[_list: Books from Korea] Vol.21 Autumn 2013

Vol.21 Autumn 2013

Vol.21 Autumn 2013

Special Section

Korea’s Apartment Buildings Interviews

Literary Critic Lee O-young Novelist Cheon Un-yeong Spotlight on Fiction

“My Sister’s Menopause”

by Kim Hoon Theme Lounge

Dating Culture The Place

Gwangjang Market: Where History Breathes

ISSN 2005-2790

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Foreword

The Present and Future of Korean Style Apartment Buildings Most Koreans live in apartments, a fact which has significantly affected their lives.

Korea’s apartment buildings are usually five to 20 stories high, and several apartment buildings form one residential complex. A residential complex includes amenities such as roads, schools, a hospital, and a shopping complex.

When we decided that the Special Section for the fall issue was to be “Korea’s Apartment Buildings,” my first concern was that the contributors might focus on introducing only the negative characteristics of Korean style apartments. In fact, Korean style apartments have many positive characteristics as well. The apartment culture contributed to a high level of public safety and provided a convenient form of accommodation needed for everyday life. Energy efficient air conditioning and heating, as well as the economic advantages of the apartment complexes themselves, have made Korea's apartments a housing model for countries rushing to urbanize.

It should also be noted that it was an inevitable choice for Koreans. Korea’s population density ranked 20th in the world in 2011, but it comes in second following Bangladesh after excluding city or island nations such as Hong Kong and Singapore. Moreover, 65 percent of Korea is mountainous, which means that habitable land is limited. It may sound like an excuse, but the practical option for Koreans seems to be apartments. Eighty percent of city dwellers in Korea live in apartments, which is the highest percentage in the world. The rate of apartment buildings compared to other types of available housing in Korea has already exceeded 50 percent.

At any rate, Korea’s apartments form a type of langue, defining the life of Korean people according to a structuralist perspective. Koreans create their own "parole" in the langue called the apartment. In other words, Korea’s apartments are places and at the same time, a metaphor explaining the life of Koreans. In this edition, four contributors wrote essays on Korea’s apartment buildings. These essays examine both positive and negative characteristics of the apartment as well, while accurately portraying how desperately Koreans desire the “post-apartment” life.

Contemporary city planners hoped for apartments to be towers in a park.

Modern man inevitably asked to be confined in a tower to secure the pleasant park area; however, the park was not offered to him, and the tower only evolved in the direction of rising higher and becoming more isolated. I am reminded of the fairytale "Rapunzel." The witch locked up Rapunzel in a high tower and watched over her. We think of Rapunzel's overseer as a witch in the sense that she confines Rapunzel, but a psychoanalytical reading also reveals her to be a mother who is overprotective of her daughter. Regardless, Rapunzel grows up safely within the protection of her motherwitch. In the end, however, Rapunzel lets her golden hair down from the tower and escapes. Psychoanalysts often interpret her golden hair as “sexual maturity.”

Her mother, who does not accept Rapunzel’s maturity and tries to overprotect her, is somewhat closer to being a witch. Koreans hear the “witch” whisper that the apartment is a happy place. However, we’ll never know when Rapunzel might make her escape from the high tower.

by Kim Mansu

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Vol.21 Autumn 2013

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Contents Autumn 2013 Vol. 21

Reviews

42 Fiction

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01 04 05 06 08

Foreword Trade Report News from LTI Korea Bestsellers Publishing Trends

Special Section

Korea’s Apartment Buildings 10 13 16 19

Confessions of a Knock-off Apartment Kid from the 1980s It's the Apartment, Stupid!

The Apartment: Mirage of the Middle Class Imagined Spaces: The Apartment in Literature

Interviews

22 Literary Critic Lee O-young 28 Novelist Cheon Un-yeong

Excerpts

26 In This Earth and In That Wind by Lee O-young 32 Ginger by Cheon Un-yeong

The Place

34 Gwangjang Market:

Where History Breathes

Theme Lounge

38 Dating Culture

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Vol.21 Autumn 2013

Untold Nights and a Day The French Laundry Four Days Women and Their Evolving Enemies Who Is Dr. Kim? The Death of Robespierre The Impossible Fairytale

60 Nonfiction Two Stars, Two Maps: The Rivalry of Dasan and Yeonam

The Secret of Greek Tragedy: Twelve Most Famous Tragedies

Monsters in Art: The Human Fascination

with the Sensual and Fantastic

The Montage of Memory

Brain, Medicine, Mouth, and Body

The Google God Knows Everything

Apartment

Samsung Way

Stethoscope for the Heart

On Impulse: Chuncheon, Jeonju, Gyeongju

Adult Park

68 Children’s Books Restaurant Sal

The Lily Star and The Little Star: The Complete Works of Ma Hae-song Go-Go-Go, Fat Club!

Candidate No.3 An Seok-bbong Setting the Table The Tiger’s Eyebrow Blue Bicycle

Spotlight on Fiction

45 “My Sister’s Menopause” by Kim Hoon

Steady Sellers

59 The Complete Works of Kim Su-young, Vol.1 (Poems)

by Kim Su-young 73 Man-hee’s House by Kwon Yun-duck

Vol.21 Autumn 2013 A Quarterly Magazine for Publishers

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PUBLISHER

Kim Seong-Kon

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR

Kim Yoon-jin

MANAGING DIRECTOR

Jung Jin Kwon

EDITORIAL BOARD

Bok Dohoon Literary Critic Kang Yu-jung Critic Kim Ji-eun Children's Book Critic Kim Mansu Professor, Inha University Pyo Jeonghun Book Columnist

OVERSEAS EDITORIAL ADVISORS

Choi Kyeonghee University of Chicago Bruce Fulton University of British Columbia Christopher P. Hanscom UCLA Theodore Hughes Columbia University Kim Yung-hee University of Hawai'i David McCann Harvard University Michael J. Pettid SUNY-Binghamton University Janet Poole University of Toronto Dafna Zur Stanford University

DOMESTIC EDITORIAL ADVISORS

Brother Anthony Sogang University Steven D. Capener Seoul Women's University Horace J. Hodges Ewha Womans University Charles Montgomery Dongguk University Emanuel Pastreich Kyung Hee University

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Kim Sun-hye

MANAGING EDITORS

Cha Youngju Lee Chae Eun

EDITORS

Krys Lee Kim Stoker

ART DIRECTOR

Choi Woonglim

DESIGNERS

Jang Hyeju Kim Mijin

79 Recommended by Publishers

PHOTOGRAPHER

Lee Kwa-yong

PRINTED BY

NAMSANPNP

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Poetry

67 “Ha… No Shadows” by Kim Su-young

Overseas Angle

74 A New Opportunity for Korean Literature in Poland 75 Reflections on the 12th LTI Korea International Workshop 76 Expanding the Overseas Appeal of Korean Literature

in Translation 77 A Fateful Meeting with Modern Korean Poetry

New Books Meet the Publishers

84 Sallim Publishing Company

Afterword 86 Messy Business: Translating Ambiguity

Date of Publication August 27, 2013

87 Contributors 88 Featured Authors 91 Index

All correspondence should be addressed to the Literature Translation Institute of Korea 112 Gil-32, Yeongdong-daero (Samseong-dong) Gangnam-gu, Seoul, 135-873, Korea Telephone: 82-2-6919-7714 Fax: 82-2-3448-4247 E-mail: list_korea@klti.or.kr www.klti.or.kr www.list.or.kr

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

Cover Art © Park Sang-hyeok Alone But Never Alone 120x167.4cm, pigment print, 2006

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Trade Report

Educational Cartoons Open a New Chapter in Infotainment

The Ultimate Baseball King (5 vols.)

Little Hippo; Illustrator: Kim Kang-ho, Mirae-N (I-seum) 2012, 204p, ISBN 9788937883859 (Vol.1)

The Ultimate Baseball King, a recent hit series of educational cartoons for lower-grade elementary school students in Korea, has been sold to Sun Color Culture Publishing Co., Ltd., a publishing group in Taiwan. Reportedly, Sun Color Culture Publishing Co., Ltd., has very h ig h e xpec t at ions for The Ultimate Baseball King series because other Korean educational cartoons series they have previously published such as Survival and Treasure Hunting, were huge hits.

The Ultimate Baseball King series features elementary school students who, while having fun playing baseball, learn about a variety of scientific principles hidden in sports and life. They try to win by applying strategies based on wisdom from the classics to the game of baseball.

With professional baseball wildly popular in Korea, this cartoon series adds to the joy that children derive from the game.

The popularity of Korean educational cartoons is spreading around the world, including China, Taiwan, and Japan. For example, the Why? series, a household name for Korean educational cartoons,

and the Who? series, which won the Grand Prize in the Education category at the 2013 National Brand Awards of Korea, were recognized worldwide for their excellent content with sales of their rights to eight countries, including Japan, Taiwan, China, and Vietnam.

Gimmyoung Publishers is committed to promoting their bestselling cartoon series Far Countries, Neighboring Countries in the global market. Their first step is working on translating Far Countries, Neighboring Countries: Korea into French for publication. A household name for Korean educational cartoons, the Far Countries, Neighboring Countries series has sold over 17 million copies in Korea alone.

Korean educational cartoons have unique strengths that set them apart from manga and comics. They combine entertainment with information about a variety of subjects, opening a new chapter in infotainment.

by Richard Hong

Korean Books Signed on

by Major Overseas Publishers The Vegetarian by Han K ang f ina lly sold its rights to Portobello Books, an imprint of the British publisher Granta Publications. This is Han's first novel sold to the English-speaking world. A few weeks later, Dutch rights were also sold to the Dutch publisher Nijgh and Van Ditmar. All told, The Vegetarian has been sold to nine countries: France, Poland, Brazil, Argentina, China, Japan, Vietnam, and recently the U.K. and the Netherlands.

Thus, Han's literary world will reach both Eastern and Western readers around the world.

The Investigation, a novel by Lee Jungmyung, the author of The DeepRooted Tree and The Painter of Wind, was sold to the Italian publisher Sellerio. The highly anticipated English edition of this novel, whose rights were sold last year to Pan Macmillan of the U.K., is scheduled to be released in time for the 2014 London 4 list_ Books from Korea

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Book Fair. Film rights were also recently sold, which will boost the sales of the novel’s translation rights overseas. There are six countries in total, including the U.K., Italy, and France, where this novel has been sold.

As for nonfiction, The Greatest Leaders in Economics Who Managed the World published by SERI (Samsung Economic Research Institute) sold its rights to China immediately after publication in Korea.

This book offers a useful overview of the history of economic policies worldwide through the glories and failures of 18 economic polic y ma kers t hat shaped world history, including Jacques Necker, Alexander Hamilton, Winston Churchill, Zhu Rongji, and Gerhard SchrĂśder.

by Joseph Lee

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2 1. The Vegetarian Han Kang, Changbi Publishers, Inc. 2007, 247p, ISBN 9788936433598 2. The Investigator (2 vols.)

Lee Jungmyung, EunHaeng NaMu Publishing Co. 2012, 289p, ISBN 9788956606187 (Vol.1) 3. The Greatest Leaders in Economics

Who Managed the World

Yoo Jae-soo, Samsung Economic Research Institute 2013, 504p, ISBN 9788976334534

News from LTI Korea

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1. Karatani Kojin and Kim Uchang: "Universality of East Asian Civilizations" 2. Oh Jung-hee, Han Kang, and Nakagami Nori: "Women's Self Image and Literature" 3. Kim Yeon-su, Kim Ae-ran, and Kawakami Mieko: "Communication in Literature” 4. a night of Korean literature

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LTI Korea Holds Literary Events at the 2013 Tokyo Book Fair LTI Korea participated in the 2013 To k y o I n t e r n a t i o n a l B o o k F a i r (TIBF) from July 3 through July 6 and organized “Korean Literature Is Now,” a set of large-scale literary events celebrating Korea, the guest of honor country. Ten Korean writers joined the events: Kim Uchang, Oh Jung-hee, Choi Seung-ho, Lee Seung-u, Ku Hyoseo, Han Kang, Park Seong-won, Kim Yeon-su, An Heon-mi, and Kim Ae-ran.

The Japanese writers were: Karatani Kojin, Nakazawa Kei, Nakagami Nori, Sagawa Aki, Nakamura Fuminori, and

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Kawakami Mieko.

Kim Uchang, professor at Ewha Womans University, and philosopher Karatani Kojin opened the events, sharing views on various topics as well-known intellectuals from both cou nt rie s. Novelist s L ee Seu ng-u and Nakazawa Kei held a seminar int roducing Kore a n literat u re on the second day. In another session, writers Oh Jung-hee, Han Kang, and Nakagami Nori discussed the image of women and literature.

K or e a n p o e t s C hoi S e u n g-ho

and An Heon-mi, and Japanese poet Sagawa Aki explored life and poetry.

Korean novelists Ku Hyo-seo and Park Seong-won, and Japan’s prize-winning author Nakamura Fuminori exchanged views on the city and communal life, drawing keen attention from festival participants. Kim Yeon-su, Kim Aeran, and Kawakami Mieko—young a nd prom ising w riters f rom bot h countries—met and discussed each other’s literary world.

Joint book readings by Oh Junghee, Choi Seung-ho, and Lee Seung-u during “A Night of Korean Literature,” an event introducing Korean writers to visitors, were held on the final day, successfully wrapping up the four-day literary program.

This year’s Korean literary program at TIBF generated enthusiastic responses, with some attendees unable to find seats at the crowded events. The program also offered a rare chance for Japanese readers to meet leading Korean writers in person. With the exchange of knowledge between the two literary circles comes the expectation of broading the cultural horizons in each country.

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LTI Korea Hosts the 12th International Workshop LTI Korea held the 12th International Workshop for the Translation and Publication of Korean Literature at the COEX Conference Center on June 21.

For the past 11 years, the international workshop has served as a key venue in which experts from various sectors discuss major issues facing Korean l it e r a t u r e . Pa s t t he me s i nc lu d e d the ways to improve the quality of tra nslation, strategies to promote overseas publication of Korean literary works, e-publishing, and the exploration of new overseas markets.

The theme this year was “New

St r ate g ie s for Promot i n g K ore a n Literature Worldwide.” Part 1, titled “Concentration: Publication Strategies,” covered possible strategies and plans to nurture a stable and systematic publishing environment for Korean literature by forming partnerships with major foreign publishers. In Part 2, titled “Evolution: Introduction Strategies,” participants discussed ways to adapt to rapidly evolving publishing conditions.

Toward the end of the workshop, the LTI Korea Distinguished Service Awards Ceremony was held to honor

three panelists who have made great c ont r ibut ion s i n pr omot i n g a nd marketing Korean literature in their respective countries. The recipients were Marzena Stefanska, publisher of Kwiaty Orientu; Dennis Maloney, editor and publisher of White Pine Press; and Claude Mouchard, associate editor of Po&sie.

1. “Concentration: Publication Strategies” 2. “Evolution: Introduction Strategies” 3. the recipients of the LTI Korea Distinguished Service Awards and LTI Korea President Kim Seong-Kon

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Bestsellers

What We’re Reading

Salt

Secretly, Greatly

Fiction Moonlight Tales Shin Kyung-sook, Munhakdongne Publishing Corp.

2013, 212p, ISBN 9788954620666 The newest book by Shin Kyung-sook, the internationally renowned author of Please Look After Mom, Moonlight Tales is a collection of 26 witty and surreal short stories that leave long lingering feelings like the gentle shine of the moon.

Goguryeo V: King Gogugwon of the People Kim Jin-myung, Saeum Publishing Co. 2013, 359p, ISBN 9788993964585

Bestselling author Kim Jin-myung freely crosses the border between fiction and nonfiction. His Goguryeo series tells of people with the most outgoing spirit in Korean history. Goguryeo V remakes the unfortunate King Gogugwon as a man with genuine love for his subjects.

Salt Park Bumshin, Hankyoreh Publishing Company 2013, 368p, ISBN 9788984316904

Park Bumshin’s 40th novel Salt is a sad portrait of Korean fathers who struggle for their families in a brutal capitalist society. This novel poses fundamental questions about fathers, the salt of the household, through the narration of one man’s abandonment of his responsibilities and his family.

Toe Ma Rok: The Records of Exorcism - Sidequel Lee Woo-hyouk, Elixir 2013, 304p, ISBN 9788954620888

Lee Woo-hyouk is Korea’s leading fantasy writer and

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The Quotes of My Life

Nonfiction author of the bestselling Toe Ma Rok series, which has sold more than 10 million copies. The story collection Toe Ma Rok celebrates the 20th anniversary of the series by shedding light on the guardians’ past and present lives, relationships, and the tales behind the main story.

Secretly, Greatly Hun, Hye-gyung, Gulliver 2013, 380p, ISBN 9788996675457

Originally a webtoon serialized on the Korean search engine DAUM, Secretly, Greatly was released as a movie in 2013. The famous quote “I was born a wild dog and raised a monster,” comes from this book.

North Korean spy Won Ryu-hwan who, under cover as the village idiot, makes human connections with his South Korean neighbors.

Faith (Vol.2) Song Jina, Viche Korea Books 2013, 408p, ISBN 9788994343891

Popular dramatist Song Jina’s romance transcends time and space. This novel depicts the love between Goryeo warrior Choi Yung and the modern doctor Yu Eunsu. A historical romance that blends action, fantasy, and love, it was also made into a TV drama of the same name.

28 Jeong You-jeong, EunHaeng NaMu Publishing Co. 2013, 496p, ISBN 9788956607030

Jeong You-jeong is the most exciting Korean writer today. Her strengths are an intricate plot, a sleek writing style, and cool aplomb. 28 is an extreme disaster novel based on a zoonosis outbreak. It asks about the dignity of life as humans and animals communicate, diverge, and fight.

The Quotes of My Life Jeong Ho-seung, Viche Korea Books 2013, 484p, ISBN 9788994343921 One of the most celebrated poets in Korea, Jeong Ho-seung introduces the words that comforted him through his life. Quotations from famous writers, religious leaders, ordinary people, and his mother are featured, such as, “Nobody can gaze at the stars without welcoming the night. Nobody can encounter the morning without passing the night.”

The Art of Reading Jung Min, Gimm-Yeong Publishers, Inc. 2013, 408p, ISBN 9788934962847 What is reading? How do we read? This book introduces the reading styles of nine prominent Joseon era scholars. One scholar, Yang Eung-su (1700-1767), said that, “Reading is like looking at a house. A glimpse at the exterior is useless. One must walk through it, study each room, and examine each window.”

Life Choi In-ho, Yeobaek Media Co., Ltd. 2013, 288p, ISBN 9788958661993 One of Korea’s contemporary literary pillars, Choi In-ho is also a cancer survivor. This is a book of essays wrought during the five years that he fought cancer. It depicts his discovery of God’s providence as well as his personal views on life. The writer describes his fight against cancer as “a carnival of pain” and shares profound discoveries that he made along the way.

These totals are based on sales records from eight major bookstores and three online bookstores from April to June 2013, provided by the Korean Publishers Association.

The books are introduced in no particular order.

The Art of Reading

An Upside-down World

My Name Is Venus Flytrap

Children's Books The Return of Hope

An Upside-down World

My Name Is Venus Flytrap

Norbert Dong-yeob Cha, Wiz & Viz 2013, 316p, ISBN 9788992825726 A Catholic priest and bestselling self-help writer, Cha delivers a message of hope to those who are plagued by anxiety and despair. “Look behind you. Hope is hidden there. Look ahead. You will glimpse hope.

Look around. Hope will be revealed to you. Look inside. Hope is stirring there.”

Ahn Sung-hoon; Illustrator: Heo Goo Woongjin ThinkBig Co., Ltd., 2013 119p, ISBN 9788901156576 In An Upside-down World, people lose their intellectual capacity as they grow older, and it is the children who are superior to adults. Children are free to do as they choose but they also bear the burden of protecting adults and worrying about the future.

This fantasy book won the 6th Woongjin Junior Literature Award.

Lee Ji-yoo; Illustrator: Kim E-rang Haegreem, 2013, 78p, ISBN 9788901155234

See Your Own Big Picture Jun Og-pyo, The Business Books and Co., Ltd. 2013, 296p, ISBN 9788997575138 Jun is a bestselling writer in the self-improvement genre. By studying numerous interviews and cases, the author finds what successful people have in common. Successful people draw the big picture and work hard to achieve it. They truly are the masters of their lives.

They Cry Silently Song Ho-keun, Lee & Woo Press 2013, 236p, ISBN 9788998933005 This book is an essay tribute to Korean baby boomers that are now in their 50s. The baby boomer generation led Korea through the years of industrialization and democratization, but is now troubled by a sense of loss and the uncertainty of retirement. Song presents a collective self-portrait of the generation.

It’s OK Choi Sook-hee, Woongjin ThinkBig Co., Ltd. 2009, 28p, ISBN 9788901052922 A steady bestseller in the children’s illustrated book category, this story boosts self-confidence through the message that everyone has something he or she is good at. Vivid and lovely illustrations keep young readers enthused.

World’s 100 Greatest Masterpieces More Exciting than the Louvre Museum Park Hyun-cheol, Samsung Publishing 2011, 200p, ISBN 9788915080515 This book features masterpieces from around the world. Inventive images and interesting stories make artists like da Vinci and Picasso easily accessible to young readers.

A science teacher and bestselling author of children’s astronomy and geology books, Lee Ji-yoo presents this plant book for children. Through the entertaining conversation between a Venus flytrap and a Swiss cheese plant, the author teaches plant ecology.

Jiwon and Byeong-gwan Series Ko Dae-young; Illustrator: Kim Young-jin Gilbut Children Publishing Co., Ltd. 2006, 32p (Vol.1), ISBN 9788955820942 (set) This illustrated book series about Jiwon and Byeonggwan humorously shows daily events like taking the subway, getting an allowance, learning to ride a bike, and not biting your fingernails. This eight-volume series has sold more than 400,000 copies. Every scene has a picture puzzle for readers to solve.

Blue Child Gong Sun-ok et al., Changbi Publishers, Inc. 2013, 208p, ISBN 9788936456504 Blue Child is a collection of short stories written by well-known Korean young adult writers like Gong Sun-ok, Gu Byeong-mo, Kim Ryeo-ryeong, Bae Myung-hoon, Lee Hyun, Jun Sung-tae, and Choi Namee. This book presents exciting contemporary young adult literature and new writing styles.

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Publishing Trends through the power of the story itself. Authors can justly take pride in their prose style, but critics have pointed out that the balance between story and style or perhaps ideas and form has suffered with an over-emphasis on form. Maybe Jeong can find this balance in 28. Hopefully literature written from this new perspective will also find a loyal readership abroad.

by Uh Soo-woong

Nonfiction

28 Jeong You-jeong EunHaeng NaMu Publishing Co. 2013, 496p, ISBN 9788956607030

Fiction

Dynamic Storytelling Boosts Slump Since the start of 2013, Korean literature has been in a slump. To be precise, the market has been in a slump. Many attractive books appealing to diverse tastes have been published, but the public hasn’t paid much attention to them. A few novels were in the spotlight after being adapted into movies or television dramas, but outside of these, very few works of fiction have become bestsellers.

In the second quarter, though, there was an exception. Jeong You-jeong’s novel 28 was released in June. After her previous work, Seven Years of Darkness, was published two years ago and became a bestseller with sales approaching 30,000 copies, fans have been awaiting her next book. In its first week of release, it topped the sales charts of Internet book retailer Aladdin, and in the second week it reached #2 in sales at Yes24 and Kyobo Bookstore.

