Geurimeuro Ingneun Hanguk Geundaeui Punggyeong) Gimm-Young Publishers, Inc. Lee You-Jeong bookmaker@gimmyoung.com 82-2-3668-3203 www.gimmyoung.com/english

71p Idol Imagine Books Choi Ye-won nervously@naver.com 82-2-3141-1917 blog.naver.com/imaginepub A Room of One’s Own (Jagimanui Bang) Imagine Books Choi Ye-won nervously@naver.com 82-2-3141-1917 blog.naver.com/imaginepub

72p You Asked If I Was Alright (Eodi Apeun De Eomnyago Dangsini Mureotda) Chungrim Publishing Choi Doo-eun editor94@chungrim.com 82-2-546-4341 www.chungrim.com

Maps—The Frame of Thought for Reading the World (Jido: Sesangeul Ingneun Saenggagui Peureim) Book21 Publishing Group Lee Jong-seok rights21@book21.co.kr 82-31-955-2196 www.book21.com

After the Flowers Wilt, We Notice the Leaves (Kkochi Jigo Namyeon Ipi Boideunni) SAMTOH Publishing Co., Ltd. Kwon Eun-chung eunch888@hanmail.net 82-2-763-8965 www.isamtoh.com

69p

75p

Travels in East Asian Classics (Yeohaenggwa Dongasia Gojeonmunhak) Korea University Press Shim Seongmi kupress@korea.ac.kr 82-2-3290-4231 www.kupress.com

Do Not Listen, Do Not Look (Jeoldae Boji Maseyo! Jeoldae Deutji Maseyo!) Baram Books Nam Kyung-mee windchild04@hanmail.net 82-2-3142-0495 café.daum.net/barampub

In Search of Traditional Villages in Korea (Hangugui Jeontongmaeureul Chajaseo) Humanist Publishing Group Park Jung-sun pjs2001@humanistbooks.com 82-70-7842-9402 www.humanistbooks.com

76p

70p There’s No Accidental Landscape (Uyeonhan Punggyeongeun Eopda) Namudosi Publishing Co. Nam Kee-jun namudosi@chol.com 82-31-915-3803 www.namudosi.com

Cloud Bus of the End-of-the-World Village (Ttangkkeut Maeul Gureumi Beoseu) Balgeunmirae Kim Min-ae zemmma78@naver.com 82-2-322-1612 www.bmirae.com

78p Small-minded Daddy (Sok Jobeun Appa) Prunsoop Publishing Co., Ltd. Park Chang-hee novel@prunsoop.co.kr 82-31-955-1410 (Ext. 300) www.prunsoop.co.kr Joon-bum Is New (Dwitjip Junbeomi) Borim Press Park Jihye jhpark@borimpress.com 82-31-955-3456 (Ext. 147) www.borimpress.com

79p Last Bat Princess "Migaya" (Majimak Bakjwigongju Migaya) Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd. Lee Na-young lny@moonji.com 82-2-338-7224 (Ext. 7123) www.moonji.com

81p Classic Korean Poets, etc. (Hangukhansijakgayeoljeon) Hangilsa Publishing Co., Ltd Ahn Minjae anjuri@hangilsa.co.kr 82-31-955-2039 Park Hee-jin way_be@hangilsa.co.kr 82-31-955-2036 www.hangilsa.co.kr

A Tough Daughter Born on a Train (Gichanttal) Sigongjunior Amélie Choi amelie@sigongsa.com 82-2-2046-2855 www.sigongsa.com My Father's Fishing Net (Badaro Ganeun Eunbit Geumul) Sigongjunior Amélie Choi amelie@sigongsa.com 82-2-2046-2855 www.sigongsa.com

list_ Books from Korea

Vol.13 Autumn 2011

Afterword

An Intensely Full Translation Experience Today is the final day of the Translation Academy’s 3rd Intensive Course. I apologize that my Korean is not very good, so please bear with me. Like you, I have been part of the Intensive Course for almost a year, so I would like to share some of my experiences with you. Last year I was working in Argentina on something that had nothing to do with Korea when someone at the Korean Cultural Center in Latin America told me about the Korea Literature Translation Institute. I learned about the Intensive Course at the Translation Academy and it seemed like such a good opportunity that I applied right away. Happily enough, I was accepted. I felt excited and nervous at the same time about being part of the first class in Spanish. It was fun coming to Korea and meeting the other students in my class, both Koreans and foreigners. I thought it was funny that Luis and I were interested in Korea and Heo Munseon and Yu Han-na were interested in Spanish. I was also surprised that so many more people in Korea were interested in Spanish than I had thought before I came here. Now that a year has passed, I can say that I have learned much more at the Korean Literature Translation Academy than I thought possible when I first signed up. I have always been interested in literature, but from last year on I was able to study Korean literature more closely. When you read literature you learn new words. It also depends on what writer you are reading, but the words that we foreign students learned while reading Korean modern literature were ‘violence,’ ‘pain,’ and ‘suicide’. Some words I learned from the poet Kim Ki-taek were ‘fossil,’ ‘phototaxis,’ and ‘cocky.’ It was also great to actually meet the writers we were translating. For example the Spanish class met Jung Chan and Hyun Gil-un. It was difficult for me to understand what they were saying but it was good to have them answer our questions about the text and help us understand it better. Also in the first semester the Intensive Course students went on a literary field trip. We visited Jinhae and Jinju with Kim Yeon-su for two days. It was a chance not just to talk about the novel we were translating, set during the Seven Years’ War, but also to learn about Korean history. And in the second semester there was a field trip for students in the Special Course, so the Spanish class got to go along with the Russian class. We visited Lee Soonwon’s hometown of Gangneung with him, and learned about the Joseon era. Personally I am satisfied with everything we did in the program. I would like to thank our teachers for everything. Who cares about having lots of homework, taking the subway early in the morning during rush hour, being haunted by deadlines... Finally, I hope that other foreign translators like myself help Korean literature become more well known and beloved by people all around the world. Thank you. By Parodi Sebastián * Parodi Sebastián completed the KLTI Translation Academy Intensive Course. His Spanish translation of Park Min-gyu’s “Morning Door” (“La Puerta de la Mañana”) won the 2011 KLTI Translation Contest for New Translators. * Commemoration speech from the KLTI Translation Academy’s 3rd Intensive Course

92 list_ Books from Korea

Vol.13 Autumn 2011

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Vol.13 Autumn 2011

Special Section

Risk Society and the Artistic Imagination Interviews

Novelist Kim Joo-young Novelist Sung Suk-je Theme Lounge

The Seas of Korea The Place

Mullae Ironworks Alley

ISSN 2005-2790