To summarize the contents of this 500-page novel in a few lines: the story unfolds over a 28-day period in Hwayang, a suburb of Seoul which has been quarantined due to the outbreak of a mysterious disease called “red eye.” Red eye is a cross-species virus that can be transmitted from dogs to humans and vice versa. It is deadly, with an infection rate on par with measles (98 percent) and a fatality rate similar to that of Ebola (50 to 90 percent). A distinguishing feature of the disease is that after it is first contracted, the area around the eyes turns blood red.

A popular novel intended for momentary comfort or pleasure would focus on the story of a hero who identifies and tracks down the hidden powers responsible for propagating the disease, and finds a vaccine. The writer, however, resists this conventional formula and asks questions that have long been pushed into our subconscious. Is human survival always more important than the life of individuals? How can we overcome guilt and repay debts if our lives are contingent on the sacrifices of others? In other words, she is asking the fundamental questions concerning salvation and hope, and of the moral grounds of life.

Jeong You-jeong has been credited with bringing a new perspective to the literary scene. The dominant trend is for authors to focus on introspection and interior monologue, prioritizing structure and style. Instead, Jeong intends to connect with readers 8 list_ Books from Korea

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Reflections on the Happiness Craze For the past several years, the bestseller lists have been filled with essay collections about spiritual healing and the pursuit of happiness. In as much as these books are popular, it proves that large numbers of people are suffering from sadness and mental fatigue. But we cannot simply welcome all of the attention given them. Books seem to comfort troubled readers, but in many cases they can’t really provide them with solutions, or they limit happiness to the personal sphere, and ask readers to just change their attitudes.

Books such as Pressure To Be Happy and Elbow Society focus critical attention on the wave of literature promising readers greater happiness. In Pressure To Be Happy, philosopher Tak Seoksan claims that people are missing the larger perspective if they put personal happiness above all else. “Happiness springs from individuals, communities, and society all playing their proper role. If you understand that the self, neighbors, and society all contribute to happiness, then you are not far from the path to a good life.”

Tak explains that happiness was once understood to be determined by God, but with the emergence of utilitarianism it became its own kind of religion. Other societal forces have reinforced the myth of personal happiness: democracy and its emphasis on equality, capitalism and the commodification of labor, and individualism, which puts the “I” before the “we.”

According to experts and writers of self-help books, it is possible to achieve happiness just by making a list and following it. Tak, however, denies this possibility, stating that in the midst of social contradiction, it is impossible for people to pursue happiness on an individual basis and achieve it.

In Elbow Society, Professor Kang Su-dol locates the root of Koreans’ unhappiness in their competitive, winner-takes-all social structure. In Kang’s book, an “elbow society” refers to a society that functions as a competition that must be won at all costs. Even though it is in violation of the rules, people elbow each other to get ahead and become victors. People in this environment have internalized competition over cooperation, and division over harmony, and they accept the struggle for survival imposed by capitalism as the logic of their lives. In this twisted environment, people view others’ sorrow as their happiness. According to Kang, an individual’s life and social relations should be restructured using solidarity and cooperation as the foundation. His critique would likely apply to other cultures as well as Korea’s.

by Kim Beomsoo

with high intelligence and perfect judgment, and as they grow older their faculties degenerate. But the upside-down world is not a utopia for children. The children have to work, and just as children have to worry about tests in our contemporary reality, in the upside-down world they have to worry about world politics and the future existence of the planet. Children are equally exhausted in both places.

The recent wave of children’s books makes the case for children’s right to happiness. Children should be able to run free and learn from their own mistakes. The fact that they are instead tightly constrained is critiqued from a variety of perspectives. We should pay attention to the warnings contained in these books and think about the solutions that are proposed.

by Shin Soojin

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2 1. Elbow Society Kang Su-dol, Galapagos Pubilshing Co. 2013, 256p, ISBN 9788990809490 2. Pressure To Be Happy Tak Seok-san, Changbi Publishers, Inc. 2013, 248p, ISBN 9788936472283

Children's Books

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A Wave of Awardwinning Children’s Books The major publishers of children’s books sponsor prizes for children’s literature; through this system many new writers have been discovered. The date that prize winners are announced varies slightly according to the publisher, but before they are announced, readers are filled with anticipation, imagining how brilliant and original the new books will be.

The award-winning books released in the first half of 2013 are notable for tackling diverse topics. The clash between traditional values and modern economic realities forms the backdrop for Candidate No.3 An Seok-bbong, the winner of Changbi’s “Good Books for Children” competition. When a modern megastore opens next to a traditional market, the tension and change in the neighborhood are seen through a child’s eyes. In a refreshing new work entitled Go-Go-Go, Fat Club!, winner of the Golden Dokkaebi Award, the protagonist, teased for being fat, finds dignity in his new identity as a weightlifter.

Other books critique modern life and satirize it through the lens of fantasy. The heroine of Time Shop, winner of the Munhakdongne Children’s Book Award, feels pressure to be first place at all costs. She is always pressed for time, but one day, by chance, she discovers a time store where she purchases 10 minutes of extra time every day. In order to do this, she has to sell her happiest memories one by one. The Woongjin Junior Award winner An Upside-down World shows us an imaginary world in which children and adults swap roles. Newborn babies are born

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1. Time Shop Lee Na-young; Illustrator: Yoon Jeoung-joo Munhakdongne Publishing Corp.

2013, 204p, ISBN 9788954620260

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2. An Upside-down World Ahn Sung-hoon; Illustrator: Heo Goo Woongjin ThinkBig Co., Ltd. 2013, 119p, ISBN 9788901156576 3.

Go-Go-Go, Fat Club!

Cheon Hyeon-jeong; Illustrator: Bak Jeong-seop BIR Publishing Co., Ltd. 2013, 200p, ISBN 9788949121482

4. Candidate No.3 An Seok-bbong Jin Hyeong-min; Illustrator: Han Ji-sun, Changbi Publishers, Inc. 2013, 152p, ISBN 9788936442712

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Special Section

Korea’s Apartment Buildings

Confessions of a Knock-off apartment Kid from the 1980s In this personal essay, writer Jeong Yi-hyun reflects on her childhood fascination with modern apartment living.

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I am not a “natural born apartment kid.” It would, rather, be more appropriate to say that I spent my childhood hankering for the life of an apartment kid.

My first memory of the space called an apartment starts in the early 1980s. Around that time my maternal grandparents moved to the ninth floor of the newly-built Samho Apartment in Bangbae-dong. It was when the real estate development boom in Gangnam had just begun. Any information on which course my grandparents took to sell their traditional style house in Pilwoon-dong, Jongno-gu, and start their life in the apartment, has not stayed with me. There is a better chance that I never had such a memory. For there exists no adult who lets a child, not yet age 10, in on those details – neither then, nor now.

My memory of visiting my grandparents’ new place, led by my mother, is still vivid. We stepped into a small square box.

It was an elevator. The elevator was slowly rising up in the air.

And then, it abruptly stopped under my feet. I felt vertigo. It was a different feeling from dizziness. I realized even before I stepped into my grandparents’ entrance door that I would be fascinated by this new space, and I would not be able explain why. So is the fundamental nature of enchantment.

Inside, the apartment was almost a perfect square. The living room, kitchen, and bedrooms were partitioned in squares like blocks of tofu. The faint smell of fresh starch-based glue from the new wallpaper faintly wafted in. I went out to the veranda. I squatted down there and looked out. I could see

the world. It was my first time seeing the world from such an angle. There were several cars and the tops of a few heads on the streets. They all looked like miniatures. I thought of myself as Gulliver who had arrived at Lilliput.

At my grandparents’ place, I did not eat or go near the TV that I liked so much. I was endlessly hanging out at the windows. I imagined the direction of each car moving at its own speed, the steps of pedestrians walking by at their own pace, and the destinations that they were trying to reach by their slow or deliberate steps at the moment, and their dreams about which I would never know.

I came to have a wish. I wanted to live in an apartment.

My parents had a different idea. I was not sure about my mother, but my father was decisive because they had recently bought a house for the first time. They put everything they had into the house so they could own it. My father began his own family in 1971 when he was 35 years old. He married relatively late compared to the norm at the time. He, who was born a second son to a single mother with little economic means, walked through his life with diligence, working his way through college and becoming a self-made man. After marriage, when he owned his first house, after renting several dwellings, he was in his early 40s. It should be easy to guess how much special affection he had for his first house.

Our house was built in a new residential area on the outskirts of Gwanak Mountain. That’s right. They did not buy a house. The house was clearly newly built. To build his first

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house for his family, my father purchased the land first, leveled the ground, and laid a cornerstone. In the sizable backyard, young grass with a grandiose name, Korean grass, grew wild.

As my mother wished, we planted boxwood trees, rose bushes, sour cherry trees, and persimmon trees. Therefore, to imagine my parents leaving the house and moving to an apartment that looked like a matchbox was an impossible wish.

As everything has its light and shadow, my father fell into considerable debt to build that white-painted house. The basic members of the household were my parents, younger brother, me, and my paternal grandmother, who went back and forth to her oldest son’s house and her daughter’s house in turns, and was a kind of guest member. The time I spent there might sometimes have been beautiful, but mostly it was boring, just like anyone else’s childhood. My brother and I invented various games to endure the extremely tedious time, such as playing “what if” and became Hansel and Gretel, Annika and Tommy in Pipi Longstocking; were born during the Joseon era; became comedians, and lived in an apartment. I can’t speak for my brother, but the last one was the only imagined scenario that shook me to the core.

I carefully thought about the fastest way to be able to live in an apartment. It was my parents’ divorce. I had been inspired by reading a young adult book called My Mother, Father, and I during that time. The female protagonist in the novel moved into a small apartment, following her mother who had separated from her father. It was not important how sad she was about losing her family or how she tried to help her parents reconcile. If my parents divorced, my mother, whose life was more conducive to apartment-style living in many ways than my father, would definitely move to an apartment: Number 1: "Do you want to live with your mother?"

Number 2: "Do you want to live with your father?"

At that crucial moment, I would choose number one without hesitation. Surely, if there was a third question, which contained the choice of an “apartment,” my answer would have been different. When I was in the upper levels of elementary school, I used to secretly whisper into my mother’s ear as she huffed after fighting with my father, “Mom, get a divorce!”

What was my mother’s face like after she heard my whispering? I am sure that she should have slapped me on the back several times.

Why did I want to live in an apartment by doing all that?

Why did I long for apartment living? Come to think of it now, it was probably because the apartment looked modern to me.

I still do not have a clear idea of what modern meant then or now, but at any rate, I clearly understood that at least, it meant living in a different way than now.

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About five years had passed since I fell in love with the idea of an apartment when my family suddenly moved to one.

It was neither because my parents divorced nor because my father’s financial situation turned as bad as to put his precious house up for a rushed sale. It was because a ghostly presence named School District 8* provoked my mother’s anxiety. It was too late to help her daughter who already an eighth grader, but she could also not give up the idea of her son entering the coveted School District 8.

More unforgettable than my first night at the apartment was the last night at the two-story house in which I had spent my entire childhood. I stayed up all night in a small room on the second floor, shedding tears. Only when I faced the moment I had to leave my home, I realized that my dream called the apartment, of which I had desperately pined for, was a different name for fatal attraction about my future that in reality, I could not reach even if I stretched out my hands. That attraction necessarily meant something only when it was just out of reach. When I actually lived in the apartment, my long fascination disappeared like a lie.

Although I moved many times after that, I never escaped the apartment. It was the same when I left my family and started a family of my own. At first, it was comfortable, and later, I was afraid. In the sense that I still live in my childhood dream, am I a true winner?

1986-2013-?

At which point will the chronicle of my apartment life end with a period instead of a question mark? Could it even be possible?

by Jeong Yi-hyun

* translator's note : affluent Gangnam school district known for sending students to renowned colleges

Special Section

Korea's Apartment Buildings

It's the Apartment, Stupid!

From the apartment speculation boom that started in the 1980s until the recent real estate bubble that burst in the early 2000s, Koreans’ changing attitudes towards where they live and how they save and spend might all be rooted in the apartment.

A Summer Night's Grumbling, 2013 On a summer night in the middle of a heat wave, members of the women's association of an apartment building are sitting around a table outside and chatting. At first, cookies, fruit, and drinks are laid out. Soon instant cup noodles appear. It will not be a short session.

"The government seemed pretty determined on April 1st. But, even their measure to boost apartment prices isn't doing anything.

They are saying it looked like the prices were budging a little, and the market was becoming more active. But pretty soon everything sank back to before."

"You're right. I guess what people are saying is right; apartments aren't going to be good investments anymore."

"What am I going to do? I made my children drop two afterschool classes because I have to make the interest repayment..."

"Selling at a bargain price now is not an option. We can only sit back and hope that the prices will go up again."

There is more grumbling. Someone continues.

"Forget it. There's no hope any more. The prices for jeonse are skyrocketing but no one's buying or selling. It's because buyers are sending a clear message that they will wait until prices drop more."1 "I think we have done all we can. A ll members of the association agreed not to sell the apartments below a certain price.

We've even chased the real estate agent out from the neighborhood who opposed us and tried to make deals at lower prices."

"I remember. I still clearly remember all the criticism in the media. Everything went down the drain."

Another woman who had been quiet says, "Well, whatever they say, an apartment is an apartment. We have to hold on no matter what and not sell at low prices for whatever reason. I'm sure one day that will do us good for sure. In a country like this, the amount of land is so limited and there are so many people. How

can apartment prices not go up? It's those who are getting out and selling at bargain prices that are public enemies."

"Who would've wanted to sell for less? They were probably stuck in a tight situation."

"Who's right and who's wrong here? Has it not been, indeed, the well-chosen investment in apartments in the right areas that have yielded a profit many times over the annual salary of any decent employment?”

For about the last 40 years, apartments have been considered a sure cash cow in multiplying assets, the so-called wealth effect in economics. With the prices of apartments skyrocketing, the size of ordinary people's spending grew. "Let me put that on my credit card. I can pay back the loan all at once when I sell my apartment later."

The discontent with the relative deprivation on the renters’ side grew even deeper. At long last, they also opened their wallets.

It was a spending out of despair.

The national economy was going fine. A national spending spree. Not only the haves, but also the have-nots, all stepped forward as agents of consumption. The warning from a minority, that this kind of "spending on the brink" can jeopardize the future of the country, was buried in silence. Even after the terrible experience of the 1997 Asian financial crisis, we remained ambivalent.

The indifferent passing of time brings us to that night during the summer of 2013. The people of the women's association of the apartment building gathered and lamented. What should they do? They can talk on all night long until they are blue in the face, but they cannot come up with an answer. The current selling price is 20 to 30 percent less than what it was at its highest. They wondered, then will the price go up if I just hold on to it?

Only the wind would know the answer; it is more frustrating on a windless day like today. It is late into the night. The women get up off their seats and head home. Who was it that said that apartment buildings are concrete cabinets that isolate people from the outside? Of course, no matter what happens inside, no one from the outside will know.

Rather, apartment buildings became more attractive because

1. translator’s note: Jeonse, a rental-on-security-deposit, is a rental system particular to South Korea. The renter gives a large sum of money, at times close to the value of the property, to the owner who returns the same amount to the renter at the end of the lease. A more detailed explanation comes later in the article.

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they are a closed space. The desire and intention was to be offlimits to the nearby villages and other apartment complexes.

Therefore, apartment buildings were referred to as gated communities bolted shut. Although, generally speaking, a human being ought to live in a space open to the outside world, such was the state of our apartment buildings.

After the women leave, the crumbs and the ripped bags from cookies and instant cup noodles half-filled with leftover broth are left lying around. Late into the night, the old security guard on his last round picks up the garbage, dragging his body already tired with all the running-around he had to do during the day for all sorts of requests from the residents. Unlike before, nowadays is it not true that just dealing with package deliveries—receiving them, recording them, and calling each apartment to have people come and pick them up—puts him in a state of mental exhaustion?

The Myth of the Eternal Winning Streak of Apartments Is Over Nothing but apartment buildings. Even looking around in every direction, it is impossible to find scenery devoid of the towers of apartment buildings. South Korea has become a republic of apartment buildings. The assessment that the country was pulled up off the ground by apartments and is suffering because of them is probably not a great exaggeration.

Let us leave the buildings constructed in the center of Seoul during the period of Japanese occupation: Toyota Apartments and Naeja Apartments. The first apartment complex constructed by our own hands was the Jongam Apartments of 1959. Later, in 1964, the Mapo Apartments, a luxury building by the standard of that time, was constructed. However, people considered apartment buildings housing for the poor and shied away from them.

People live above people; people live below as well. Apartments were a thing of mystery for the traditional way of thinking. People were afraid of carbon monoxide poisoning—understandable given the method of heating with coal briguettes at the time.

At the time, Seoul was more than a full house with people moving in from the countryside without any plans. They just built illegal plywood shacks high up on the hillside, finding unoccupied spaces. In the order of arrival, they went higher and higher up toward the top, and the new appearance of Seoul became one that didn’t befit a nation's capital. Out of desperation, public housing project apartments were created. They were constructed recklessly, and in the early spring of 1970, even resulted in the collapse of a building. In the concrete piles of the crumbled Wau apartments, the lives of 33 residents were lost.

As real estate development in the Gangnam area of Seoul

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made progress, the construction of apartment buildings sped up.

However, apartment buildings were still unpopular. Construction companies were busy covering costs by selling apartments at low prices; the ones with better cash f low waited for further opportunities while using their buildings as workers’ dormitories.

However, the apartments were silently changing our lifestyle.

A revolution in modus vivendi. Our mothers and sisters whose backs were hunched over in traditional kitchens worked standing upright in modern kitchens. The central heating system prompted the complete removal of coal briquette heaters. The skin on the hands and faces of children as well as adults started showing the color of a better life.

More and more, the number of people rushing to sell their houses to move to apartment buildings increased. Of course the people on the other side belittled such behavior as vulgar.

Then came the explosion in the 80s. The big bang of the universe of apartments opened up. Crowds of onlookers flocked to show houses and a sea of people flooded the allotment offices when new apartments became available for purchase. The prices of apartments went up overnight, and people became ecstatic with dreams of making a fortune. It was not at all uncommon for some people to move into an apartment and live only for a short period of time without even unpacking, until they bought a new apartment to move into. The so-called era of apartment speculation frenzy began.

This phenomenon continued for well over 25 years, and similar scenes were replayed until the mid-2000s. Banks issued loans without question as long as it was for an apartment purchase.

Here we are talking about none other than financial institutions, the very definition of fussiness. This was an apartment mortgage loan, and it was difficult for banks to find a more secure business.

At this point, regardless of what anyone might have said, Korea was precisely a republic of apartments.

This is the point when jeonse, the rental-on-security-deposit system particular to South Korea, takes the stage. Foreigners that returned to their home countries after living in Korea at the time murmured to themselves as they were returned the entire security deposit, having paid no rental fee at all, "I just cannot understand.

What is this jeonse, system of South Korea that enabled us to rent on practically nothing?"

Landlords said, "No" when they were asked to rent their places for a monthly fee. Instead, landlords wanted tenants who would take the rental-on-security-deposit that would let them control over a lump sum of money. Those who are sharp may already have understood the logic. Landlords added a little more money to the received lump sum and bought more smaller apartments. Without exception, the price of those apartments skyrocketed. When the

contract ended and the owners were to return the deposit, the landlords sold the newly acquired apartment in order to make the amount of the deposit. Even then, handsome profits were made.

It was an archetypal win-win game. The renter is fully content that he rented on nothing as the entire amount of the deposit is returned to him; the problem was that the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. Some even went so far as to say that the country was going to collapse because of apartments.

President Roh Moo-hyun's administration ambitiously made this its battle. From the beginning of his term, countless policies were issued with the intention of easing the suffering of the lower income class. However the outcome was always the opposite. It became so bad that at one point the government coined the term "seven bubbles." They had to expand the special zone subjected to the governmental monitoring of rising apartment prices.

One day towards the end of his five-year term, President Roh Moo-hyun said the following: "Aside from apartments, I have done all right." His self-assessment was that although his administration put forth more effort in stabilizing the apartment prices than any previous administration, he suffered a failure in this area. Thus, apartments continued their myth of the eternal winning streak, never resulting in any losses.

Why Does the Image of Occupy Wall Street Resonate?

A significant number of countries in the world are suffering because of apartments (or other real estate properties such as single family homes). The economy, which had been doing fairly well, was now cornered between the cycle of skyrocketing and plummeting apartments prices. Borrowing from President Clinton's winning slogan in 1992, "It's the economy, stupid," I hear myself uttering, "It's the apartment, stupid!"

The root of the current economic difficulty is the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis in 2008. For four or five preceding years, investment banks had started focusing on lending to individuals and corporations for the purpose of real estate acquisition. When this led to a decent profit, the financial sector was quick to extend its focus to lending to lower income classes with less than prime credit histories, with apartments and houses as collateral.

Starting from 2007, there were signs of falling real estate prices. Quickly, many had problems with loan repayments.

This, in turn, caused prices to fall even faster. Many ended up defaulting on their loans; all fell into a downward spiral that became a crisis. This is the core of the subprime mortgage loan crisis.

In essence this was not very different from the economic crises of Spain and Italy that affected the entire world economy during

2011-2012. Moreover, Japan entered another tunnel of recession, as their apartment bubble had collapsed long before. The lost decade of Japan that began in 1991 has seen no end in sight even after over 20 years.

In China as well, there have been waves of real estate investments on speculation centered around Shanghai, Beijing, and Tianjin during the past 20 years. What is different in this case is the learning effect. With every given opportunity, the Chinese government has expressed its determination not to repeat the mistakes of countries such as the U.S. and Japan, and has followed up with regulatory policies.

Currently, what is attracting most attention is Likonomics, which contains the direction of the economic policy of China in recent years. This is significant in that it is the economic policy of Premier Li Keqiang and that at its core, it entertains the possibility of lowering the bottom line of the rate of growth if need be while focusing on economic reformation and restructuring instead of stimulus. As a result, the probability of a real estate bubble seems to be decreasing.

What about South Korea? South Korea seems to be facing a time of considerable tribulation, having been unable to avoid what economists calls path dependency. People who overextended their investments through loans on collateral are the house poor, in no better position than a beggar with a house. They saw the process of an overheating market and the formation of a bubble, and were able to clearly foresee the eventuality but could not choose another path.

Originally, a house is one's living space. Insofar as apartments are concerned, we need to return to this basic. We must turn it back around from a means of increasing assets to a space for living. We are faced with the situation where the bubble must be removed and restructuring is the only option.

I cannot forget the image of Occupy Wall Street that started in Zucotti Park on Wall Street, the financial district in Manhattan, New York. It was a criticism and revolt against the losing game that highly trained financial experts played on real estate assets. The greed of the one percent can force the global community into another crisis again any time. The time has come for all those who would like to create wealth from apartments to listen carefully to the wishes and warnings of the "occupy" protesters.

by Huh Eui-do

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Korea's Apartment Buildings

The Apartment: Mirage of the Middle Class Once the dream of the middle class, apartment ownership now symbolizes success and the beginnings of a consumer-oriented society. But behind the rows of identical exteriors and predictable interiors lie the shadows of monochromatic architecture and modernity. As the new millennium progresses and economic uncertainty prevails, so begins the dawn of the post-apartment era.

Military Style Construction The myth of the growing middle class was one of the key factors that sustained Korean society during the latter half of the 20th century. The family photo with four brightly smiling faces with the backdrop of a decent job, a thousand square foot apartment, and a mid-size sedan was a picture-perfect representation of the reality of the material affluence created by rapid economic growth. However, at the end of the last century, with the onset of the 1997 Asian financial crisis, cracks started appearing in this image of perfection. On the surface, it did not seem like the crisis would last. A variety of emergency policy measures were issued by the government, and the middle and the lower classes were ready to march on to overcome the national crisis. Subsequently, the real estate market started trending upwards, and it seemed that the middle class myth was restored to its former self.

However, all became clear when the 2008 global financial crisis, originating in the U.S., hit the world. A significant number of the middle class was carrying on as if everything was normal up until that point. At the sudden news from across the Pacific, they started staggering as if they had been dealt a fatal blow. As a result, the internal differentiation of the middle class rapidly commenced, and the apartment, once the defining symbol of the middle class, was demoted to becoming a mere nuisance.

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Why did this happen?

First, let us turn our eyes towards the Gangnam area of the mid to late 1970s when a concentration of massive apartment complexes was constructed. A gaze from afar in a helicopter looking over a construction site would be perfect. Looking at these Gangnam apartments of the period from such a bird's-eye view, it is difficult not to see its resemblance to a massive military base.

Of course, this sentiment is not new.

The observation that the overarching view of apartment complexes resembled military bases was valid because they were both constructed in a similar fashion. Both shared characteristics that were apparent in the construction process; in the 70s and 80s, during the military regime, the construction of much of these large complexes was conducted as if they were military operations. Within this context, apartment units were approached as standardized blueprints in terms of square footage, construction materials, the complex layout, and their construction schedules.

The occupants were just statistics.

If apartments, indeed, were built in a manner comparable to a military operation, what would be the ultimate goal of maintaining such a militant perspective from conception to completion? Could it have been the development of a particular housing model that could then be duplicated on a massive scale in new sections of Seoul and its satellite cities as the economy grew?

nowhere to hide. Therefore, a gaze exercises omnipotence, and the space where that power is expressed at its maximum is the living room. The objects in the living room are disarmed meekly, without resistance, by the gaze of the person walking in through the front door, and play the part of a picture that exists as lines on a plane.

Korea Land & Housing Corporation apartment complex under construction, 1976 (National Archives of Korea)

Could it, moreover, have been the development of a new order in the daily life of the occupants of that model?

One of the phrases that the military regime used frequently during the industrialization period, which led to the construction of t hese apa r tments, wa s "huma n reform." Contra r y to popular belief, the object of this reform was not limited to industrial workers and agricultural producers. Of course, an industrial worker was subjected to realizing the most optimized consumption of physical energy by fusing himself to the machines of the assembly line; an agricultural producer was to be reborn as the pillar of the New Community Movement by equipping himself with an earnest, diligent spirit. However, the middle class that emerged along with the nation’s economic growth, was also a subject of reform. The apartment was where this middle class was reformed into city dwellers with contemporary sensibilities, as if conducting experiments on the new order. As is well-known, this experiment took place through the building of apartment complexes in Gangnam for more than a decade, stretching from the mid-1970s to the late 80s.

Inside the Frame Now, let us open the front door and take a peek inside the apartment itself. The living room plays a central role in the resident's acquisition of a contemporary sensibility by allowing the experience of a new day-to-day. The living room positions itself as the space where the lives of family members (who have their own rooms) intersect, and as a space where emotional bonds are formed. In the midst of this process, the living room emerged as the central axis of the interior space. Literary critic Kim Hyeon says the following about the interior space of the 1,000 square feet apartment he lived in during the early 80s: "In an apartment, an object loses its volume and becomes like a picture that exists as lines on a plane. Everything is laid out on a plane. So, everything falls within sight at a glance. In an apartment, all people as well as objects have no place to hide themselves. Everything is out in the open. However that openness is only superficial; it is not of depth."

According to Kim Hyeon, objects cannot find any place suitable for hiding themselves in the interior space of an apartment. They cannot help but be exposed since there is

view of the living room of an apartment in Gwacheon, 1991 (Saemikipunmul)

What plays an important role here is the window that is open to the balcony, which takes up an entire wall of the living room.

This window, instead of displaying a view, is devoted to fulfilling the functions of lighting and ventilation. Of course, it is not difficult to look outside standing at the edge of the balcony while leaning on the railing. However, it is of no use. The surrounding view is far from an open scene; rather, the view is completely blocked off. Other apartment buildings surround it on all sides.

Instead, the balcony window becomes a cause of concern for the resident. It is the perfect passage for the anonymous gaze to peek in, in secrecy, from the building on the other side. Tall fences were commonly raised around single family houses. In contrast, in apartments, the role of the fence was relegated to curtains on the balcony window.

The interior space of this cube is sealed air-tight so as to block out the outside gaze. The right to look into this space is given only to those who have rung the bell and entered through the front door. Upon entering, one’s gaze automatically falls on the balcony window in the living room. At this moment, the balcony window functions as a kind of a reference plane that renders the living room in a single glance. Straight lines project out from the four vertices of the reference plane and travel along the edges of the inside corners, partitioning the visual field according to the rules governing a perspective drawing. Subsequently, the gaze over the living room is guided by these straight lines. In other words, as the balcony window produces a sense of depth, the gaze charges toward it.

Though the landscape of the living room was fixed by the frame of perspective, it could not suppress the desire for consumption by the middle class which had just completed "acquiring my own castle." Some tried to decorate the living room with expensive antiques and ornate furniture to show their aristocratic taste; some, unable to withstand the inhuman texture of such artificial materials as concrete and metal, tried to dress their interior space and objects in frills, following trends in interior list_ Books from Korea

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design; yet others, lamenting that they must live in a gardenless house, created an artificial garden with a variety of plants and ornamental trees in the living room and on the balcony.

Because the beginning of the apartment building age was marked by all manners of trends in interior design that swept through living rooms, some called the situation inside apartments the warehouse of the kitsch. Yet this new middle class had only just acquired their own apartments, and they could not pay attention to such criticisms. The majority of them were entrusted, without much preparation, with the duty of filling the empty frame, and they had yet to acquire the modern sensibility befitting the interior space of the apartments.

In the meantime, the television as object played the role of subduing the chaos in the living room. The television, whose place in a single-family home was originally in the main bedroom, moved out to the living room and achieved a visual balance of the interior space. First of all, by capitalizing on the eye-catching quality of the screen, the television provided the basic frame for composition in the placement of objects. It is the layout of a theater. On one side of the living room was the television, and on the opposite side was the couch.

Next, the television intervened in the logic behind the interior design of individual objects. The new design element of the television, which became widely available with the introduction of color broadcasting in the beginning of the 1980s, played an important role at this stage. The television, once produced in a style resembling wooden furniture, became a black plastic box with a modern look. It reigned over the living room space along with the home stereo system and the videotape player.

In step with such changes, other objects placed in the living room also started changing in relation to the television. Now, the objects obeyed the approach of modern design, form following function, and started finding their places in the interior of the living room frame.

Satellite Cities As the massive apartment complexes constructed in Gangnam during the 1970s and 80s became established as the model residential arrangement of the middle class, apartment buildings very rapidly began occupying the new urban center of Seoul as well as the new satellite cities in the surrounding area. These Soviet-style concrete buildings were constructed in the areas of Mokdong, Sanggye, Junggye, and Gwacheon during the 80s; they were built in five new satellite cities during the 90s: Bundang, Ilsan, Pyeongcheon, Jungdong, and Sanbon. These buildings were claimed as their shares by some of those belonging to the generation born in the 1940s and 60s; this group was raising families and "acquiring my own castle" as opportunities arose.

In the 1980s, in the new urban centers of Seoul, the majority of these individuals were able to purchase apartments at the price of $1,300 per 35 square feet; in the new satellite cities, the price was $2,000 per 35 square feet during the 90s. These prices were relatively low, a result of a government housing supply policy built on the village industry policy inspired by Henry Ford.

Some bought their apartments with the money they earned as workers on construction sites in Middle Eastern deserts; some purchased theirs with lump sums saved after years of work; some had theirs bought for them by their parents. A significant number of these buyers were members of the white collar work force before moving into apartments; after their move, they started planning the life of middle class consumers.

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Two economic bubbles caused the steep rise in the prices of apartment buildings. One in the mid to late 70s was due to the success of an export-centered economic policy, and the other in the mid to late 80s was due to the three lows—low oil prices, low interest rates, and low dollar-to-yen exchange rate—which gave Korean products a more competitive edge in the world market. In turn, the middle class that owned these apartments enjoyed that much more economic power. It was this economic prosperity that enabled new apartment dwellers to experience the new order in their daily lives and acquire a modern taste and sensibility.

From this perspective, prior to the government-instated regulation policies in the first decade of the new millennium, apartments were a social system that distributed material wealth in favor of the middle class. The sources of this energy—what powered this system that virtually became a substitute for a social welfare system—were the 10-year cycles of high economic growth.

However, the situation changed after the financial crisis of 1997, otherwise known as the IMF Crisis due to the subsequent IMF bailout. The economy staggered; government regulations on real estate grew weaker or were lifted altogether. One thing that did not change, however, was the desire for asset income, a desire that had become familiar to residents after 20 years of apartment ownership. The skyrocketing apartment prices in the first half of the first decade of the new millennium was the result of this desire’s having inflated its own volume using bank loans. Signs that signaled the entry into a low-growth society were all over the economy, but the middle class did not even blink.

Now after 10 years, the era of slow economic growth is unfolding before our very eyes. The bleakest social problems are household debt and the low birth rate. Before the year 2000, the household debt equaled about 10 billion dollars. Before anyone noticed, it crept up to 100 billion. The annual birth rate, which was once 600,000 to 700,000 babies a year, is barely hanging on at 400,000 a year since 2002. The time is coming in which a middle class life, once symbolized by the apartment, can no longer be sustained. Then, will we be able to design a daily life that will be compatible with the era of slow economic growth while we avoid inviting in a bubble economy? It is in this vein that a post-apartment-era housing model must be considered first, even before preparing for the future of a slow growth society. It will not be easy, but overcoming the temptation of pursuing asset income and material affluence will be the first hurdle to overcome.

by Park Hae-cheon

Special Section

Korea's Apartment Buildings

Imagined Spaces: The Apartment in Literature

While apartments filled the physical landscape of the city, the lives of those living in these identical, stifling boxes ignited the imaginations of writers.

1.

Is it heaven or hell? Koreans cannot ask this of the apartment because the apartment in Korea is already a permanent reality.

A lthough the apartment is one of the by-products of the architectural nightmare that was conceived of by modern man, it was the best choice for Korea. Korea is a country that, like a mirage, was built on the ruins of the Korean War. What sustained this country was the power of urbanization and centralization.

People who aimlessly moved to Seoul, a Korean megalopolis, provided cheap labor, and their residences were usually traditional houses or shacks. Residential space was always scarce. Also, the city structure, which was a collaboration of every type of residency, was impoverished. As a result of rapid modernization, traditional villages and residential space became saturated. Under those circumstances, the apartment became a middle class dream.

Of course, the apartment could not have been originally considered a normal residential space. In Jo Jung-rae’s novel The Sloping Shade, written in 1973, the main character Bok-cheon, an old man, learns that “people live in layers on different floors of tall five or six story buildings, not just one or two story buildings,” and finds it strange that “people light fires above someone else’s head, and that someone else lights fires above another; people use the toilet and someone eats meals below them; meanwhile, people bear and raise children; people are laid over other people, and they make a home and live a life over one another.”

Soon, however, the advantages of the apartment emerged. The apartment is a housing style that nakedly reflects the speed of modernization specific to Korea. It is simply a product of historical amnesia. The square, vertical city is built where nature, wetlands,

1

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3 1. The Flower at the Equator Choi In-ho 2. A Stranger’s Room Choi In-ho, Minumsa Publishing Group.

2005, 426p, ISBN 9788937420092 3. The Sloping Shade Jo Jung-rae, Hainaim Publishing Co., Ltd. 2011, 300p, ISBN 9788965740049

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19

Special Section

villages, and roads have disappeared without a trace. The residents moving into an apartment building are homogeneous, anonymous beings. Anyone who knows how individuals were destroyed by the impact of a foreign government system, and about the interference of community in Korean modern history, could easily assume what a relief it must have been to hide behind the anonymous space of an apartment. Once the entrance door is closed, they could protect their family with the minimum level of peace allowed to them. Moreover, as their properties became easily quantified, even their lives became abstract and nomadic.

Government housing policy was always structured around the apartment, which could have a large effect in a short period of time. In doing so, Korea has become a republic of apartments.

Natura lly, numerous Korea n litera r y work s f ind the apartments as their only habitat. The most representative work among all of these is Choi In-ho’s The Flower at the Equator (1982).

The protagonist of the novel is a man called by his initial, M. He starts peeking in secrecy at every move of a young woman who just moved into the apartment across from him. For more effective observation, he purchases a telescope and starts photographing her with his camera. He thinks, “If I could peek into that apartment through my telescope, I would be able to see every detail of her beautiful face and her sometimes angry or tired expressions, as if I were a pathologist, observing the multiplication of bacteria using a microscope.”

Life in the apartment is visualized in this way, and the residents of the apartment unconsciously suffer from voyeurism.

The relationship between “the one who sees” and “the one who is seen” finally makes M entertain a fantasy of power. He intends to intervene and control her life. Therefore, he comes to think, “If I could make her into a plaster sculpture, if I could have her, a living being turned into an object of taxidermy, and if I could stuff her, decorate the surrounding with all kinds of f lowers and colorful leaves of the trees, and lay her down around me.”

What enables such voyeurism is his solitude, isolated without his family. In the short story "A Stranger's Room" by the same writer, even when a couple lives together, the ghostliness of being does not disappear. In this story, the husband who came back from a business trip slowly turns into an object while reading his wife’s letter that reveals she is having an affair.

2.

Let us now turn to a brief overview of novels by women, the genuine inhabitants of apartments. The images of these women were portrayed in Choi In-ho’s The Flower at the Equator: “What remains are only rooms of the same standard, the spaces of the same size, the partitions of the same structure as anywhere else, and any home in the apartment. Therefore, a woman’s everyday life in this space, laughing, crying, eating, being in love, talking, making love, loathing, and wailing, is merely an apparition, such

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as a shadow play featured on a screen.”

Park Wansuh’s short stor y "The Resemblant Rooms," published in 1974, is probably the first fiction that dealt with the space of the apartment and women’s lives. This residential space that was sought out of an expectation of a convenient life is soon regarded as an object of disgust. In the story, life is compared to that of a “prisoner serving a life sentence.” One night, the protagonist in the story goes to the apartment next to hers while the woman next door is away, visiting her parents. She then has sex with the man next door, who was asleep. However, because everything there is just like her own place, it does not even occur to her that she is committing adultery.

Since 1990, the apartment in novels has spread its roots deeper in women’s lives and started to take a bleaker tone. In Jeon Gyeong-rin ’s novel The Woman Herding Goats, the protagonist keeps calling to ask about the price of a house by the river.

However, she and her friends are not able to escape the apartment.

The apartment has just become a bright prison cell for these women. It is a nightmarish life, which can be summed up in these words: “On a quiet afternoon when I look at the chicken cooplike households partitioned only by walls, I get caught up with a feeling more absurd than when I hear the most bizarre story in the world; a mature woman is in each partition; each of them cooks, cleans for a man; when their men come back at night, they fulfill their sexual duties; they go to their men’s house to hold a memorial ceremony for his ancestors… And they gave birth to a child or two; men complain that they can’t even die because of their family; in that chicken coop a normal woman spends five to 10 years raising children by herself… And then, one day, she wakes up at dawn, and her feet have stiffened and become hard.

She finds herself unable to walk out and leave forever.” Therefore, a goat forcibly left behind by a certain man could represent the desire of a woman who wants to escape a space, such as the apartment.

In the novel The Fruit of My Woman, the writer Han Kang contemplates this sort of life in the apartment, extending her view to the entire city. A mysterious bruise has spread over the body of the protagonist’s wife, which seems to be a disease caused by living in the apartment: “I feel like I am slowly drying up towards death here, where, supposedly, seven hundred thousand people are gathered and living. I hate the several hundred or thousand people in the same building, the same kitchen in each partition, the same ceiling, the same toilet, bathtub, and even elevator. I hate it all: the park, the playground, the shopping center, and the crosswalk.” Unlike the narrator who desires the average life of a city dweller, the apartment is nothing but a barren space that cannot bear any kind of life for her. In this space, she dreams that she has transformed into a giant plant, “breaking the ceiling of the veranda, passing through the upstairs’ veranda, going up through the 15th, 16th floor, breaking cement and steel bars, and

stretching all the way up to the rooftop.” This becomes reality.

In the novel A Wife’s Box by Eun Hee-kyung, the wife falls into a deep sleep instead of turning into a plant. In Insects, by Oh Soo-yeon, the insects swarming the apartments are the problem. “All kinds of insects that should belong to the jungles keep rushing into the apartments. How could we have so many of these various and countless insects in a new satellite city next to Seoul, where all is covered by cement and asphalt?” No one knows. Nevertheless, all the people who live there quietly endure because they have to pay for apartments they can barely afford.

Apartments are paid for with retirement benefits from working all their lives, or mortgages that take entire lifetimes to pay back. The protagonist goes to see a dermatologist and only wants to have her skin problem treated. However, at the end of her fight against the insects, she also turns into a giant insect.

3.

So far, the novels mentioned have shown, in fact, how deeply eager Koreans are for a life after apartments. Apartments have continued to evolve, ref lecting this desire. But life in the apartment is fundamentally a life in which everything is quantified and abstracted. Even giving birth and raising a child are calculated by the expense, not out of joy and appreciation. Apartment residents want reasonable and convenient lives. Nonetheless, from an unseen place, such as deep inside our subconscious or in a space unknown to us, screams rise up, and resistance begins. People become sick and turn into objects, and the insects swarm.

Of course, here, a dilemma exits. Many people feel that life in an apartment is unbearable. But at the same time, most of these people show reluctance towards an inconvenient, non-apartment living environment. It may be true that poets and writers are particularly negative about apartments. Because if literature is to continuously pursue the fundamental contemplation of life, the space of the apartment, with its homogeneous, abstract, and one-dimensional characteristics is, in many ways, the space of anti-literature. The apartment is not suitable to dreams. In apartment buildings, human beings merely transform into noise, a bothersome nuisance, between floors, and naturally, poetry emerges even there:

Pleasant Noise

by Ko Young-min

If someone downstairs drives a nail into the wall The whole building vibrates.

To make A crack in a huge building The whole building gives up its own seat.

If a mirror gets hung in the crack, over a nail, Look, if we yield little by little, just little by little, It's not a problem at all For a person to enter.

The noise in the middle of night, I smile and endure.

Korean poets are bound to ask, “What do the poets of today’s apartments write?” One can dream of escaping the apartment, but the reality makes it difficult. Therefore, Ko gazes into the space of the apartment and wants to find hope there. As a being nailed into the square, concrete walls, this pained, citizenry-minded creature's slow yielding in order to accept the other is desperate, and at the same time, beautiful.

The ethics of the apartment building is integrated into the noise between f loors. Despite the desperate wish for a postapartment world, our reality remains in re-building or remodeling the preexisting apartments. Thus, the city dweller in that world must should endure the noise between f loors and minimize one’s own noise for others.

by Son Jong-up

4

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7 4. A Long Day Park Wansuh, Munhakdongne Publishing Corp.

2012, 290p, ISBN 9788954617383 5. The Woman Herding Goats Jeon Gyeong-rin, Munhakdongne Publishing Corp.

1996, 326p, ISBN 8985712993 6. The Empty House Oh Soo-yeon, Kang Publishing 1997, 292p, ISBN 9788982180149

5

7. A Wife’s Box (1996 Yi Sang Literary Award

Anthology) Eun Hee-kyung et al., Munhaksasang Co., Ltd.

1998, 430p, ISBN 9788970122847

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

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21

Interview

A Miner of Language:

Literary Critic Lee O-young An exceptionally eminent scholar, writer, and critic, Lee O-young has lived through Korea’s tumultuous changes throughout his 80 years.

Lee takes a look at his career and the cultural contributions he has made to understanding Korea and her neighboring countries, China and Japan.

1

Kim Do-eon: You have devoted your life to varied creative pursuits, starting with your career as a literary critic, then novelist, poet, playwright, contemporary literature scholar, semiologist, Japanese culture scholar, opening and closing ceremonies director for the 1988 Seoul Olympics, as well as the first Minister of Culture, instrumental in implementing cultural policies. But your starting point was literature.

I find this to be very meaningful. How did it come to be that literature was your introduction to your creative career?

Lee O-Young: Literature is an art form that has language as its medium. I’ve worked in many different fields, but they all required imaginative work with language as their foundation. Also, I was in elementary school during the Japanese occupation when the Korean language was banned from schools, on top of which we had to change our names into Japanese ones. I lost the Korean I learned from my mother as a three-year-old. I think this encouraged a strong awareness of my native language. It wasn’t until middle school that I learned to read and write Korean. There are many writers in the world, but you’ll rarely come across writers like me who are writing in the native language they lost and then managed to learn again at the age of 13.

Others may take it for granted, but even now, I believe the ability to write freely in Korean has been the greatest blessing of my life, and I am grateful for it. People think that I’ve had many jobs in many fields, but that is a misunderstanding. I’ve had only one occupation: as a miner of language.

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Kim: In This Earth and In That Wind is your most well-known work. It’s one of very few books in the history of Korean publishing that has never gone out of print in the 50 years since it was first published, and it has sold over 2.5 million copies. What was your intention in writing this book, and what do you believe is the reason for its widespread popularity?

Lee: In This Earth and In That Wind is a steady seller, and amongst my works it has also been translated into the greatest number of foreign languages. It’s been translated into English, Japanese, Chinese, and Russian. I believe there was a great interest in this book because it dealt with Korean culture. Considering the publishing climate in 1960s Korea, when getting a book published was itself a challenge, it was almost miraculous that my book was published in so many languages. I 22 list_ Books from Korea

Vol.21 Autumn 2013

1. The Semiotics of Space Lee O-young, Minumsa Publishing Group 2000, 508p, ISBN 8937411423 2. In This Earth and In That Wind Lee O-young, Munaksasang Co., Ltd. 2008, 290p, ISBN 9788970128201 3. Smaller Is Better: Japan’s Mastery

of the Miniature Lee O-young, Munhaksasang Co., Ltd.

2008, 437p, ISBN 9788970128252

Interview

"To me, language was a bamboo arrow in the beginning, but later turned into a brush."

literary critic Lee O-young and novelist Kim Do-eon

was surprised. This was a time when even educated foreigners couldn’t have given you a confident answer if you’d asked them whether the Korean language had its own alphabet.

It was first translated and published as a volume in the Royal Asiatic Society series, but after that, commercial publishers took an interest and picked it up. I think the book owes its domestic and foreign success to its frank portrayal of Korean culture. Generally speaking, when a Korean writes a book about Korea, they tend to take a patriotic or masochistically self-critical angle. But my depiction of Korea in this book is as frank and true to life as looking into a shaving mirror.

There was actually an incident that inspired this book.

We were driving through the countryside in a jeep when the driver urgently honked at an old couple on the dirt road ahead of us. The startled old couple grabbed each other’s hands and ran straight ahead like chicken or ducks. They had never come across a jeep in their lives, and did not know how to make way for one on a dirt road where they’d only ever seen carriages.

That image was burned into my memory. So I thought I should write about the surprised expression, the way Koreans are chased ahead like animals, and how desperately they cling to each other’s hands.

Kim: Your other well-known work Smaller Is Better: Japan’s Mastery of the Miniature, is critically acclaimed as a masterpiece in the field of Japanese culture theory. I’ve read articles written by many Japanese readers including critics such as Karatani Kojin, who revisited this book nearly 30 years later. Your interest in Japan and China has encouraged you to establish the Korea-China-Japan Comparative Culture Research Center.

Was it the geographical proximity, or were there other aspects that drew you to this field?

Lee: I wrote that book in Japanese and the manuscript was published by a Japanese publisher. It’s not a translation, so the down-to-earth voice comes alive in the text. As I have mentioned earlier, I’d learned Japanese before Korean, and so 24 list_ Books from Korea

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this ability is also a scar that history left on me. The upside, however, was that I was able to look at Japanese culture from an unbiased, childlike point of view, much like the child from the fairy tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes” by Hans Christian Anderson.

For instance, we had a folk painting at home depicting munbangsau (writing materials such as paper, brushes, and inkstone), but at my Japanese friend’s house, I would see Japanese swords in the tokonoma (alcove where objects of value are displayed). When my mother saw a kitchen knife around the house in any room other than the kitchen, she would quickly remove it, saying it was bulsangjimul, or an “inauspicious object.” This is a pretty significant cultural difference. Of course, in the West, people eat holding knives.

It is the same with China. When we were young, we referred to the Chinese as “silk merchants.” The Korean word for merchant, sangin, comes from the Chinese word, shangren, which means “person from the Shang dynasty.” In the eyes of Koreans who scorned merchant activities, all Chinese immigrants must have seemed like merchants. Perhaps because I had this firsthand experience with the Chinese as a child, I was able to be free from the preconceived notion of China as an inherently Confucian culture. The Japanese and Chinese inside me helped me define the identity of Korean culture and also instinctively distinguish between Western and East Asian culture. This later led me to cultural theory and, further, 21st century civilization theory.

Kim: In your literary criticism, you have worked through 1950s existentialism and then moved on to semiotics and structuralism. How did you first become interested in structuralism? You also wrote The Semiotics of Space, a seminal work, as your focus shifted to littérature engagée, phenomenology, semiotics, and structuralism. Could you tell us a little bit about this book?

Lee: The culture of man tends to evolve, and I have

always had a propensity for self-renewal. Until the April Revolution of 1960, my language was the language of engagement. To use an analogy, it was like an arrow shot at a target. Bamboo is used to make arrows, one of the most primitive weapons. But bamboo is also used to make brushes, the writing utensil of the East. To me, in the beginning, language was a bamboo arrow but later it turned into a brush. Language evolved from a tool to language for the sake of language. And in that transition, I became interested in semiotics. Mikhail Bakhtin, in his analysis of Dostoevsky, claimed that drama always happens on the threshold, and Roland Barthes also attempted to analyze Racine by utilizing the concept of space.

The Semiotics of Space was my analysis of the Korean poet Yu Chi-hwan’s works based on the idea that they are composed of architectural spaces. For instance, when I analyzed “Flag,” a poem by Yu Chi-hwan, I did not see it as an ideological symbol but saw it from a spatial point of view. It doesn’t embody the idea of rising up to the sky or plummeting to the ground. It is simply suspended, fluttering in between. And that is how the poetics of the flag as a space between the sky and earth, inside and outside, was born. I discovered that the language of literature carries new symbolic meaning depending on its spatial location.

Actually, semiotics and structuralism are at the heart of the school of Yin-Yang and the Five Elements or I Ching. This becomes self-evident when we see people influenced by these philosophical concepts choose sites for houses or graves based on geomancy and have specific places for specific food when setting the table for memorial rites. In Korea, even wailing is based on semiotics. When a person dies, the cries of the bereaved are different from other mourners. I believe that analyzing Korean things through its traditional symbols is a valid approach. In the end, this is connected to the act of finding the Korean identity.

terms like gyeongseo or wiseo to refer to books. Gyeongseo and wiseo mean “warp” and “weft” respectively, as in weaving. Books are the weft, and readers use the warp to weave fabric. This fabric is the text. Texts and books are phenomena that occur in the interface between writers and readers. Also, all texts are interwoven. Strictly speaking, all texts borrow from other texts.

This is called the hypertext. The crisis we face today has less to do with medium and more to do with textuality. Whether books are made of paper is not the main issue. We must ponder on what we would share and how to fight against the decay of time. These days, non-linguistic signifiers, such as emoticons, have a greater ring than linguistic ones. I believe these things should be taken into consideration in discussing text-based books.

Kim: You are 80 this year, and yet you don’t seem old. You don’t feel old, do you?

Lee: I don’t. If you look at the number 8 sideways, it becomes the sign or infinity or the Möbius Strip. “8” disappears from “80” and becomes two zeros. In other words, “80” is three empty circles. In the end, whether you’re old or young is entirely up to your imagination.

by Kim Do-eon

Kim: You played a key role in founding Munhaksasang, a leading Korean literary magazine. You actively introduced internationally renowned literary figures such as Alain RobbeGrillet, Eugène Ionesco, and Constantin Virgil Gheorghiu through special features. What did you hope to accomplish by introducing them to Korean readers?

Lee: I introduced these writers to Korea specifically because of their ideological standpoints, not just because they were popular and well-respected. They were handpicked in the spirit of overcoming the obstacles of modernity through intellectual solidarity among writers with a critical eye on contemporary material civilization. The East and West have great potential to benefit from one another through interaction. Japan developed the technology to mass produce the video player invented in the West, and Nam June Paik, a Korean artist, used it as his medium of artistic expression.

Kim: I understand you were invited to give a talk at the Tokyo International Book Fair opening event. What do you plan to discuss?

Lee: The key topic these days is whether books will continue to exist in the future. But I wonder if books are indeed predicated upon certain morphological conditions. Is a book text on paper? I don’t believe so. In Eastern tradition, we use

In This Earth and In That Wind and its translated versions

Lee O-young is a literary critic born in 1934, although this title alone is not enough to describe his illustrious career. An essayist who produced many bestselling books, he also writes novels and plays as well as reviews.

He also founded the monthly Munhaksasang in 1972 and developed it into a leading magazine of Korean literature. Lee is a professor renowned at home and abroad and a researcher of Korean classical literature. He was the culture planner who organized the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1988 Seoul Olympics. When the Korean government launched the Ministry of Culture, he was appointed the first minister. But it is literary criticism that is at the core of his literary career. His works include: Digilog; In This Earth and In That Wind; Smaller Is Better: Japan’s Mastery of the Miniature; and The Semiotics of Space.

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Excerpt

In This Earth and In That Wind

by Lee O-young Introduction 1. Behind the Landscape It was a county road not even on maps; a road which can be seen in any rural part of Korea if you go a little off any national highway; loess, gravel, and here and there white plantains were in bloom. The road that winds along the base of the mountain extended, tracing a lonely curve without a human sign. Country people usually call it a “cart track.”

We drove along that road in a jeep. Through the windshield, a little more than two spans, I was looking at my homeland; my village, the same as ever, common, constrained, solitary and impoverished; a landscape buried as it has been for many years in the blankness of oblivion. It was a still and simple landscape of broken thatch roofs, stone walls, broken stone tablets along a stream lined by poplars, the Confucian study hall, abandoned graves with their grass plots, acacia, and barley fields.

There was a stillness like the beating of an egret’s wings, a ripple in a pool, a withered leaf falling, a shadowed valley. But it was akin to the stillness around a ruin, a stillness neither to be understood nor wholly explained simply as nostalgia. A lazy sorrow and drowsy stagnation gaped like a void or a deep wound, a sort of pain rather than beauty. Without looking into that void or wound, you cannot truly understand the weak-colored landscape stretching out there.

You cannot feel this without seeing the swollen stomachs of the village children, without smelling the sweat of the rural wives with their gaunt cheekbones, and without hearing their songs and their way of speaking nonchalantly to one another.

As the jeep turned a corner on an eroded hill and began to go down I saw all these things. Although it happens too often and is too trifling to be called an incident, it made a strong impression in on me.

In front walked an old couple. Although they were frightened by the sound of the horn and rushed to try to escape, they seemed to be too frightened. They suddenly grasped each other’s hands and awkwardly ran in front of the car without stopping; and then, as their rubber shoes had fallen off, they stumbled backward to pick them up. The car almost ran them over. This is the whole story of what happened then. It was in sight only for tens of seconds and the car again sped on, leaving them behind as if nothing had happened.

The driver first laughed at their folly and then got angry, but that also was over in a moment. He drove on expressionless, but I remembered everything exactly, and the image did not easily dissipate.

Their faces, suntanned and full of blistered freckles, the fearful and upset expressions, and the contour of their backs as they fled

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like staggering animals; two withered hands tightly clasping each other without wanting to let go even in that emergency, one hand holding a bag with dried haddock sticking out, one hand intending to pick up a pair of rubber shoes… trembling hands….

I have seen Koreans, I have encountered the image of my ancestors who have lived that way for a thousand years; the image of the chased! That image was not as refined as that of a foreigner who leisurely escapes from a car on an asphalt road. Like the driver’s meaningless laughter, their fleeting images reminded me of a flock of ducks and chickens on the roadside as they run away, with the flapping of wings, in front of a speeding car.

W hen misfortune, povert y, a nd t yra nny, a nd so ma ny unexpected disasters assailed them without warning, did they have to be chased away with the gestures of animals? Did they have to escape with such an expression and such trembling hands?

Our secret and our hearts are in this atmosphere; in this earth and in that wind which is so like the color of our skin.

2. On Crying With cries and moans The birds fly overhead.

Tremendous sorrow nests in me And cries and moans after I wake.1 Like these lines from the Goryeo dynasty’s “Song of Green Mountain,” there are those who, whenever they wake up, spend the day crying and in tears. In sorrow they cry, in hunger they cry, and in grievance they cry. Even when they are merry they cry because they are happy. Although the Native American Sioux Indians are known to be a people who cry easily, they can never equal our Korean people.

One cannot speak of Korea without mentioning crying and tears.

Not only do we cry but we hear everything as crying. It all begins with the word “to cry.” When we hear any sound, we automatically call it “crying.” We translate the English “birds sing” as “birds cry.”

Although “sing” means to sing a song, we express it as crying because even the same bird sounds which Westerners hear as a merry song, we hear as sad crying. Even the Chinese, another Asian people, strictly distinguish between the word 鳴(a bird call), 啼(to twitter or chirp) and 泣(to weep silent tears). But we even say that the sound of bells is crying and that the sound of rice paper rustling in the wind on the edge of a Korean-style sliding door is also crying.

In the following poem it is written, “In the bedroom the lighted candle burns. From whom is it separated that it cries on the outside and burns within?” Burning candles are described as crying. And the Joseon dynasty official Wang Bang-yon (王邦衍), in the line “Last night the crying stream shed tears,” heard the sound of a brook flowing as loud crying. Admiral Yi Sun-sin, who has been called the greatest Korean naval hero, in his “Diary in Wartime” shed tears, saying, “Crying, crying, waiting only for death.” As in the Silla dynasty song “Epitaph Dedicated to Chuk-ji”(慕竹旨郞 歌), “Everything weeps longing for the past spring.” There are tears in every tree and in the grass, in the endless reverberations of a bell, and in the sound of a stream. Perhaps we have heard everything in this way because we are a people of many sorrows.

There is a proverb “The hand spinning-wheel eats up the cotton while its sounds are like crying.” How many tears have welled up in the hearts of spinning girls as they turned wheels under the dim lamp? So the girls heard the sound of the click-clack of the spinning wheel as the sound of sobbing, and saw their own fate in the features

of the wheel as it devoured the cotton. Thus what they must do helplessly in tears is termed “crying while eating up cotton.”

A certain scholar of Korean literature indicated that “The custom of our people is that everything begins and ends with crying.” When a person dies, he continues, “the first and the 15th days of the month are traditionally set aside as days of crying” and “one should mourn from the day of death until the coffin leaves the house. The day after the burial one mourns. Afterwards on each first and 15th of the month one must offer sacrifices to one’s ancestors with crying.”

They don’t mourn simply, but according to a very “musical manner,” a formalized ritual of weeping. Even when it is not a memorial day, when we hear rural women complain and sob, we marvel afresh at the rural women complain and sob, we marvel afresh at their wonderfully delicate compositions with varied tempos, like the Yukjabagi folk songs and the sinawi rhythms. A son is dutiful when he cries, as is a loyal subject and a faithful widow. Perhaps this has given rise to the hypothesis that “if you don’t cry, you are not Korean.”

In my country, where there were no dance parties, even love was expressed with tears, Most of the old love stories begin in this fashion: “One dim moonlit night a frail woman sobs in an isolated house. A stranger hears the sound of this crying and asks the woman why she is so sad…” In this way love begins to blossom with a lonely widow. Are tears a harmonizing pill which will solve the relations between the sexes? As in the proverb “Tears fill the vale,” so tears cover our land.

This is evident in the most trifling movie or in radio soap operas where no other country can equal our crying. The crying is such that any actor can do it wonderfully. This is because what we have inherited from our ancestors is this ability for crying and tears.

Why on earth do we have to cry this way? And why do we glamorize our crying and bring our tears into our daily lives, and how in these tears did we forge our morals? Can we say that our arts and culture sprang forth and grew in the tears as clear as crystal?

3. The Shrimp in the East Sea It’s strange. Unlike other peoples, we have been especially conscious of the geographical shape of our country. The shape of the peninsula, which is often compared to a rabbit,2 is used in the design of newspaper mastheads, as a trademark on rubber shoes, and everywhere else. On the wall of the bedroom of a dilapidated thatched hut we sometimes find the shape of the Korean peninsula embroidered with the rose of Sharon and leaf designs. Although the embroidery is clumsy and the flyspecked frame so very poor, it somehow contains the desires of the people and touches our hearts.

Of course the French have loved the Seine, and the Germans have the myth of the Rhine. But these are only a part of their territory. To carve the country’s shape like an emblem or to praise it as “three thousand li of magnificent landscape”3 is rare indeed.

Even in the Japan of the past when chauvinism ran wild, they used as emblems their wooden clogs, the geta, or the peak of Mount Fuji or the cherry blossoms; but the geographical configuration of the country was not emphasized.

Actually there is a sad reason why we have behaved like this: granted that the geographical shape is beautiful and unique, it is chief ly because we have worried keenly about the possible disappearance of our land.

China is a vast land 50 times larger than ours; there are also the wide plains of the north where powerful nomadic tribesmen rose and fell—how could we not be concerned about the fate of our country, a people living on a small peninsula stretching out from a corner of Asia?

Our obsession with aggression has existed since the beginning of our history. We do not talk about 3,000 li because our country is so big or so small. This is neither pride nor a lament; it is assurance and a kind of reaffirmation.

When our land was taken by the Japanese, and now that our country is divided, the shape of the rabbit which is carved in our gears and this clump of earth called “three thousand li” is indelible.

When we hear children loudly singing the anthem “The peninsula of three thousand li,” it is like an appeal to the people of the world that, “This land is ours, please keep your hands off it.”

When we open the map of Asia and study it, it reminds us why we have lived all our lives in suffering. Our geographical position is a fateful one. We know that this has given rise to the proverb, “When whales fight, the shrimp suffers.”

As we may know from the position of the Great Wall of China, which divided the Asian continent into north and south, wars are waged continuously. In the north were the empires of the wild nomadic tribes, the Mongols and the Hsiungnu; in the south was the great agricultural empire, China. They continuously fought for power. Unfortunately, since this peninsula was placed on the eastern border of the north-south powers, it had to be in the position of a sad shrimp.

That is the way it is. Our nation was not a rabbit, but a shrimp.

If the shrimp wants to survive, she must quickly weigh the two powers and attach herself to the stronger one. People castigate this approach as toadyism, but without it the lonely shrimp in the East Sea would have had no future for a single moment.

The Goryeo dynasty survived by attaching itself to the Chinese Song dynasty in the south, and when the Liao in the north became strong, it had to ally with them. When the Yüan became powerful, Goryeo then had to change again.

The fate of this country which had to serve the master of the continent, whether we liked it or not, swung back and forth time after time like a pendulum to the master nation—from the Yuan to the Ming, and from Ming to the Ch’ing in the north-south.4 Although we had our own nation, we couldn’t even use official titles for our own kings.

While living by our wits, we still had to suffer from aggression and oppression, and each time the bud of our culture was nipped. In recent centuries our relationships, caught between Japan and Russia, have become even more complicated.

We have a country, but we are really a wandering group. Now there are no north and south groups; instead the shrimp is caught in the eastern and western whales’ struggles. Our people have not been able to say “We are masters of this land.” The “wanderers in their own fatherland” can only affirm that this is their land by uttering “three thousand li” or by looking at the shape of the country drawn in newspapers or on the bottom of rubber shoes.

These have been the tears of our people, sobbing from hunger… the tears of political struggle like playing yut, and crying from not being able to call our fatherland “my fatherland.” Our tears were shed over all our earth and in all our wind. translated by David I. Steinberg 1. Anthology of Korean Poetry, compiled and translated by Peter H. Lee (New York: John Day Co., 1964).

2. The map of Korea looks like a rabbit facing west with its large ears to the north. It is a common symbol for Korea.

3. A li is approximately one-third of a mile. “Three thousand li” is a common expression used in describing Korea.

4. Goryeo (918-1392) was a Korean kingdom, while the others mentioned were Chinese or became sinicized empires; the Liao (907-1168), the Song (960-1279), the Yüan (1280-1368), Ming (1368-1644) and Ch’ing (1644-1911).

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Interview

The Most Grotesque Is the Most Realistic

With Novelist Cheon Un-yeong Shin Hyoung-cheol: “The Needle,” (2000) your debut work, is still talked about today and cited as your major work. Is it because of the intensity of the first encounter, or is it because it's your best work in reality?

1

Cheon Un-yeong: It could mean that “The Needle” really is a good piece of writing, or it could mean that in the 10 years since I wrote it, I haven’t been able to write anything that surpasses it.

Either way, it’s like a fetter to me. What had built up inside me for 30 years came forth for the first time in the form of a story, so it must’ve had that much impact. And it naturally must have made a strong impression because it deals with a subject matter and theme rarely found in Korean literature. There has been enormous pressure from both inside and out to write something even more intense and original, but I’ve freed myself from that pressure. The intensity of the first encounter can never be relived. But you can show evolution and change over a period of time. My best work is nothing other than my best efforts to write what’s built up inside me.

2

Shin: Since the publication of “The Needle,” there have been imitations of your work, and critics have focused their attention on that. Perhaps “The Needle” has been able to meet the demands of the times. Did you write it with an awareness of what was lacking in Korean literature, or with an innate need to write?

3

Cheon: I didn’t, of course, write it with a strategic decision regarding the current state of Korean literature. I’ve always thought that writing a novel means writing something my body has to do. It’s possible, though, that a thirst for what I didn’t see in Korean literature had built up inside my body.

Shin: Are there writers who had a decisive effect on you building up your “body as a writer?”

Cheon: I liked Song Sok-ze and Kim So-jin, probably because they had completely different “bodies” from mine. Oh Junghee, the novelist, and Choi Seung-ja, the poet, were writers who entered my body and had a direct impact on me.

1. As You Know, Mother Cheon Un-yeong, Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd. 2013, 278p, ISBN 9788932024158 2. The Needle Cheon Un-yeong, Changbi Publishers, Inc. 2001, 258p, ISBN 9788936436612 3. Ginger Cheon Un-yeong, Changbi Publishers, Inc. 2011, 282p, ISBN 9788936433819

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29

Interview

"I realized that I was in the world, and the world was in me."

novelist Cheon Un-yeong and literary critic Shin Hyoung-cheol

Shin: Your most recent work is the novel Ginger. It’s a novel that delves into the essence of evil, based on the true-life figure of Yi Geun-an, a notorious torturer during the 1980s when Korea was in the heat of the democratization movement.

The subject matter must have provoked a great response.

Cheon: A middle-aged man expressed violent repulsion towards this novel at a gathering with readers. His point was that a novel dealing with historical facts must assume responsibility, but this novel was irresponsible because it didn’t punish the wicked. I could only say to him that a novel isn’t a pamphlet. And then a girl raised her hand and said that she didn’t know very much about historical facts but cried while reading the book because she felt sorry for the daughter of the torturer. What she said was very encouraging for me. One of my aims in writing this novel was to see what kind of an effect the evils of an age has on the next generation, and I felt that my goal had been realized.

There was also a reader who contacted me after reading an interview with Yi Geun-an that was conducted after the novel was published. The reader didn’t know whether or not Yi had read the novel, but the logic with which Yi defended his act was very similar to the logic described in the novel. Writing the novel was a painful process for me; I felt as if I myself had become a torturer. But I believe that my efforts to analyze the mechanism of self-justification of evil haven’t been in vain.

Shin: If Ginger is a story about a father, the stories in your fourth collection of short stories, As You Know, Mother, are about mothers. Was “mother” a keyword you had in mind from the beginning, or did you notice it while putting the collection together?

Cheon: Something I personally gained from writing Ginger was that I could put an end to my agony over my father. I could stop resenting him. I came to realize again that writing a novel helps the writer understand who she is. As You 30 list_ Books from Korea

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Know, Mother, is a collection of short stories I wrote while getting ready to write Ginger, and ones I wrote after writing it.

It shows how my interest has moved on from father to mother.

Watching those around me, I’ve come to the conclusion that someone with a bad father can overcome the condition, but someone with a bad mother will have difficulty doing so. I believe that a good mother is a source of strength that enables us to deal with the many problems we encounter in life. But I don’t want to call that source maternal instinct, since that term is tainted with too much ideology. I had bad mothers appear in this collection in order to allow reflection, paradoxically, on the power of a good mother.

Shin: They could be read as stories that inspire you to go beyond either romanticizing or dismantling the idea of maternal instinct and seek a third path. The collection has a lot more to say aside from the subject of mothers. There are a number of passages in the book that appear to be the fruit of a crisis the author herself experienced, physical or existential; a crisis a woman writer has felt, passing through the age of 40. As noted aptly by Cho Yeon-jung, the critic who wrote the commentary on this book, the author’s will to take a transparent look into herself can be felt in the stories.

Cheon: You could see it in the same context as the pressure I felt to write a story that surpassed “The Needle,” and the sense of crisis I felt, thinking that I couldn’t. My body was no longer young, but I pretended it was, dreaming of a young body. I wanted to insist that my body was still fresh. There are too many walls a woman writer faces in Korean society, living alone at age 40. That’s how I came to a crisis point.

Looking back on my stories, I found the root of my crisis.

The author and her work always go together. They’re one, like Siamese twins. To write something good, I had to know my inner self. I looked at myself until I became transparent. I was ashamed but thought I shouldn’t hide anything. Standing naked without deceit, that’s what was required of me in order

to obtain a new body.

without fear and mingle well, and draw out their stories.

Shin: I can’t prove it here in detail, but you seem to have started out by dissecting humans that seem to be agents of desire and impulse, then began to have an interest in others around you; now you seem to have taken on the literary challenge of becoming aware of yourself. The target has changed from humankind to others to self. What’s interesting is that this seems to go against the general flow. Don’t most people start out by being interested in themselves, then others, and then humans in general?

Shin: To add to that, I think one of your strongest points is your ability to push ahead with artificial, unnatural situations in your novels, and make readers accept them in the end.

Cheon: I’m not sure why. I can’t tell you the exact reason, but I myself have sensed such a process of change. If I must put my finger on a reason, I think it has something to do with how my attitude regarding novels, or in other words, what I believe novels can accomplish, has changed.

Shin: Let me put it in a different way, then. How has your attitude about novels changed in the 10 or so years that you’ve been writing? Do you have a different answer now to the question of what a novel is?

Cheon: It could be that my attitude about life has changed.

I used to think that I was distinct from the world surrounding me. I believed that the world was swarming with desire, that it was aggressive and dangerous and that’s why I was wounded, that my wounds would heal only if the world changed, that my novels could change the world. But gradually, my thoughts changed. I realized that I was in the world, and the world was in me. I came to think that I was a little cell making up the world, so if I knew myself, I’d know the world, and if I changed, the world, too, would change, and that in my novels “my thoughts changed” would make this happen. My earlier attitude was much more selfish, self-centered, full of self-love.

If my earlier works were a means of self defense, my recent works are a means of embracing others. So the substance of my novels has moved from the outside to the inside, and my attitude about novels has moved from the inside to the outside.

Shin: Of all the gifts writing requires, what is it that you have, and what is it that you want to take from other writers?

Cheon: I think my attitude regarding novels is somewhat rigid. You could say that I’m obsessed with cutting things down as much as possible to make a novel as exquisite as possible. So I envy those who are relaxed enough to play around with their novels. I write only what I know. I can’t write what I don’t know. So it takes me a long time to collect material in order to learn something. I think one of the gifts I do have is that I can open myself up to people when I’m writing or preparing to write. People often ask me how I’m so good at gathering materials, and I tell them I just do what I’ve always done. I’ve always had a strong desire to go up to those who are different from me and to understand and identify with them. I’ve always hung around working class men ever since I was little, so that may have helped me approach others

Cheon: Paradoxically, reality is more artificial and unnatural than fiction. There’s a story in this collection about two little girls, sisters, who pull out the eyeball of the woman next door. It’s a true story. Novels reveal how certain things that happen in the world, which seem artificial and unnatural, move with a certain internal logic. I’m not saying that what has internal logic is necessarily logical. Some people say that my novels are grotesque, but grotesque doesn’t just mean strange or bizarre. The most grotesque is the most realistic.

Let’s just say that I aim for the most realistic through the most grotesque, equipped with internal logic.

Shin: Who are some of the contemporary foreign authors you’re interested in? From your answer, readers abroad may be able to guess what kind of an author you are.

Cheon: Can I answer that by talking about a recent film I saw? It was Jacques Audiard’s “Rust and Bone.” The question of the body has long been my interest. This film succeeded in talking about the question of the body through the body. It shows how a body in excess and a body in deficiency become aware of each other and adjust themselves to become complete.

What results is a family. I think it’s a great film. Truman Capote and James Salter are among the authors I’m interested in.

Shin: You’ve published four collections of short stories.

If you had to choose just five stories to be published abroad, which would they be?

Cheon: First, “The Needle.” It’s my debut piece, and considered one of my most significant works. “The Corner” is something I wrote to meet the request for a biographical novel, so I think it can help readers understand me better as an author. “I’ll Take You,” “Myoungrang,” and “As You Know, Mother,” are stories that depict the maternal instinct in the most Korean sense, but at the same time, deal with universal human emotions, so I think readers abroad can also identify with them.

by Shin Hyoung-cheol translated by David I. Steinberg

Cheon Un-yeong is a novelist. Born in 1971, she made her debut in 2000 when her short story “The Needle” won the Dong-A Ilbo New Writers Contest. She is the author of the short story collections The Needle; How She Uses Her Tears; Myoungrang; As You Know, Mother; and the novels Farewell to the Circus and Ginger. She received the Arts Award of the Year.

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31

Excerpt

Ginger

by Cheon Un-yeong Beauty is what it takes. Victory always belongs to beauty. Perfect skill is truly beautiful. Beautiful skill. Complete surrender. Perfect victory.

Don’t get so flustered. Each and every movement must be made with economy, with utmost care. No gesture or look must be left to chance. Everything must be carried out for one purpose. One purpose only. Fear. Surrender can be obtained only by extracting the root of fear. Violence without skill breeds nothing more than hatred and resistance. Drawing out fear involves a process, and principles. Once in possession of a perfect skill, you can bring them to surrender with a pen, not an iron bar.

Let me explain what beautiful skill is.

First, take off his clothes. Don’t touch him. Let him take them off himself. Till he’s stark naked. When all his clothes have come off, leave him like that for a while. Make him endure the shame of being naked. Make him see that he has nowhere to turn. Leave him like that till his flushed face turns pale, till his hunched shoulders start shaking, till his drooping balls shrivel.

Then shed a light on him. Flash it on his face and make him close his eyes, then let it spread all over his body. Make him feel its intensity not with his eyes but with his skin. Make sure that his skin reacts, the veins turning a deeper blue, and the pores expanding.

Don’t let it drag too long. Shut off the light before the pricking rays turn into a warm caress. No warmth should be allowed. Eliminate any warmth there is.

There’s nothing like cold water to eliminate warmth. Blast water at him. Make him feel the sting of water that’s as cold as ice. He’ll come to know the fear that lacerates the flesh. The water will spread like a flame. Its light will be darker than darkness itself. A state in which you can’t tell if water is water, flame, light, or darkness, a state in which there’s nowhere for you to turn and nothing makes sense. That’s the beginning of fear. Only a rugged body that has undergone the awakening of fear is ready for subjection to true skill.

Now leave him alone for half a day. After that, time will take care of things. Half a day is enough. He could give you a viewing of his entire life in half a day. In that time, he could think of all the crimes he’s committed, even ones he hasn’t yet committed. He could call to his mind the happiness he’s experienced, and the hope he’d wished for. And his last meal will be digested and gone in that time.

He has nothing to throw up, so nothing will block his airways.

So he won’t go and die on you.

Everything’s ready, so you can flaunt your skill now. Now’s the moment to lay him down on the death bed. What’s a death bed? It’s the sky you carry on your back on your last journey. The sky where the North Star shines in serenity. Beautiful, isn’t it? I made it myself with a board from a birch tree.

Lay him down on the death bed. Make him comfortable, with his ankles strapped and his neck propped up. Cover his pathetic body with a blanket. It’ll keep his skin from scarring. Leave no traces of assault, only bruises on the inside of his bones. Fasten him with four straps, and let him revel in the honor of being one with my beautiful death bed.

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Isn’t he lovely? Lying on the death bed, he’s as mild as a newborn baby swaddled in a blanket. So lovely that you want to put him to the breast. You should put him to the sweet breast, then. But first, cover his face with wet gauze so that the air won’t block his airways.

Pour the water. Slowly, in a small stream. It must enter the throat and the nose at the same time. Don’t cut off the stream of water until it’s filled his throat. It’s no use for him to close his mouth, and he can hold his breath for only so long. The mouth opens, the water goes in. The more he resists, the more he suffers.

Do you hear him gasping for breath? Do you see his chest swelling?

Pour more water. There’s more that leaks than goes in, but no matter. Keep pouring until the water comes out of his eyes. Don’t stop till his mouth stops twitching.

Is his mouth still? Now it’s time for the North Star to move toward heaven. Flip over the death bed. Flip it over, and make him throw up water with the North Star at his back. He’ll come to his senses after that. When he does, flip over the death bed again. And pour water. Simple, isn’t it? What a beautiful device. You don’t need to exert yourself, thrusting his head into the tub; you don’t need to make an effort to lift up his limp body. You just need to flip over the death bed. The water comes pouring out with no effort on your part.

He’ll be drenched all over. All sorts of liquids will come oozing out of every pore in his body. He’ll have pissed himself. And shit himself wet. Spit, sweat, piss. Make them all come pouring out of him. The more that comes out, the more that goes in. Pour water.

And some red pepper powder. Raise the death bed. Pour water.

Don’t hesitate. You can’t turn back. Don’t think of him as a human being. He’s a rock. A tree, grass, a donkey gone mad, a dog, a goat. Nothing more than a rock. Wring out tears from the rock.

Don’t lose control. Don’t betray your emotions. Stay cool. Don’t lose your head. Put on a mask of ice. Let your boiling blood cool. Try not to breathe, even. Keep yourself from sweating. And groaning.

It’s a war. A struggle for your life. Subdue the enemy, or the enemy attacks you. What we’re fighting is the force of evil. Minions of evil who indulge in lies, intrigue, injustice. A mob of evil that dreams of violence, fight, overthrow. We are the good warriors fighting the force of evil.

Let him down. Undo the straps, and lift the blanket. Handle him with care. He’s fully prepared to take in every sensation in existence. His beautiful body will shiver at the tiniest breath of air, and quiver at the gentlest touch. Static will seem to him a flash of lightning. Stars will shine and the sun will rise on his body. Waves will crash, tidal waves will strike. Flowers will blossom and birds will sing. His body will experience a marvelous new act of creation.

Are you awake? Let me see. What a mess you are. Did you cry? Did you wet yourself? No need to worry. Soon I’ll wipe away all the little drops. What makes you sad, what makes you bitter?

Blame yourself for taking part in the works of darkness. Do you wish to confess your sins? It’s not time yet. It won’t be too late, after you’ve had a taste of the essence of my perfect skill. Are you in pain?

Heaven is near. I’ll reveal heaven to you. You’ll hear the song of angels. When it’s over, you’ll revere me.

Feed him some salt. The electrolytes need replenishing. Keep him from dehydrating, and adjust the salt concentration in his body.

Hook up his little toes, the right to negative, the left to positive.

That’s the way of heaven and earth. Now turn on the power. And listen. Listen to the bray of a mad donkey. Watch his tongue roll up, watch his throat swell. Cover his mouth. Gag the mad donkey.

See his red lips turn purple, and the whites of his eyes turn red.

Turn up the current. Watch the power of electricity instantly drying everything up. When the moisture is gone, pour water on him

again. Pour salt water for easy transmission. Check for residual salt on his dry, naked body. Witness the profound moment when white goose bumps give way to soft, downy hair.

Look at the electrified hair. See the beauty of the hair, all standing in one direction. Isn’t it breathtaking? That is true beauty.

The perfect proof of the perfect skill. Soft downy hair charged with electricity.

“Sir!” Who is it? Who dares get in my way at this beautiful moment?

This thrilling moment of complete surrender, this moment of perfect victory. Who? “Sir!” “What!”

“I think you should stop. There’s been a problem.”

“What problem?”

“A casualty.”

“Where?”

“Room 201.”

“Team 3?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Damned rookies...What now?”

“We’ve been ordered to stop all interrogations.”

“Stop?”

I turn my head to get a look at him. His mouth is slack, his neck bent back. His dry white lips are twitching. The lips that were ready to confess. It was nearly finished. All I had to do was get an affidavit. I clench my fist. The back of my hand trembles. * The king was beheaded, and a world of dogs has dawned. In this new world, dogs that had kept their tails hidden have begun to bare their teeth. Fawning dogs with wagging tails and the dogs behind bars have joined in. Packs of mad dogs are running amuck.

It’s all because of the damned mad dogs. What they need is a stick. We should’ve wiped them out before they started going mad.

That’s what we should’ve done. I should’ve gagged that son of a bitch.

I’m stuck in this absurd situation all because of that son of a bitch. That son of a bitch who wanted to be the leader of the dog gang. That bastard, who pleaded for his life, weeping like a girl, and licked the floor and shit like a dog, has gone and done it. He got my picture in the morning paper for the dogs, and blabbed about my beautiful skill.

No, it’s because of the rookies. If not for the way they did things, no one would’ve died; without that useless death, the dogs in hiding wouldn’t have gone mad; and if the dogs hadn’t gone mad, the king wouldn’t have been beheaded. If the king hadn’t been beheaded, that bastard I threw into prison wouldn’t have been released on special pardon, and if he hadn’t been released, my face wouldn’t have been disclosed to the whole world. Rookies. It’s always sloppiness that causes problems.

No, it’s all because of the eyes. They should’ve read the eyes.

They should’ve forced the eyelids open and taken a look at the eyes.

They should’ve noticed the faint light lingering in the pupils. And they should’ve stopped. They should’ve put brakes on their hands, propelled by inertia. They should’ve distinguished between the faint light at the moment of sleep, and the faint light at the moment of death. And they should’ve stopped. Damned rookies.

You have to read the eyes. Reading the eyes is a skill of identifying boundaries. It’s a skill of finding the point between continuing and stopping. It’s a skill of grasping the moment of parting. A skill of seizing the climax, the moment when resistance

gives way to surrender, the moment when they let go and break free from all oppression, the moment when anxiety and relief switch places, the moment when the eyes, full of hostility, become full of respect.

You must not cross boundaries. There are moments when capillaries break, like a taut string, in the white of the eye that’s fraught with tension. There are moments when everything is bright and clear, then become obscure, like fluorescent lights that brighten and darken in a flash before going completely out. In moments like that, the cornea dries out and becomes enveloped in smoke. The gap between the moments when moisture leaves and smoke enters, the gap between the moments when expansion and contraction hold hands then let go—that gap is the apex of life and death. You must stop before you reach that point. True skill is knowing when to stop.

Yes, everything is because of the eyes. The eyes reveal the truth. By reading the eyes, you read everything about the person.

Everything is determined by the eyes. No other part of the body can be relied upon. The tongue indulges in lies, and the body likes to exaggerate. The eyes are honest. The eyes cannot lie. The eyes couldn’t deceive, even if they wanted to. By reading the eyes, you come nearer to the truth. You must read the eyes.

I take out my gun from its case. It’s a Smith & Wesson .38 caliber revolver. This classic gun has the beauty of simplicity and conciseness to it. The best thing about it is the feeling of anticipation you get when you load ammunition into the revolving cylinder, and the refreshing feeling you get when you’re done shooting and you remove the empty cartridges all at once. The gridded grip is a bit too small for my hands, but I like how I can wrap my hand around it completely.

My .38 caliber revolver is loaded with ammunition. I rotate the cylinder and remove the blank ammunition. I pull the hammer back. The sound of the cylinder rotating is pleasing to the ear. I pull the trigger. I hear the sound of the lever being pulled, kicking back the spring. Again, hammer, cylinder, and trigger. And again, hammer, cylinder, trigger. I aim the muzzle at the wall facing me, and pull the trigger. I aim for the incandescent lamp and pull the trigger. And one shot at my temple. Bang. The hollow ringing of the hammer reaches my temple. I stay still as if dead. I feel as if a hot, thick liquid is running down my cheek. I put the gun down. I put the blanks back in the cylinder. I raise the gun. I point the gun at the stain on the wall. What I need to aim at is not my temple, but the dogs’ heads. I cock the gun. I’ll fight the crazy sons of bitches whenever it’s necessary. I close one eye and pretend to pull the trigger. Bang. translated by Jung Yewon

Ginger Cheon Un-yeong, Changbi Publishers, Inc.

2011, 282p, ISBN 9788936433819

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33

The Place

Gwangjang Market: Where History Breathes There are three famous gwangjang (squares) in South Korea: Choi In-hoon’s monumental novel, The Square; the Seoul Gwangjang in front of City Hall, the place of candlelight protests; and the Gwangjang traditional market that boasts a hundred year history.

Origina lly, Gwa ngja ng Ma rket wa s a na me exclusive to a 3,000 pyeong shopping establishment that was privately owned by the Gwangjang Corporation, and located in the center of the market. It now refers to some 60 commercial buildings that are clustered around the Gwangjang Shopping Center.

The market has a 300-year history if one looks at it from a historical perspective, and at least a 108-year history if one considers its establishment from 1905 when the Gwangjang Corporation was founded.

In the latter part of the Joseon era, there were three large open markets in Seoul: The I-hyeon Market, open from early dawn to morning located near Dongdaemun; the Chil-pae Market, around what is now Namdaemun; and the Jongno Market, which opened in the evening.

Among the three, I-hyeon Market was more renowned for its morning Baeogae Market.

Baeogae was a hill that connected the areas of Jongmyo, Dongdaemun, and Cheonggyecheon. There are many stories regarding the genealogy of its name: that there were many pear trees (bae means pear); that it was the last point where a large boat crossing the Han River could reach through to Cheonggye Stream (bae also means boat); and that because of the frequent appearance of tigers, a hundred people had to gather together in order to go up the hill. Baeogae was a morning market that developed around this region.

In 1910, the Joseon empire was annexed by Japan.

But even before that, Korea had been hopelessly subject to all kinds of invasions by Japan. The circumstances of the markets were also bleak. The merchants, who had a strong sense of nationalism, united and established the Gwangjang Corporation on July 5, 1905. Despite much interference, Dongdaemun Market, Korea’s first

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privately owned market, came about at last.

Before the annexation, the Japanese merchants who had developed the Jingogae (Myeongdong) area into a busy commercial center, opened five department stores after 1920. The Hwashin Department Store was built in Jongno. A very small number of people were able to go to Japan and engage in a luxurious shopping spree or shop at the Hwashin Department Store in Jongno. The market for the majority of the people during the Joseon era was Dongdaemun Market. Just as life would have been impossible for most Joseon people if the five-day market had not been maintained, everyday living would not have been possible had there not been a traditional market such as Dongdaemun during the Japanese colonial period. That is the reason why Dongdaemun Market could neither be expanded nor demolished.

Dongdaemun Market was like a fortress. When the sun rose, the four gates on the east, west, south, and north opened and all kinds of items from the entire country started to pour in. Dried fish from the East Coast, coal from mines throughout the peninsula, as well as an assortment of paraphernalia from Japan and the West arrived. But it was agricultural products that were sold in the largest quantity. Fresh vegetables, seasonal fruit, and five grains were transported by horses and cows. Dongdaemun Market was known to have the largest number of agro-fishery products in all of Korea.

The shops were categorized into three tiers. Tier one shops were located in tile roof houses and were wealthy enough to be able to place advertisements in newspapers. Tier two shops were all under tin roofs, and offered mostly agro-fishery products. The tier three shops were vendors who sold things on a mat under a somewhat shabby plank roof; they sold mostly miscellaneous household objects. Around 200 merchants owned the tier one and two shops, and the tier three sellers changed constantly. On average, around 2,000 customers visited daily.

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The Place

Dongdaemun Market was completely destroyed during the Korean War. Only the site of the building remained, but after the war the market became more vibrant. Survivors had to continue to live and the market was a necessity in order for people to go on living. The people who arrived in Seoul in great numbers from all parts of the country settled in the Cheonggyecheon area and as a result, the market region became completely packed with people.

After the recovery of Seoul, there was a presidential order from Rhee Syngman to reconstruct Dongdaemun Market.

President Rhee ordered three international-sized markets to be built in Seoul. The construction of the Gwangjang Shopping Center took place swiftly. From 1957 to 1959 a massive construction project commenced and finally in 1959, it was completed as the building it is today. In other words, the three-story concrete Gwangjang Shopping Center was newly constructed and maintained for 50 years until now in its present form. At that time, most of the buildings around the Cheonggyecheon area were traditional Korean style houses and as these buildings were mostly destroyed during the Korean War, the newly built Gwangjang Shopping Center was the most modern structure between Jongno and Dongdaemun.

The Gwangjang Shopping Center was the tallest building around at the time, and the watchtower mounted on the roof must have made people feel as if they were looking down from a mountaintop. Seoul was the most popular overnight school trip destination for students from the provinces. Gwangjang Market was always included on the itinerary. Students climbed to the top of the watchtower of the Gwangjang Shopping Center building and looked out at the Dongdaemun area.

They took pride in the fact that there was such a big market in Korea, and bought gifts to bring back for their parents from the Gwangjang Shopping Center.

In January 2011 the novelist Park Wansuh passed away.

She was an integral part of the history of Gwangjang Market.

Her novel His House, published in 2004, records in detail the sights of the Gwangjang Market during the 1950s. It delineates the period from after the Korean War when there were hardly 36 list_ Books from Korea

Vol.21 Autumn 2013

any buildings intact up to the post-War construction of the department store era.

O n e c a n n o t f i n d a m or e d e t a i l e d d e pi c t i on o f Dongdaemun Market than in His House. Park’s novel provides a very thorough description of the market as it was then, and the commerce that revolved around it. What is astounding is that things remain pretty much the same to this day.

“It was called a department store or a dry-goods store but in actuality, it was simply a long pathway like an alley; and on both sides the merchants were allotted a single pyeong where they put up a stall without a partition or divider. In the back they hung loose fabric and piled up folded or rolls of fabric by the pathway, and the owner did the business, standing on top of the stall. It looked like an enormous dry-goods store when one just walked into the department store but it was a fierce arena of competition for many one-pyeong business proprietors.”

Of course, the present day Gwangjang Shopping Center is no longer a “fierce arena of competition.” The stores are at least four to five pyeong in size. There are some that are over 10 pyeong. But the absence of partitions or boundaries remains the same, and fabric still hangs loose on the rear wall with the rolled up fabric piled up in a display case by the pathway.

On November 13, 1971 a 22-year-old young man by the name of Chun Tae-il set himself ablaze in the Peace Market across from the Gwangjang Market, shouting “Obey the Labor Law!” “Let my death not be in vain!” The Gwangjang Market has a deep relationship with Chun Tae-il. The prodigious personal records he left behind was compiled by Cho Youngrae, and published into a book, A Single Spark: The Biography of Chun Tae-il. The following is a passage from the book: “The young Tae-il, who had to take on the responsibility of taking care of his family of six, took his younger brother, Tae-sam to the Dongdaemun Market to sell kitchen objects.

They got things like trivets, brushes, strainers, brooms, and

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1. His House Park Wansuh, Segyesa Publishing Co., Ltd. 2012, 308p, ISBN 9788933801956 2. A Single Spark: The Biography of Chun Tae-il Cho Young-rae, Chun Tae-il Memorial Foundation 2009, 340p, ISBN 9788996187424

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grills from a consignment store, paid back the price of the items, and then kept the profit. The trivet was relatively easy to make and therefore the two brothers bought the material from Dongdaemun and made them themselves on the rice paddy of Yongdudong where they lived.”

Tae-il was only 13-years old then. It wasn’t just Tae-il and his family who were destitute, because in those days there were many children who had to work to support their families.

The Biography of Chun Tae-il is filled with heartrending stories of his youth and the young girl factory workers he met in the Peace Market. Chun Tae-il was born in 1948, the year the Republic of Korea was founded. Most of the people from that generation underwent as much hardship as Chun Tae-il.

The older merchants of the Gwangjang Shopping Center experienced as difficult a childhood and youth as Chun.

What they remember the most are those difficult years— horrific childhoods because of poverty and war, when they were inhumanely treated while working in factories and marketplaces. A Single Spark: The Biography of Chun Tae-il is not only a story of one person but about the entire generation that lived during a very difficult period.

“Lament” is a short story by Choi Il-nam that was published in the monthly magazine, Hyundae Munhak, in 1976. The protagonists, a married couple who sell fish in the market, have a dream. “When the couple somehow managed to survive while running a small shop in a market that was on the outskirts of the city, the wife talked about moving to Dongdaemun Market after several years of hard work.

The husband yelled at his wife for being a piker, instead of dreaming big and closing down their small store for a much bigger and more reputable business. Then his wife replied that it was her wish to make a fortune in the grandest market with the same business that they began.” Hence, the Dongdaemun Market before 1976 was grand enough to be the subject of one woman’s life’s dream.

The elder merchants remember the 1970s as the heyday of Dongdaemun Market. “There were so many customers that we

didn’t have enough time to count our money. In those days, we could provide for our children until after college from our one to two-pyeong store. There was such a stream of customers from dawn to late night that our doorsteps got worn out. We were so busy that we sometimes forgot to eat.”

The comedian, Kang Ho-dong, came to Gwangjang Market only once, but it gained the place new renown. The Mayor of Seoul, National Assemblymen, Cabinet Ministers, and the presidents of banks and companies have all paid visits to Gwangjang Market as well. Yet even if the president came wearing a hanbok along with the first lady at the bequest of merchants on festive occasions, these visits didn’t have nearly the effect of Kang’s visit. When Kang Ho-dong carried out his assignment of “Eat 10 Different Kinds of Food and Show 10 Different Reactions” for a TV program, Gwangjang Market instantly became known as the mecca of food.

The attitude of the media’s coverage of the Gwangjang Market has changed according to the times. During the Japanese colonial period, it was known as the “greatest agrofishery market in Joseon.” From 1960 to 1980, it became the largest fabric market in Korea, and then during the 1990s, silk, satin, linen, and cotton were popular items. Since the Asian financial crisis in 1998 to the early 2000s, secondhand stores and custom-tailored clothes were common. Recently, it has become known as a place to stop off for inexpensive food after taking a walk around nearby Cheonggye Stream.

The majority of the stores in the Gwangjang Market still do business in fabrics and dry goods. However, fabric sales have plummeted in the poor economy and the silk and satin stores that now specialize mostly in hanbok are not doing very well. Even though the hanbok shops are empty most of the time, the secondhand stores are always crowded. There have always been many stalls and eateries in the small alleys that surround the market, but after the restoration of Cheonggye Stream, the dining business in the surrounding area suddenly revived. This is a rather unwelcome phenomenon from the perspective of Gwangjang Market.

In the first half of the 1960s when the construction of the Gwangjang Shopping Center was completed, it was the most modern market in Korea. But now, it has become the biggest and the most famous traditional market. Embracing the most energetic and passion-filled years of millions of humble people, the place has aged along with the people. While everyone is caught up in the most cutting-edge, massive-scale, and luxurious styles available, renovating their shops to make them bigger, trendier, and more distinctive, Gwangjang Market is a place that tries to change with the times even as it is known as an embodiment of the past.

by Kim Chong-khwang

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Theme Lounge

Dating Culture Dates and Dating: Unexplored Emotional Territory

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Copyright © Choi Yeon-ju

In the English vernacular, the word “to date” means “to go out with someone with whom one is romantically interested.” But the word deiteu (date) in Korean has a slightly different meaning: “two people meeting with the intention of pursuing a romantic relationship.” In other words, “dating” in Korean has more long-term overtones. Dating is the step before a relationship becomes serious, the stage full of tension and curiosity.

It is notable that Koreans have opted to stick with this borrowed term to describe romantic relationships rather than finding a Korean equivalent. When the term was first incorporated into the Korean vernacular, the romantic nature of a relationship was emphasized by using deiteu, as opposed to “seeing someone” or “being together.” The foreignness of the word also made the word fashionable and less sexually charged. It became a more sophisticated alternative to traditional taboos concerning courtship.

For instance, dating in Korean literature was depicted in Lee Kwang-soo’s Heartlessness (1917) as such: “Hyeong-sik and Seon-hyeong, after being engaged for a long time, finally confirm their love for one another.” There are very few scenes that qualify as date scenes in Lee's novel. A date is a romantic meeting of two people at a specific time and place, but for Hyeong-sik and Seon-hyeong, dates were not important. In fact, the very idea of love is so foreign that Seonhyeong has difficulty distinguishing between love in the Christian sense and the love that Hyeong-sik professes. It was probably impossible for these two characters to wrap their minds around the concept of a date or even courtship.

On the other hand, writer Lee Hyo-seok’s very modern and sophisticated lifestyle has led to detailed scenes of real dates. Most of us know Lee Hyo-seok as the nature-loving author of “When the Buckwheat Flowers Bloom.” Close examination of his short story, however, will reveal that he was cultivating an image that was anything but rustic. Lee preferred a breakfast that included coffee and cheese, and liked to shop at department stores. In his short story, “Heart’s Design,” a date scene reflects the lifestyle he preferred. Yura and the first person narrator make coffee by “pouring mocha powder in the percolator” and go to concerts. They hop on a train to go see the sea in autumn. They listen to jazz at a shop selling instruments, and pick out ties at a department store.

In the early 1900s, deiteu and reobeu (love) were embarrassing cultural concepts that could only be mentioned using the original foreign term. In expressions such as “Y reobeu me” (“Fainthearted” by Kim Tongin) or “expressed reobeu for a distant cousin but was rejected” (“Suicide Note” by Kim Tongin) we sense the hesitation of expressing love or romantic relationships through the intimacy of the native language because naming these feelings and relationships in Korean would make them much more sensual and specific.

Between Deiteu and Dating It was a long time before dating was depicted in Korean literature as a meeting between two equals. For example, Kim Sung-ok’s novels from the 1960s consider dates a threat to women’s “pre-marital purity” and spiritual cleanliness. A dating scene between two college students in Kim Sung-ok’s Fantasy Notebook is one such example: Seonae and the narrator are on a date “one evening in May, on the Mapo embankment at dusk.” Seonae is all smiles and in

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1. Winter Wanderer (2 vols.)

Choi In-ho, Yolimwon Publishing Co. 2005, 402p, ISBN 8970634800 (Vol.1)

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2. Fantasy Notebook Kim Sung-ok Munhakdongne Publishing Corp.

2004, 398p, ISBN 8982818685 3. Talking to Strangers Eun Hee-kyung Munhakdongne Publishing Corp.

1996, 360p, ISBN 8982810242

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4. Sweetfish Correspondence Yun Dae-nyeong Munhakdongne Publishing Corp.

2010, 428p, ISBN 9788954610612 4

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Theme Lounge

a good mood while the narrator cannot get a word out as he holds Seonae’s hand and sobs. Before long, the tables turn. Seonae sobs, saying, “I started my cycle, so I’m not pregnant." From today’s perspective the scene may seem ridiculous, but in 1962 when this story was written, sexual relationships were depicted as absolutely dangerous for women. In Fantasy Notebook, the narrator goes so far as to “hand over” his girlfriend to another friend in order to shirk responsibility. In the larger context of the story, dating is just another urban contrast to the idyllic rural hometown, but it is notable that city lovers represent broken relationships. The term deiteu is devoid of faith in genuine human relationships. In the end, Seonae takes her own life and the story about her suicide is printed in the papers under the headline, “Pessimistic College Girl Commits Suicide.”

Only in the 1980s was dating recognized in Korean literature as a gateway to a romantic relationship. The innocent date depicted in “Winter Wanderer” by Choi In-ho was considered the ideal romantic relationship among young people back then.

Still, date scenes in literature functioned as no more than minor stepping stones to innocent love rather than as major, pivotal scenes. It wasn’t until the late 1990s that date scenes came into their own in literature. Date scenes narrated from a woman’s perspective first started to appear at this time.

Until the 1980s, dates were considered grossly personal luxuries for college students and young lovers. It is difficult to understand from today’s perspective, but the absolute priority of the times, especially for college students, was the democracy movement, and dates were considered shameful secrets. The greatest difference between the 1980s and 90s in terms of date

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scenes in literature was this: a large number of writers who were in their 20s in the 1980s began reminiscing about the private desires and lives that were sacrificed for the sake of the grand narrative of the times. Yun Dae-nyeong, Kim Young-ha, and Eun Hee-kyung, writers who were in their 30s in the 1990s, portrayed free, casual romantic relationships. “Cool” and “sophisticated” sum up the romantic relationships of 1990s Korean literature.

Dates in Yun Dae-nyeong’s novels can come off as dry and snappy for this reason. A short story collection that epitomizes the sensibilities of Korea in the 1990s, Sweetfish Correspondence, includes surreal dates with women who’ve just come of age or superficial dates that involve no emotional connection whatsoever. The title story, “Sweetfish Correspondence” is about a couple who have impulsive sex on their first date, and then later meet in Myeongdong for a movie, “pork cutlet or ‘beef steak’ for dinner, beer, and then, at a loss as to what to do next, get a room at an inn where they focus on dry sex.” They “quietly come out of the movie theatre, walk past Eujiro-3-ga, past Paik Hospital, and cross the pedestrian overpass to Myeongdong, and slowly, slowly walk up the street past Myeongdong Cathedral” without purpose.

Lovers in novels from the 1990s experience the irony of growing close quickly but never attain true emotional intimacy.

Things progress faster and relationships are lighter, but individuals become lonely and as isolated as islands. Eun Heekyung first introduced female narrators in such relationships who are direct and to the point about their preferences. This new trend began with Eun’s first short story collection, Talking to Strangers, which illustrated a new 1990s sensibility towards romance.

“A Special, Exceptional Couple,” a story from the collection, shows us a relationship from beginning to end—from the first date to the end where all passion is gone—through an objective, controlled gaze. This gaze is particularly effective in a date scene using an objective point of view: “What kind of tea do you want?” asked the man when the young owner of the café walked over to their table to take their order.

“You still don’t know what I like?”

“Coffee, right?”

“What kind of coffee? If you have any interest in me, you should know that much.”

Evidently, the conversation reveals that the couple has lost passion for one another. This scene also show how dates in the 1990s usually took place in coffee shops characteristic of the era where servers took orders at tables, which is different from most large franchise coffee shops more common today.

Dates, Perhaps Far Too Common In this way, dating culture has changed through the course of time. Another example of this is: “I’ll be holding a rolled-up copy of The Hankyoreh in front of Winner’s Burger near the K University gate.” This is not a secret code among spies but a way of spotting your blind date. These kinds of dates might sound unusual, and surprising to find out that such blind dates were very common at a time when online chatting often led to real

life meetings. At least in the 2000s, when the novel Marriage Is a Crazy Thing (2000) was published, online chatting and blind dates were considered a sophisticated way of meeting new people and thus were very popular.

The two people in Marriage Is a Crazy Thing meet through a friend and make a pact to keep their relationship strictly sexual.

They first meet for tea and then move their date to Gangnam for drinks, and their innocent date turns into a hedonistic romp.

As soon as the woman says, “It doesn’t matter if we grab a cab or get a room,” this date with the possibility of marriage in mind quickly turns into a friends-with-benefits arrangement. The dates of the 1960s where men “handed over” their women to friends in fear of an unwanted pregnancy, evolved into dates of the 2000s where couples have sex on their first dates. In Korean literature today, dates no longer imply serious meetings with marriage or purity in mind.

The fact that drinking is always a part of dating in Korean literature speaks to the levity of romantic encounters. What characters do on dates can also function as status symbols: The posh “slowly read the wine list” and order wine from the “sommelier” (“Romantic Love and Society,” 2002) while impoverished young couples split a coffee bought at a convenience store. Today, “Shall we go get another drink somewhere?” (My Wife Got Married, 2006) is a code for “Let’s keep this date going a little longer.” These days, the term date is no longer one of confusion and innuendo.

by Kang Yu-jung

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5. Romantic Love and Society Jeong Yi-hyun, Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd. 2003, 252p, ISBN 9788932014487

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6. Marriage Is a Crazy Thing Lee Man-gyo, Minumsa Publishing Group 2000, 284p, ISBN 8937403455 7. My Wife Got Married Park Hyun-wook, Munhakdongne Publishing Corp.

2013, 384p, ISBN 9788954620239

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Reviews Fiction

Reviews Fiction

Listening to Unknown Voices Untold Nights and a Day Bae Suah, Jaeum & Moeum Publishing Co. 2013, 216p, ISBN 9788957077214

Bae Sua h is a Korean novelist and t r a n s l ator w ho h a s publ i s he d si x collections of short stories, 14 novels, a nd nu me r ou s t r a n s l a t ion s s i nc e 1993. On paper this may not look so different from the careers of other respected Korean novelists; however, Bae stands out as one of the most risktaking, experimental writers active in Korea today. Her work from the 2000s onwards has leaned towards the novelessay, or experimentation with what Milan Kundera dubbed “the possibilities of the novel as essay.”

Bae Suah’s experimentation is not to pass off essays under the name of fiction, but to extend the horizons of the novel through experiments of thought.

The novel is different from philosophy or an essay. Thanks to its omnivorous nature, however, the novel is in a unique position to draw inspiration from and rewrite philosophica l thought a nd introspective essays. Bae is one of the few Korean writers to navigate this terra incognita of thought and introspection.

In her latest work, Untold Nights and a Day, she takes a visit to the mysterious theater of dreams.

The story is set in Seoul, but as is customary in her novels, the setting of Untold Nights and a Day intentionally resembles a strange, dream-like city.

“The name of the city was ‘secret.’ It was a city where all the windows were dark, all the windows were silent, all

the windows were opaque, and all the windows were lost in introspection.”

The protagonist Ayami, a former actress who now works as part of the staff at Audio Theater, is Korean. She appears, however, to be more like a foreigner who is new to the city of Seoul.

Character and setting are explicit yet dreamlike in Bae’s novels. The action of her novels is written the same way.

Untold Nights and a Day opens with the flatly descriptive sentence, “Former actress Ayami was sitting on the second step of Audio Theater, holding a guest book i n her h a nd.” Howe ver t h i s sentence is merely an oblique entrance pointing towards the theater of dreams.

A series of mysterious events transpire and we are introduced to a number of eccentric characters that are unrelated t o e a c h ot he r but w ho s e a c t i on s share symmetry not unlike that of a pantomime.

The narrator relies on the auditory and tactile rather than the visual when describing characters and objects, a cross-sensory alchemy that works to form the novel’s dreamlike yet beautiful style.

“I am the product of your imagination” is probably this novel’s equivalent to Freud’s “dream’s navel.” The familiar and unfamiliar, native and foreign tongues, and reality and dreams are juxtaposed with meticulous precision, calling for the world inside and outside the text to dream of and mate with each

other. And so a text that one imagines might only exist inside a dream walks out into reality.

Untold Nights and a Day is full of minute presences emitting signals “like unknown voices.” A whispering voice urges you, the reader, to read this novel out loud instead of to yourself, to listen rather than to read. One actually feels compelled to do so when reading the novel. And so the novel performs the theater of chasing voices from within and without, all in pursuit of the secret of being.

by Bok Dohoon

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Reviews Fiction

Unspeakable Moments of Truth The French Laundry Jung Mi-kyung, Changbi Publishers, Inc. 2013, 284p, ISBN 9788936437251

There are times when a writer succeeds at accurately describing the seemingly impenetrable solidity of everyday life and the destructive forces that nibble at the cracks of this solidity, threatening to blow the whole thing away.

Jung Mi-kyung has proven herself to be precisely such a writer in many of her previous works. Few writers have depicted the world of stark truth that is unmasked when the motions of everyday life are stripped away. The French Laundry is another masterful collection from Jung that explores beneath the surface of everyday life.

Stories like “The Life of Others,” for example, capture the instant when a perfectly ordinary life suddenly becomes an extraordinary one, not just to others but to the person in question. A 30-yearold man who has been leading a life of conventional success as a thoracic surgeon suddenly declares his intention to become a monk right before his wedding. His stunned fiancée learns that he has also been battling morphine addiction for many years. Even

these reasons, however, do not seem enough for her to understand his drastic decision.

Trying to maintain her calm, the woman asks why he wants to become a monk, to which the man replies, “Sometimes in life, people make decisions they can’t explain. It’s not that they don’t have a reason, but that they don’t have the words to explain that reason.”

Perhaps it is at this moment in life, when the idea that we have perfect control over our lives is but a fiction sinks in, that we truly begin to understand ourselves. To take this character’s idea further, it is even more remarkable that Jung Mi-kyung’s work gives us an accurate portrayal of such moments in life that supposedly cannot be described in words.

Personal Secrets, Public History Four Days Lee Hyun-soo, Munhakdongne Publishing Corp.

2013, 344p, ISBN 9788954621144

Lee Hyun-soo’s Four Days is a novel inspired by the No Gun Ri Massacre that occurred during the Korean War in 1950 from July 26 to 29. A reported 135 Korean civilians were killed by U.S. army troops.

The total number of dead and wounded is estimated to be around 400.

The author, who was born in No Gun Ri after the war, investigates the tragedy through the alter ego of documentary director K im Jin-k y ung. W hen Jinkyung’s production company decides to do a documentary on the No Gun Ri Massacre, Jin-kyung visits her hometown for the first time in years. Jin-kyung and her family were ostracized in the village for being the descendants of an eunuch, and she has no positive memories of the place. When her boss finally bullies her into visiting the village, Jin-kyung discovers that her mother’s death was 44 list_ Books from Korea

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related to the massacre and not because of childbirth, as she had always been told.

The story is told from Jin-kyung’s and her grandfather Tae-hyuk’s point of view in alternating chapters, with a testimony by actual Korean War veteran Buddy Wenzel sandwiched in between. While Jin-kyung’s investigation into her mother’s death goes back in time from the present to the No Gun Ri Massacre, Tae-hyuk’s story is told chronologically from the Donghak Pheasant Revolution, through Japanese occupation, to the Korean War. The No Gun Ri Massacre is where these two narratives meet to reveal a tragic family secret, after which Jin-kyung moves on and completes the progress of filming what has turned out to be both a historical and personal project.

by Choi Jae-bong

by Cho Yeon-jung

Spotlight on Fiction

My Sister’s Menopause

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by Kim Hoon translated by Jaewon E. Chung

The 5th Hwang Sun-won Literary Award Anthology Kim Hoon et al., JoongAng Ilbo 2005, 379p, ISBN 895924919X

*a short story excerpt from The 5th Hwang Sun-won Literary Award Anthology, JoongAng Ilbo, 2005

My Sister’s Menopause On the days she visited my apartment, my older sister would pass the evening seated at the table in front of the balcony window. Around dusk she would grow more chatty. Well, not exactly chatty. She was just barely managing to get her mouth open. I read in a special issue of a women’s magazine that menopausal women get anxious for no reason around dusk. Maybe my sister’s chattiness had something to do with that. The things she talked about in the evenings were mostly gibberish. Like the wind or the dusk's red glow, her words were vague and elusive, as if spoken from far away. Maybe it's not so accurate to say I heard her words; they seemed to just brush by me. I never knew how to respond to her.

She would say, —Hey, the plane looks just like a fish. Just look at those fins.

She 'd be looking out the balcony window over Gangwha Island, at the plane being absorbed into the reddening sky. She continued gazing at the plane, which had taken off from Gimpo Airport, appearing massive, like a shark, over the mouth of the river, until it eventually shrank to the size of a carp, receding into the dusk’s thick glow.

—Hey, it looks just like a minnow. Look at the head shimmer.

Like it’s got a lamp on its tail? Come look.

Though she called out to me, she was staring out the window with her back towards me. She passed the time at the window while I prepared dinner by the kitchen sink.

—Hey, how can it disappear like that? Like it's melting into the sky?

The mouth of the Han River was widening to an unfathomable breadth, and flocks of birds had gathered in the mudflat laid bare by the evening ebb. Shadows of the mountain ranges receding towards the West Sea seemed to flicker in the darkening dusk. On a cloudless night, the evening glow would fill up the empty sky completely, so that the glow seemed like its own emptiness, a void drawing me in indefinitely. The slowly shrinking planes vanished into that thick glow, and the inbound planes, each a single speck, dripped out of it, emerged towards Gimpo. Just as my sister liked to say, the sky beyond the balcony window did sometimes resemble an aquarium, with various fishes flying in it.

—Hey, are there really people in the plane?

My sister continued to gaze at the sky until dusk had burnt itself out, and across the river, the town of Gimpo became illuminated. I usually brought over wine or heated milk to her table. She would lick daintily around the glass’s lip.

As she got older, my sister became increasingly fussy about what

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she ate. Even from an early age, she’d found the smoke from cooking meat revolting, and now that she was going through menopause, she refused kimchi stew that had even a single morsel of pork in it. Even when I'd removed the meat before serving her, a sniff of the broth was all it took for her to catch on. She could hardly eat any meat or fish, or anything for that matter now that she had gotten older. In the spring, she would mince wild chives and shepherd's pouch together and mix them over white rice with soy sauce and sesame salt. In the summer, she would dump her rice in water and eat it with individual servings of pickled shrimp or seasoned green laver. Another summer favorite was pickled cucumber slices dipped in hot pepper paste. The side dishes she could enjoy without raising a fuss were dried anchovies broiled in soy sauce with kkwari peppers, white kimchi topped with minced parsley, and pan-fried lotus root.

Before his death two years ago, my sister’s husband had been an executive at a steel manufacturing firm located in the free trade zone in the South Seas. He'd spent his whole life buried in work. As the head of his team, and later, his department, he'd been in charge of export operations for the company's steel products as well as importing raw materials. Once promoted to the post of managing director, he oversaw the labor disputes and personnel management of over ten thousand employees involved in production. My brother-inlaw always wore a necktie emblazoned with his company logo, along with the company badge on his jacket lapel. He spent most of his life working in the South Seas; only on the weekends would he visit Seoul. Every time he was back in town, he brought home parsley or sea produce like dried anchovies, sea lettuce, and seaweed. Afterwards my sister would send me white kimchi with parsley and leaf mustard, as well as dried anchovies simmered in soy sauce. Her white kimchi juice was a shade of pale purple. The parsley was soft, tenderized in salt, and its chlorophyll, redolent of soil and sunlight. Living alone, I couldn't finish all the food my sister sent me, so I would have some of it delivered to our uncle's.

My brother-in-law's company always paid for his f lights to Seoul. He was killed in a plane crash two years ago, on his way back to work after spending Chuseok in Seoul. My sister had gotten her driver's license when she was young, but she rarely drove, using the car only to chauffeur her husband to and from the airport. On the night he died, she had driven him to Gimpo Airport and seen him off. The plane, which had taken off from Gimpo, never arrived at its destination, colliding into a hill nearby. The crash happened a mere fifty minutes after take-off. One hundred thirty out of 150 passengers were killed. I helped my incapacitated sister into the car and drove her to the crash site. The rescue workers were loading on to stretchers dismembered limbs and body parts scattered over the mountain and carrying them down. My brother-in-law's body was relatively intact

and his identity was soon confirmed through the company logo on his necktie. According to the passenger list handed out by the airport employee, his seat was A-6. All six passengers who had been sitting in Row A had been killed. But the passengers of B-4, B-5, and B-6— the row behind them—had survived. B-6 was seated just behind my brother-in-law. After going through the process of identifying bodies and confirming family relations, we brought his body back to Seoul in a refrigerated ambulance. We took off around evening and drove through the night. The ambulance led the way and I followed in my car with my sister sitting next to me. Employees of my brother-inlaw’s company followed, forming a long motorcade. My sister would not cry, or eat or drink anything. From time to time, she blew her nose as quietly as she could. The sniffling sounded like weeping to me. My sister spoke as we passed the Jukjeon rest stop.

—Why does A-6 die when B-6 gets to live?

I couldn’t answer, but my sister persisted.

—Why does it have to be like that?

Her question wasn’t actually asking anything, and her voice, buried by the sniffling at the end of her question, wasn’t waiting for an answer. I could never figure out how to respond to what my sister said. Then right there in the car, she began menstruating. She blushed as she pressed her groin with her hands.

—Oh no! Why now, all of a sudden...?

—What is it, Unni?

—It’s hot. It’s gushing out.

I stopped the car on the shoulder of the road. It was past midnight. Since my time of the month wasn't far away, I happened to have a few pads ready in my purse. I turned on the ceiling light and tore one out of its package. My sister unzipped her pants and lifted her hips. I helped her pull down her pants past her thighs. Her underwear was wet and smelled fishy. A lot seemed to have rushed out all at once. Blood had seeped out around her underwear and gotten on her thighs. I pulled out the tiny knife in the nail clippers and cut through the fabric around the groin, where the front joined with the back. Once I'd cut through the sides too, I could remove them without my sister having to lift her legs. Her underwear must have been on tight, because its elastic band had left marks on her lower belly. She opened her legs wider as I wiped her inner thigh with the pad. I disposed of the underwear and the used pad in a plastic bag and threw it in the backseat. Neither of us had spare underwear handy, so I took out a thick overnight pad and lined the inside of her pants. She lifted her hips again. I pulled up her pants past her thighs and buttoned them up. The pad inside her pants probably wouldn't stay in place.

—Hang on, Unni. We’re almost there. The pad's pretty thick, so I think you'll be all right.

—I’m sorry...

My sister buried her face in her hands and began crying. She hadn't cried when her husband's body was carried down on a stretcher, still wearing the necktie with the company logo. She hadn't approached the stretcher, and had kept her distance, blowing her nose.

Once the mess from her sudden menstruation was taken care of, she cried for a long time. Was taking off your blood-soaked underwear really something to cry over? Or was she crying over the difference between A-6 and B-6? I'd read once in a women's magazine that if you were nearing menopause, the slightest psychological shock could make you start bleeding. But it was hard to imagine that my brotherin-law's unexpected death could trigger my sister's reproductive organs to so suddenly ovulate and bleed. In my heart I could imagine the tiny fingerlings waking from their eggs—these finny tribes of fish, which repeatedly left inland waters of the East Sea towards the Alaskan sea, squirming in schools like a needle's sharp end, huffing and puffing to the ocean, leaving behind them a long trail of their dead. Maybe that's why my sister's damp underwear smelled so fishy.

Her sobs were quiet and low, as if seeping out of her. I couldn't see what lay beneath her tears, but I could feel my body absorbing them through some kind of powerful osmosis.

—Don’t cry, Unni. This isn’t anything to cry over.

I hugged my sister. Her shoulders trembled in my embrace, and I could smell olives in her thick hair. We'd stopped by the side of the road and we didn't start moving until she stopped crying. The cars sped down the night highway, their headlights brushing by us, one after another, without a break. My sister seemed to finally regain her composure and spoke, looking at the trash bag in the backseat.

—Let’s throw that out before we go. It stinks.

—It’s okay, Unni. I tied it pretty well. I’ll throw it out at the next rest stop.

—I can't stand it. Let's just leave it here.

—You can’t, Unni. There aren't any bins around.

—You should wash your hands at the rest stop.

—Okay, Unni. Now try to get some sleep.

I restarted the car and pulled into the road. My sister sat curled up small, hugging herself. It wasn't cold but I turned on the heater anyway. That night, she returned to Seoul without wearing any underwear. She’d been menopausal for some time, but that’s the night the symptoms began. My sister asked me as we crossed the tollgate into Seoul, —Why do things like that come out of the body?

I had no answer. [ ] On the fifteenth of the first lunar month, my sister stayed overnight. The moon soared over the mountain across the river, its

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brightness reaching all the way to the back of the multi-purpose area.

There was nothing between the moon and the window, so the room felt like the moon's interior, and the moonlight looked cold against my sister's calico sheet. In that moonlight, various objects in the room like the dressing table, calendar, floor lamp, and TV set appeared far away from one another, and it seemed I would need some unknown kind of ruler to truly measure the distances between them. When the curtains were drawn, the moonlight was so bright that my sister didn't feel uneasy even when the lamp was off. She lay by my side.

The moon looked close enough to brush our foreheads, and I could even look into the shadowy blots on its surface.

Around dawn, my sister began menstruating again. I woke up from the sound of her rustling to find that she was trying to clean up, pulling aside the sheets ever so carefully as not to wake me. Her naked thighs and buttocks glowed bluish under the moonlight.

—I’m sorry.

She curled her naked body like a shrimp and exhaled. I gathered the damp sheet and put it in the washer. I stood her up and pushed her into the bathroom. I turned up the boiler, brought a pair of underwear with an overnight pad in place and placed it in the bathroom. Once she had everything under control, she returned to her spot on the mat and lay down.

—Let's close the curtains. I think it happened because of the moon.

I closed the curtains and turned on the small lamp. I took out a quilt and laid it over my sister, while she muttered to herself like she was talking nonsense.

—I woke up and suddenly saw the moon before my eyes. I thought I was in the underworld. Where am I? I asked... I tried calling someone's name, but I couldn't figure out who it was. And I couldn't get any sound out of my mouth. Then my body grew hot like a ball of flames and it all came out gushing.

—Okay, Unni. That’s enough now.

She reached out and stroked my hair.

—Do you feel ill, Unni?

—It feels like my insides have spilled out.

Her flushed face suddenly blanched. She wheezed at the end of every breath.

—Now whenever it happens, it feels like a fireball is shooting through my body. Like a little spark gets bigger as it comes closer until I feel the whole thing bursting out from under. How about you?

Me? Sorrow and darkness that I can’t control or explain seep out like mist from my insides, fattening my body’s capillaries. They ooze from my body, just barely, like drips from a saturated sponge or the foam that forms around the eyes of a crab. When I feel like this, I draw the curtain, even in the middle of the day, and lie alone in the

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dark room all day long.

I couldn’t explain how my body felt to my sister and I couldn’t make sense of what she meant, when she said it felt like a fireball gushing out of her. When she had fallen asleep, I felt around under the sleeping mat. The floor was warm.

Mom, I found out through Dad’s letter (which arrived yesterday) that you and Dad are living apart with the plan of getting divorced. Since it's been over ten months, I guess you two have been living apart since I left for the United States. Mom, I hate you for not telling me anything about it when I was calling you for the past ten months. I found out your new address from Big Aunt. I broke into tears when I was writing the new address on the envelope.

It was depressing watching you and Dad live together without love, just from force of habit. And I wasn't particularly thrilled that fate had made me the daughter of you two. You should know that I am also a victim here. But I'm wondering what difference it would make now for the two of you to go your separate ways. Do you really think this will fill your lives with happiness? This might sound insolent coming from your young daughter, but it might serve you well to think about the link between what you’re gaining and what you're losing, what you can gain and what you can't.

It’s only been a year since I’ve come here to study abroad and I still have a long way to go before my degree, but I can hardly concentrate on my studies after hearing that you and Dad have separated back in Korea. Dad says that when the divorce becomes official, out assets will be divided 7 : 3 between Dad and you, that I should get seventy percent of my tuition from him and thirty from you. How do you expect me to do well in school when I'm so embarrassed about getting money separately from you two? You know very well, Mom, that I don't have the constitution to study while working a job in the evenings. Mom, please give it another thought and try to find a solution within our current pattern of life. I sent Dad a similar letter. I hoped that my letter can be a small seed that will bring your two lives together again. I love you, Mom.

—Your daughter, Yeon-ju [ ] —Sorry...

That's how my husband told me that he wanted a divorce. His tone was casual, as if he was saying, “...Is it already time for another haircut?” “...These pants are too tight for my bulging stomach.” “...I'll be away on a business trip starting next week.” “...Shipping is behind schedule because of the strike. My boss is

getting annoyed. It's the business manager who's in charge of labor management disputes, so I don't know why he's on my case so much.”

When my husband returned from a business trip, I would find a strand of woman's hair on his undershirt. It was on his summer and winter undershirt. I could tell from the hair's texture that it had come from the same person. It was long enough to come down to the shoulder. It wasn't dyed and the strand was shiny and plump. It looked well-nourished and full of life to the tip. It was straight in the summer and wavy in the winter. When I removed the strand with my fingernail from the fabric of his winter undershirt, the hair appeared to wiggle on the floor, made elastic by the warmth. An image of a young, healthy woman's naked body sprang to mind. It wasn't a particular woman, a woman with a name. Rather, she was a distant ancestor of the race called 'woman' or a collective woman standing for all unknown, anonymous women of the world. It was as if the woman had leapt out from a fossil into this world, writhing before me as a single strand of hair. The illusion soon went away. In the space where the illusion had been, I felt no anger or sorrow; there was only the desolation in the emptiness left by all the years that had snuck away from me. I picked up the two strands by stamping them with a strip of Scotch tape. A shiver went down the nape of my neck when I tossed the tape in the trash.

While my husband was busy bringing home long and lustrous strands of hair on his undershirt, while that hair was switching its style from straight to wavy, I was making visits to my husband's hometown during his family's hyangsa, the memorial rites for his grandfather and his father, the wedding ceremonies of his cousins and cousin-in-laws, as well as during Chuseok and New Years, for which I dressed up in a hanbok. He'd grown up in a small town in Gyeongsang Province, on the inland side of the mountains.

My brother-in-law, who was the eldest son, was taking care of his mother, who had been widowed early, and had been taking care of the ancestral rites going back three generations. He had carved up the inherited farmland and woodland, preserving the dignity of an elder by selling them off. He knew all about the family's sons-inlaw, the nephews, the grandchildren various degrees removed from him like the back of his hand—for example, about who among them had become a government secretary, commissioner, a director, or an executive director of a company. I remember my brother-in-law telling me one year during one of the ancestral rites, how the second son among the three boys of a female cousin, eight degrees removed, who had married the county's new magistrate (who, by the way, happened to be his high school alum), ended up going to the same high school with my brother-in-law's oldest son.

Every time he went to his hometown, my husband borrowed the black company car with an eight-cylinder engine, reserved specially

for VIP clients. He would call out an employee of the company to act as chauffeur, and I would sit quietly in the backseat by my husband's side and make the trip to his hometown.

—You look better in a hanbok now that you're getting older.

Maybe you're just too pretty to bear a son...

The year before last, during the annual ancestral rite for my husband's grandfather, this was what my mother-in-law had said to me, taking hold of my hand as I entered the front yard of my in-law's house. I threaded a wrinkled tie around the waist of my skirt, cinched it tight and began roasting some fish patties, hot pepper patties, and liver patties in perilla oil. In the main hall, the male in-laws sat in a circle, telling stories and laughing in an exaggerated manner about the past antics of their nephews, who were now grown up and successful, or arguing about the county’s policy for irrigation system improvement. The flour batter must have been too coarse, because every time I placed a patty on the frying pan, oil spurted everywhere.

I turned my head to avoid it.

—Why don't you stir the batter more. First turn down the flame a little...

My mother-in-law told me, sitting on the stoop from the next room.

The family had an ongoing tradition of wrapping up assorted dishes from the offering table for the elders returning home, as a parting gift. The elders receiving the parting gift would give the head family's daughters-in-law envelopes of about fifty to hundred thousand won, to help out with the cost of holding the ancestral rites, and also to give thanks to the effort and behind-the-scenes labor by the women. This is why, at the in-law's house, more food had to be prepared than what would actually fit on the offering table.

On that day, I was in the front yard of the in-law's house until the day grew dark, frying up patties in perilla oil. The patties piled up high enough to fill two bamboo baskets. If an older in-law came in while I was by the butane cooking stove, I would stand up to greet them properly. One of them—whose degree of kinship to me I couldn't recall—greeted me.

—How's it that you never seem to age at all? Would it kill you to look a little older?

Another distant relative came in to greet me, helped up by a young man.

—So you're Yun-shik's wife? I heard Yun-shik's a managing director of a chaebol. They're right to call you pretty. You've fried up a good amount here, haven't you? We were blessed with a lot of sun this year, so the oil's got a ton of flavor.

The flame must have been too strong when the perilla seeds had been roasted, because the oil gave off a burnt odor. The oil became so sticky that when I dunked a piece of raw fish in the flour batter and

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put it on the pan, the edges of the patty would start burning, creating smoke before the middle could be properly cooked. In the steam rising from the oil, I could smell rice straws drying in the sun. In the smoke I could smell what seemed like particles of sunlight being fried up. The smell of oil permeated my hair and body, but I couldn't grasp the nature of that smell—what it was exactly or how I was supposed to react to it. It would draw out a few words only to block me from speaking them when I'd just barely opened my mouth. Surrounded by this smell, I was reminded of a spring day when I was carrying Yeon-ju, how, after having lost my appetite from morning sickness, I'd had the sudden urge to feast on the dirt dry and swollen under the hot sun. I saw a vision of the naked woman who had appeared in my head when I watched a strand of hair on my husband's undershirt, how it had turned on the warm floor, the vision of the woman, who had resembled some distant ancestor of womankind, or a woman trapped in fossil. These visions appeared in the smell of perilla oil and disappeared shortly after. When I looked into the oil sizzling on the frying pan, I became nervous that time would pass, get erased or spill out before I could even say anything, so that my groin tingled and tightened as though I was about to wet myself. Was it a kind of premonition? If it wasn't, I didn't know if there was a word for it when you realized something after it was already too late. My motherin-law used her crutches to come down into the front yard and said, —Why don't you tie your hair. Or your hair's gonna smell like oil.

—It's okay, Mother. I'm going to have to wash it anyway.

—Just tie it back like I tell you. Your hair's going to be a mess if you don't.

I gathered the strands falling over my face and tied them back with a rubber band.

My mother-in-law had been suffering from arthritis and osteoporosis for a long time. In the final years of her life, she was diagnosed with bronchitis and glaucoma. She passed away in her sleep in the middle of the night. There would be no difference in her mind, between sleep and death. My in-laws seemed to accept the old woman's death peacefully, as if she had chosen to pass into the next world on a balmy spring day when the ground had completely thawed, as if her death had been a sleep within sleep. Her shrouded corpse, tied tightly in hemp fabric, was no larger than a child. When her body was brought into the coffin, there was so much empty space that the mortician had to fill it up by placing scrolls of mulberry paper around the head and feet.

After the corpse of my mother-in-law was bathed and dressed, I kept weeping as I watched them put floral-printed paper shoes on her feet, considering the lightness of that death and recalling the odor of perilla oil from when we'd held the ancestral rites for my

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late grandfather-in-law. The relatives, who had come together for my mother-in-law's funeral commended me, remarking that I had mourned more genuinely than her own daughters. On the harvest moon festival before she passed, as though aware of her imminent end, she gave my eldest sister-in-law and me each a jade hairpin, and even my daughter Yeon-ju a set of rings. My mother-in-law used to attend Buddhist service at the temple in the town across the river, provoking the disapproval of her in-laws. When I married my husband, who was her second son, she visited the Nahan shrine and the small temple for the mountain god every day for three days to make offerings. After her death, her daughters tried to give her a Buddhist funeral, which entails seven ceremonies over seven weeks, but the family elders would not allow it.

A month after the funeral, Yeon-ju left for the United States.

The night after her departure my husband said, “I'm sorry....” and brought up the subject of divorce. His timing seemed appropriate. It had been my husband's opinion that we would lessen the pain felt by our family by separating only after both his parents had passed on and while our child was away. Since I couldn't tell him myself why we had to stay together, I couldn't ask him why we had to separate. The word “why” felt so impotent that I hesitated to let it out. Separating, having your life just flow away, felt like clouds turning to rain, that rainy day darkening into dusk, and night rain falling. “I'm sorry...”

Those three syllables my husband had used to bring up the subject of divorce seemed like a suitable opening. I wanted to tell him too that I understood, that I was sorry, but I couldn't form the words. I never brought up the long lustrous strand of hair stuck on my husband's undershirt; it was probably wise to leave things that way, for the sake of decorum. Divorce proceedings would not be brought to court, and would be settled by mutual agreement. Separation was to begin immediately until everything was settled. He and I would take care of the remainder of Yeon-ju's academic career and her wedding together, maintaining the proper dignity of parents. Until the divorce was finalized, I was not to let my husband's company or my in-laws suspect our separation. During the period of separation, I would receive a stipend of two million won per month from my husband, and the division of assets would be negotiated later but always under the guiding principle of mutual agreement. These were my husband's requests and I agreed to them all.

My older sister found me my new place. It was in one of the apartment complexes along the mouth of the Han River. My sister lived across the river in an apartment in Gimpo. We faced each other with the river between us, and my new place was easily accessible by taxi or bus for my sister, who didn't drive. Luckily, one of the thirteen pyeong units was still available for sale; though there was no premium, it still cost hundred twenty million won. I secured seventy

million won by closing out my installment savings account and my sister helped me out with the remaining fifty million won. After my brother-in-law's death, she'd received reparations from the airline company; a retirement grant from the company where he'd worked tirelessly for thirty years; compensation payment recognizing his death in the line of duty; from my brother-in-law's life insurance; and condolence money from visitors at the funeral, all of which added up to over twenty billion won. My sister gave the bulk of the money away to her two fully-grown sons who were married and the men in her husband's family. It might be more accurate to say that the money was snatched away from her. She'd never been good at confronting people, and she was incapable of squabbling over money. Her sons demanded their share as their right, and her husband's parents took the money, driving out their newly widowed daughter-in-law like a stranger. I learned later that during the funeral, members of her husband's family had come by to take all the envelopes enclosed with condolatory money, while her sons had been occupied with the duties of chief mourners, receiving guests who had come to pay their respects.

During the descent from the mountain after samujae was over, my sister’s two sons grabbed their cousins and grappled with them, demanding half of the condolatory money, but my sister wouldn't even glance at them. She was at the tail end of the group on the way down, and I was holding a parasol over her head. Once a fight broke out at the front, she turned around and gazed blankly at her husband’s naked grave, not yet covered in grass. She never wore any color makeup except foundation. The exposed age lines on her face were almost frightening. Her countenance as she looked upon her husband's grave looked so vulnerable, she seemed hardly able to endure the gaze of those around her. Then, as I removed stray pollen from the hem of her funeral garb, I became nervous that she might get her period again. Even distant relatives joined in and the spat only escalated. I took the roundabout path and helped my sister down the mountain.

The fifty million won my sister put into my new apartment came from what remained of the money after most of it had been snatched away. When I moved in, the mini-fridge and air conditioner, the dining table set and dresser suitable for the cramped apartment cost six million won altogether, which was also taken care of by my sister. She had visited the store and paid in full, so that the new furnishings could be delivered on the day I moved in. She picked out linen curtains trimmed with vine lace and hung them on the balcony window. She also brought two bottles of soy sauce for broiling dried anchovies with kkwari peppers. The apron she brought over on the day of the move-in was made of soft cotton that flowed gently over her body. It had no pockets in the front and the neckline was cut low

and round so that it looked more like a nightgown or a slip than an apron for doing dishes.

—Unni, are you sure this is an apron?

—Why? You don't like it?

—It looks just like a slip.

—Then feel free to wear it like one.

My sister had been on all fours wiping the floor with a rag when she looked up to see me standing in that apron by the sink and laughed. The sound of her laughter just barely scratched the surface of real laughter before subsiding. The laughter trailed off in such a lonesome way that my arms went weak even as I roasted the peppers.

By evening, when we had finished organizing my things, my sister and I sat facing each other at the table in front of the balcony, with a glass of wine set before us.

—Are we on the eighth floor? And this is fifteen pyeong, right?

—No, it's the ninth floor, Unni. And thirteen pyeong.

—The river's so wide that the apartment feels like it's about three hundred pyeong.

She swirled the glass gently in a circle. Smelling the aroma, she licked the thick liquid from the rim of the glass.

—It tastes a little jumpy. Try some.

I took my glass, wet my lips and sucked the roof of my mouth.

The aroma of wine spread. Sour and uneven, the wine was young and needed aging.

—Doesn't it squeak in your mouth? It's too skinny. Thin and flat.

Kind of slippery at the end too.

That's when I first felt my sister growing too chatty around evening time. Her words weren't meant for anyone. They were understandable and valid only to herself. So it was as though she wasn't speaking at all. I couldn't figure out a way to join the conversation.

The river made a huge turn around the edge of its mouth, veering westward. Though the ocean wasn't visible, the strength of the sea was felt in such a way that when it pushed, the water would flow back to the city and down towards the sea during low tide. During high tide, when the flow was reversed, there would be a collision between the river trying to flow downstream and the sea trying to push upstream, stirring up the river with white foam. In the evening, during low tide, we would hear the water from the river bottom getting sucked out all at once. Once the water had all drained, the wet shore on both sides of the river would be exposed, the river would become tranquil and just the bare bones of the winding river would remain. From a distance, where the river's curve wasn't visible, the tide would start coming in again, little by little.

Around evening, when the tide was at its lowest, the river would expand to its maximum width. The mountains on the other side

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would grow more distant as the sunset seeped through the hazy hours. Far away by the river's curve, the sunset would be darkening and the plane coming into Gimpo would emerge from the glow.

Whether the planes were leaving—turning into dots and vanishing into the glow—or coming—emerging as dots on their way to Gimpo—each plane resembled an embryo, or some organic trace prior to conception, so that they looked identical.

—See, they all look like fish. Look at those fins. They even have fins on their tails. How can they disappear like that? Like the sky's absorbing them. Are there really people in there?

Yes, my sister was definitely becoming talkative around evening.

I wonder if I ever did send him home with my angora fur on his undershirt. When his wife removed the strands of fur, did they squirm on the heated floor of his house?

Simply calling the man “him” makes me feel like I'm referring to nothing and nobody, no more substantial than the distant memory of my morning sickness. Calling the man “him” makes it sound like he's just anyone, like it makes no difference whether he's this man or that man. But it's too soon to address him informally and it doesn't match the man in flesh, who is living and breathing before me. So I will stick with “him.” Something tells me that would be more honest.

I guess it can't be helped.

But when I think I've settled on “him,” I am angered by how that sounds, like what’s happened between us is completely insignificant, as if he’s some alien thing that has nothing to do with me. I can’t take it anymore, so I have no choice. I decide to refer to him as “lover.”

Now that I've made my decision, I can feel my anger subsiding. It can't be helped, because it can't be helped.

I met my lover the day after I moved into my new apartment. He showed up when I was dealing with the aftermath of Yeon-ju leaving for the United States and my separation from my husband. He appeared in my life and came towards me but I'm not sure how close I feel to him.

A few days before I moved, Yeon-ju finalized her decision on which college she would attend. She said she needed an affidavit of support to register. She asked me to send via express mail her father's certificate of employment in English and the income tax receipts for the past two years. Yeon-ju's voice reached me across the ocean by phone. It was filled with excitement over her new school and the seduction of the strange and magical future it represented.

—Mom, this is an Ivy League school, a prestigious university in the Northeast. All of the buildings are made of old-fashioned marble, and the Western kids are so cool. You should come visit next year.

—Honey, I know all about the Ivy League. And didn't a professor

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from your school win the Nobel Prize in chemistry? Or was it medicine? The one who did his research on the essence of smell?

According to the newspaper article I read once, the professor had concluded that smell is something imprinted inside the subconscious that could bring out distant memories.

—It's called medical chemistry, Mom. His major's the same as mine. They say I can take classes from him if I go to graduate school.

—You're majoring in smell too? It sounds like a difficult subject.

—No. Smell's way too hard, Mom, but I don't have to decide yet.

—You're right. You should take your time deciding. By the way, aren't the desks and the chairs at the school too high for you? Can you reach the apartment sink okay? Since you're a little short?

—Mom, are you serious? Like that's even an issue? Can you hurry with the documents? They have to be originals, they don't accept faxes. You can send it through express mail.

—Alright. Does the income tax receipt have to be in English?

—We just need accurate numbers, payment dates, the official seal of the tax office superintendent. Dad's been paying so much in taxes, so there shouldn't be a problem getting the papers through. How's Dad doing?

—Fine. We're all fine here. Your dad's going to be happy to hear about you starting school. Your uncle and the other adults out in the country will be happy too. They'll want to fry up some food and have a party again. As for the documents, I will send them.

My husband's office would have to provide me with a copy of the proof of employment. And I would have to get the receipt for the income tax payments from the company and go to the government tax office for the notary stamp. I hadn't been able to decide, when I called the office, whether I should ask my husband or ask one of his staff members. His secretary answered the phone. She was an astute, quick-witted woman, and she recalled my voice from having run errands between my husband and me for a long time.

—Oh, Mrs. Han? Everyone missed you at the company-wide directors' wives party. I've been holding on to your present from the chairman’s wife.

I waited for the secretary to say something like “I’ll put the director on the line” or “the director is out of the office.”

—I heard that your daughter has gone to study abroad. You should just pretend she got married. You must be feeling lonesome since the director is abroad on a business trip as well. A fax came yesterday, saying that the director might be returning a few days later.

My husband was abroad on a business trip. Luckily, I hadn't asked her to put him on the phone. My husband had requested that I don’t let the staff at the office catch on that we had separated. The request suited me fine too. I had to use some cunning.

—Since my husband's out of town, I’m afraid I’m going to have

to bother you…

I prefaced my request with this casual excuse and asked the secretary for the documents.

—I’ll have them ready by tomorrow. There’s also the gift from the chairman’s wife, so I’ll have the driver deliver the documents with the present to your house.

By house, she meant my husband’s house where I used to live.

—It’s okay. I have to go into town tomorrow anyway, so I’ll come by the office and pick them up.

I managed to avert that crisis.

— Oh, really? The documents are to be prepared by the personnel department, so call Mr. Kim when you come into town. I’ll let him know what you need. You do know Mr. Kim, right?

—Yes, I might have met him once quite a long time ago...

—It’s Mr. K im Sun-k il. He’s the head of the personnel department.

Kim Sun-kil. That's the name of my lover. It started like this, when the separation was almost complete. That day, we were swarmed by Chinese yellow dust. Below the balcony, the far end of the river seemed to unravel into the hazy sky and the mountains flickered amidst all that dust. The space was thick yet empty, empty yet thick. I stood before a mirror wearing my white scarf and gray trench coat, and I looked like a middle-aged monk. I replaced the white scarf with a purple one and drove to the front of my husband's company. My lover was already there, sitting in a dimly lit café by the window. He was very thin and his limbs, neck, and fingers were so long that he reminded me of those birds that stand on one leg.

His gaze seemed to be turned inward. He gave off a feeling of being on the brink of extinction. I had read in a book once that birds that straggle from the flock during winter migration can't return to Siberia even when spring arrives; they spend the rest of their lives settled among unfamiliar species.

He placed the documents I'd requested on the table. The fingers pushing the files across were marked by dark spots. I opened the documents to take a look. The official seal of the tax office superintendent was already stamped on the income tax receipt.

—I can’t believe your daughter's grown up so fast. I held her at her first birthday party but you don't seem to remember.

At the time of Yeon-ju's first birthday, we were living in a rented house in Jangwi-dong. My husband's young colleagues had come to our house for some drinks, but I couldn't remember his face from twenty five years ago. A vague and feeble smile played about his lips and he spoke again.

—I joined the company in the same year as Director Han. We were the first group to be publicly employed. Though I work under Director Han...

—I see.

—It happened like that... …by itself.

I wondered what smell would draw him to me from twenty five years ago. I couldn't remember him from twenty five years ago, but I did remember him from two years ago. He had run up to my husband with some documents when I accompanied him to his promotion ceremony, when he was being named director. My husband who'd been sitting on the hall platform screwed up his face and said, “There will be time for this later,” and returned the documents without even taking a look. I had appeared before him as his boss's wife.

—If you write me your daughter’s address in the U.S., I can send the documents along with the company documents by messenger service to our New York branch. That's part of my job as the head of personnel.

—No, you don’t need to. I’ve got other things I need to enclose.

Barely managing to keep his awkward, piteous face under control, my lover tried tending to the needs of his boss's wife. It was written all over his face: why he'd fallen behind while my husband, who had entered the company in the same recruitment cycle, was promoted to director. My lover said, —Your daughter must be very bright and able, if she takes after her father.

His voice sounded feeble, as if he hardly believed that his small talk had been well-intentioned. The faint smile at the end of his words again called to mind fear from being on the brink of extinction. I offered him a sharp reply, as if I was cross.

—No, actually she takes after me in being timid and narrowminded. She's always falling behind her peers.

My lover's face crumbled, as if on the verge of tears. What's wrong with me, I thought. My heart was sore from a guilty conscience.

—This is from the secretary, he said and set two shopping bags on the table. There I found a Gucci handbag from the company chairman’s wife, two complimentary tickets for a Russian ballet performance addressed to my husband’s office, and ten department store gift certificates. In another shopping bag was Ulleong Island beef ribs sent by the head of a subcontracting company. Since I was no longer the wife of Mr. Han Yun-shik, the Executive Director of Haeyang Group, I knew none of these things belonged to me, but I couldn't return them either. I became very embarrassed. My lover said, addressing my embarrassment, —Ma'am, if it's too much trouble to carry all this home, I could send them by the company driver.

—No, I brought my car.

A waitress brought a kettle of green tea. My lover poured the tea into my teacup. His fingers were long and thin. Holding the knob of the kettle in his right hand with his left hand supporting its

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base, he poured the tea slowly, little by little, along the teacup's rim.

Reminiscent of an ancient priest from a forgotten era presiding over a religious ritual, his act of pouring the tea had a focused tranquility. It was the tranquility of a person who had quietly accepted time's winds and waves as they blew and crashed against him through his life. Old staff members would all be dismissed during company restructuring, and it suddenly occurred to me that since he was still just director after entering the company at the same time as my husband, his days at the company had to be numbered. Maybe it was the tranquility of his hands that made me think that. I was about to ask him if his wife was employed and how many kids they had, but then changed my mind. I thought I’d seen the wife at a company family picnic or sporting day or a commendation ceremony for long-term service, but her face didn't come to mind. I drank the green tea my lover had poured me. A faintly fishy odor passed through my body. The odor wandered inside me, reaching far and low. I felt him appear before me like a spot in the evening glow, seeping out from it like a plane making an evening flight. Before he could come any closer, I stood up. I gave a nod of recognition towards his disarmed gaze.

—Thank you for the documents.

—If you ever need assistance when Mr. Han's not here, please don't hesitate to call. I take special care to serve him properly, since we were in the same recruitment cycle.

He didn’t seem to be saying these things purely out of etiquette.

Yet he seemed to be having a hard time getting these words out. He carried the two shopping bags up to my car. When I started the car and began moving, he bowed his head to his superior's wife. Seeing his long torso bend, the image of a bird came to me, standing on one leg, licking under its wing with its lowered beak.

The yellow dust in the air was growing thicker as I drove along the riverside highway. The rear lights of the cars floated like fireflies in a fog of yellow dust. The traffic station reported that airplanes had been suspended from taking off or landing and that wireless phone communication was experiencing technical problems. The flow of traffic was slow, practically bumper-to-bumper, the cars lined up like a procession of the blind.

Words floated up in my heart, targetless and seething, “Longlegged bird. Don’t come this way and fly back to Siberia. Don’t stand there up on one leg. That’s not where you’re meant to be…”

Siberia or Alaska, whichever it was, the place wasn’t important.

Wherever it was, whether the place existed or not, it made me sad and uneasy that my lover had to stand on one leg before returning to that unknown place. My sadness hadn’t been fated. It had come into being out of the blue, and there was nothing anyone could do about it. On the riverside highway hazy from the yellow dust, I felt the sadness gather around my ankles; the anxiousness made me press down on

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the accelerator.

That’s how it began. It came out of the chasm I was in when my husband and I were separating, and we were sending our daughter away. It wasn't destiny, or even a coincidence. It just couldn't be helped. Even when my lover's body filled me up inside, swelling, lost, disengaged, I always felt that he was a bird on one leg. [ ] The last bus for Gyeongju was available. It’s where my sister’s eldest son was living. My sister had come down to visit because he was having the first birthday party for his firstborn, and I had arranged to meet her there. The eldest son of my sister was technically my nephew, but his personality made it hard for me to comfortably call him that. He’d graduated from college and was unemployed.

He drove imported cars and burned through money, but my sister couldn’t get him to change his ways. After my brother-in-law’s death from the plane crash, his company, as a gesture of honoring the company’s founding member and employee who had died on duty, passed on the right to run the company refectory to my nephew who is the eldest son. He ended up settling in Gyeongju, which wasn’t far from Pohang, where the factory was located. My nephew who had no experience in operating dining halls, hired a manager, leaving him in charge of operations, and simply collected the profit. The dining hall for five thousand factory workers must have brought in a sizable amount of earnings. The nephew claimed to be fascinated

by Gyeongju's historical relics and Buddhist cultural treasures, and roamed around with his camera in his Landrover. He even had a darkroom set up in his house. When he was on leave in the middle of his military duties, he said he'd dropped his rifle in the river and had to pay the army back and took five million won from my sister. Scared that he might be punished for losing the gun, my sister obediently handed over the money. Later, I heard from a schoolmate's son that soldiers who lose their military supplies are punished by being sent to military prison, but there are no rules in the books about repayment.

Most of the compensation money and retirement pension given to my sister after my brother-in-law's death was taken by my nephew.

He fought with the in-laws and managed to get back half of the condolence money that they had taken for themselves. I heard that he called his mother on the day he got the money back and said, “That's why women can't be trusted to take care of family business.”

—This would probably look better on a taller person. You should take it.

My sister gave her Gucci handbag as a present to her young daughter-in-law at the first year birthday party held at the nephew's house. It was the bag that my lover had delivered to me, telling me it was a gift from the wife of the company president. I had somehow felt the bag wasn’t meant for me, so I had given it to my sister, telling

her it had been a present from a friend who came back from travels overseas. It was an enamel-coated handbag for summer use.

—It’s Jackie O's style!

My sister’s young daughter-in-law hung the bag over her shoulder and looked at herself in the mirror from various angles. The contours were round and the straps were long—a style Jacqueline Kennedy had made famous during her First Lady years, when she wore it to social gatherings. Seeing the nephew’s wife stand before the mirror, I felt that the Gucci handbag had finally found a home.

The baby was a boy. He'd developed pretty fast, so he was already tottering along, a few steps at a time, and a stream of babbling flowed from his mouth. At the dining room table, my sister and I listened to the nephew go on about the significance of Hwangryong Temple and its establishment, Seokgat Pagoda's proportional and symmetrical grace, the beauty of the embossed carving of Apsara on Emile Bell, and the place Kamun Temple's Three Storied Stone Pagoda holds in the history of Korean stone pagodas. Everywhere on the walls of the kitchen and the living room, photographs the nephew had taken of Gyeongju's cultural relics were hanging on panels.

Then at the dinner table, the baby began choking on a scallop he’d picked up and put in his mouth. The suffocating child flailed about on the f loor, his face growing f lushed, unable to even cry because of the choking. Not knowing what to do, the young mother went on shrieking. The nephew picked up the phone to dial the emergency number. My sister took the child in her arms and spread the child's mouth open and stuck her finger inside. The baby couldn’t throw up the morsel and the child’s limbs writhed. My sister held him upside down, gathering his feet in one hand, and struck his back with her palm. I wondered about all the agility and strength that had been stored away inside her all this time. She struck the baby's back again, and he threw up the morsel with some half-digested breast milk, staining my sister's skirt. The baby burst out crying. The nephew called the emergency number again to cancel the ambulance request. The boy let out a long, robust cry. My sister hugged the baby and cooed into his ear and looked into the mouth of the crying baby. Three front teeth had sprouted like grains of hulled millet, penetrating the pink membranous gums. The teeth were white and small. My sister put her fingers into the baby's mouth and pressed down firmly on the teeth, and as if captivated by them all over again, looked inside the mouth.

—Hey, look at these teeth. Don't they look like grains of rice?

She had a faraway look in her eyes as she gazed into the baby’s mouth, as if quietly contemplating something. She seemed to be on the verge of smiling, but then her expression turned into one of inexpressible sorrow. It was the saddest expression I’d ever seen my sister make.

—See how they’ve come up? Like little shoots of grass?

Before going back up to Seoul, I took my sister to the mountain south of Gyeongju. Because of the wind and the chilly air when we started climbing the mountain trail around Samleong, we were unable to climb all way to the top and had to turn back midway. The information post standing at Samleong said it was the site of royal tombs, where three emperors with the last name of Park, the eighth king Adala of Silla, the fifty-third king Sindeok, and the fifty-fourth king Gyeong-myeong were buried. Seven hundred years had come and gone between the eighth and the fifty-fourth king, but the tombs all looked exactly the same, not to mention the autumn light falling over them. The area around the royal tombs was shaded and cool from the pine trees curving up into the sky, and light soaked through the space between the pine branches. I said to her, —These are the famous pine trees of Gyeongju.

The older sister gazed at the autumn light falling between pine trees with the same faraway look in her eyes I'd seen before. I had my sister stand between two trees on the light-soaked grass and took a photograph. In the view finder, the autumn light seemed to simmer over my sister's head and shoulders—the same autumn light that had soaked through the pine branches back in the days of the eighth King Adala of Silla.

—Unni. Try smiling a little.

My sister appeared to force a smile. I clicked on the shutter before the trace of mirth could f leet from her face. After about fifteen minutes of hiking up the mountain trail, we began seeing images of Buddha, lacquered in light, in every clearing we came upon. The Buddhas were engravings in sheets of rock, so they looked more like pictures than statues. The hem of Buddha's robe and the corners of his smiles didn't look like engravings; they looked more like they had emerged naturally from inside of the rock, as if leaked through tiny pores in the surface. The autumn sun came down concentrated around these lines on the rock, and light seemed to be burrowing into it. As though muttering to herself, my sister spoke, standing in front of the Buddha who held his open palm facing out at the world below the mountain.

—Look at that face. Look at that palm. Doesn't it look like the lines are just oozing out of the rock?

At that moment, I was afraid that my sister might start hemorrhaging again, but nothing like that happened.

In the souvenir shop at the entrance to the hiking trail, my sister bought a small guidebook. It had been put together by a museum in Gyeongju to provide background information on the city's historical sites. It introduced palaces and Buddhist temples, as well as old tales about the land that made for good stories. My sister, who had been flipping through the book, thrust it towards me, saying,

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—L ook at this. It tells you about the world that exists underground, according to what Buddhists say.

I looked at the page before me.

When the Buddhist monk Wonhyo was still alive, a cripple by the name of Sabok lived in a poor mountain village in the outskirts of Gyeongju. When his mother passed away, he called upon Wonhyo to hold a funeral service, and said to him, “The old cow in our house that had been carrying the Buddhist scripture on her back has passed on.” Bearing the funeral bier on their shoulders, the two men climbed up the mountain. When Sabok pulled a blade of grass by the roots, a pure and peaceful world opened up below. Sabok went into the opening, bearing the funeral bier on his shoulder, and performed the funeral rites.

The book included a story like this. When I read the words “The old cow in our house that had been carrying the Buddhist scripture on her back,” I burst out laughing. The thought of a cow with a Buddhist scripture on its back was just too much.

It suddenly occurred to me to ask, —You know the Chinese characters for menstruation—wolgyeong—why is it that we use the gyeong that means Buddhist scripture?

She answered: —What kind of question is that?

The sun was setting at the base of the mountain and a plane that had taken off around Pohang was being immersed in the evening glow. My sister looked off for a long time where the plane appeared to be melting into the sky.

—Let's go down. I'm getting cold.

—Do you want my scarf?

—It's okay. Do you wear that cashmere sweater I got you?

—I do. I'm actually wearing it under this right now.

We came down the mountain and went to the Gyeongju train station. While waiting for the express train back to Seoul, I got a call from Yeon-ju on my cell phone. She sounded giddy about something.

—Mom, I got a call from Seoul. It was my high school teacher.

He said they have my name hanging on a banner over the school entrance because I got into an Ivy League university. It has your name and Dad's name written on it. You should go there and check it out.

You have to take pictures.

—I'll make sure to go see it. I'll take some pictures.

I thought about how far the river had flowed from the base of my apartment. I thought about the pitch black darkness before you open the door and flick on the lights. Before getting on the train, I stopped by a pharmacy and got some pads for my sister and put them in my

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purse. I snuck into the restroom without my sister's knowing and gave my lover a call.

—I'm in Gyeongju right now. It will be midnight by the time I get back to Seoul. Can you still come?

He answered briskly, as though he had been waiting for me to ask.

—I'll be there.

The day began to darken when we passed Daegu. In the fields where night was falling, lights from the lamps streamed past us, and when the train crossed over a river, Through the car window, I saw the figure of a tall bird standing on one foot by the water's edge. Next to me, my sister was fast asleep.

About the Author Kim Hoon was born in 1948. His extensive journalism career started in 1973 at The Hankook Ilbo and stretched through the years at The Sisa Press, The Kookmin Ilbo, and The Hankyoreh.

He made his literary debut well past the age of 40, but has received numerous awards since: the Dongin Literary Award in 2001 for his novel Song of the Sword; the Yi Sang Literary Award in 2004 for his short story “Cremation”; the Hwang Sun-won Literary Award in 2005 for his short story “My Sister’s Menopause”; and the Daesan Literary Award in 2007 for his novel Fortress on Mt. Namhan.

Reviews Fiction

The Price of Sacrifice Women and Their Evolving Enemies Kim Soom, Hyundae Munhak Publishing Co., Ltd. 2013, 320p, ISBN 9788972756590

What is the first thing that comes to mind when hearing the word mother?

Unconditional love, sacrifice, and maternal instinct are some of the words we are conditioned to automatically think of.

Kim Soom’s Women and Their Evolving Enemies takes a bold look at the inherent cruelty behind this image of the selfsacrificing mother.

The author paints a damning portrait of the modern generation that takes for granted the sacrifice of their mothers, all in the name of living a better life than their mothers’ generation. A telemarketer for a home shopping channel decides to live with her mother-in-law so her child “might have the chance to live in a good apartment.” Once they start living together she feels no guilt at treating her mother-in-law like the hired help. One day the mother-in-law realizes that she feels “like a living fossil.” The daughter-in-law also begins to feel insecure in her role as a so-called fabulous mom after she gets fired from her job. She treats her mother-in-

law with increasing coldness and grows to resent her entire life.

At f irst the two were enthusiastic about what they believed would be an efficient and mutually beneficial living arrangement, but as time passes they suffer from a sense that their identities cease to matter. After being fired without notice, the daughter-in-law takes out her anger on her mother-in-law. She thinks nothing of sacrificing another mother so that she can be a good mom to her own son. Both women, however, share a similar fate in that they are mothers that sacrifice themselves for their sons. Unfortunately this is a vicious cycle that will be repeated as long as the modern generation expects their mothers to yield to their own selfish desires.

by Jung Yeo-ul

Unrecorded Moments Who Is Dr. Kim? Lee Gi-ho, Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd. 2013, 404p, ISBN 9788932023939

Who Is Dr. Kim? is Lee Gi-ho’s third collection of short stories. The author has proven to be a talented storyteller in two previous collections, Earnie (2004) and Having Been at a Loss, I Knew It Went That Way (2006). This latest collection introduces us to eight new stories in which the author raises two fundamental questions: Is it possible to write about life itself in fiction? What is the new frontier of fiction? In other words, this collection is the writer’s musings on the limitations and new possibilities of the genre.

In the short story "Pushing Closer Again, "the narrator notes, "There is a blank spot in everyone’s story, which everyone tries to fill by making up more stories, which is where all the stories of this world come from, which I did not know back then."

The short stor y is about the

protagonist’s uncle who keeps a record of every mile he has driven with his car.

The uncle’s car does not go in reverse, so he has to push it backwards himself. The interesting thing is that the most profound moment in the uncle’s life comes when he is pushing his car backwards, yet the distance the car has backed up is not recorded in his driving log. According to the writer, this is precisely the sort of profound blankness that goes unrecorded.

The profound blankness in one’s life is not written or spoken about; it can only be alluded to. These unrecorded moments in life form the boundaries as well as the beginning of fiction. Lee Gi-ho discovers another possible origin of fiction in this meeting of things untold.

by Kim Dongshik

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Reviews Fiction

Reenacting a Revolutionary The Death of Robespierre Seo Joon-hwan, Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd. 2013, 495p, ISBN 9788932024103

Young writer Seo Joon-hwan combines the conventions of science fiction and the detective story in a style reminiscent of the French nouveau roman or Samuel Beckett’s experimental novels, yet unmistakably makes the work his own.

The Death of Robespierre is a strange novel. In form it resembles a three-act puppet show, in which Guignol and other marionettes play historical figures.

It is also a novel, however, in which the audience of the puppet show is present in the novel as a protagonist (Napoleon), and the protagonist has his own narrative inside and outside the show. Thematically this is also an interesting work. The one question I kept asking myself while reading this novel was, why Robespierre, and why now?

To Koreans that know of Maximilian Robespierre, he is usually the “bloodthirsty dictator” who destroyed the spirit of the French Revolution, or at best as “a wise citizen-comrade and staunch Roman senator.” T he aut hor doe s not stop there, however, and presents us with a painstakingly researched and vividly

Stranger than Fiction The Impossible Fairytale Han Yujoo, Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd. 2013, 303p, ISBN 9788932024097

The Impossible Fairytale is told in two parts. The first part largely deals with an abused child’s diary. The second part is presented as the diary of the writer of this book. In the first part, Choi Mi-ah is killed by a classmate (in Korean, “mi-ah” means “lost child”). In the second part, the child who is presumed to be Mi-ah’s killer comes to the writer and asks, “Who am I?” The only answer the writer gives is, “The child killed Mi-ah. Mi-ah’s death was planned—that is, it was there in my notes from the beginning. An unnamable sense of guilt haunted me while I was writing the scene where Mi-ah is murdered.”

T his g u ilt is a n expression of impossibility, as guilt is the ultimate, invisible burden that can never be shaken off. The novel operates on three levels 58 list_ Books from Korea

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of impossibility. First, it is impossible to have a fairytale where the exchange of violence is mutual. This is an expression of the author’s guilt about the violence of t he out side world. Second ly, t he border of fiction and reality is breached in the second part of the novel, which demonstrates the limitations of the genre itself. The child ’s questioning of the novelist, the creator of this character, is as unlikely an encounter as that of man and God. Thirdly, the novelist’s involvement in the novel is so meta that a descent into the abstract is inevitable, regardless of the writer’s intentions. All that is left is a sentence like: “Nothing is precise. Or imprecise, for that matter.”

The Impossible Fairytale is stranger than the fairytale or novel that the author is parodying. This fragile balance relies on wordplay, or using the limitations of language to overcome the limitations of objects. Wordplay, by definition, is

reenacted version of the final three days of the revolutiona r y’s life before t he Thermidorian Reaction of 1794. This sets the stage for some truly magnificent and heated debates on revolution and dictatorship, democracy and rebellion, freedom and equality, virtue and terror, and loyalty and betrayal.

The Death of Robespierre provides few metaphors that could be applied to Korean society. Why Robespierre, then?

The f ictional Napoleon says, “This is clearly to watch history being made.” Korea today is torn between the dictatorship of materialism and a revolutionary democracy.

Surely this is reason enough for a fictional attempt at resurrecting Robespierre.

by Bok Dohoon

an attempt to resurrect meaning from non-meaning, and herein rests the last impossibility. The lunacy of such wordplay like sangcheo (hurt), cheongsa (an official building), sacheong (a short break after a long day of rain), chaseong (the second brightest star) is unfortunately lost in translation.

by Yang Yun-eui

Steady Sellers

Poet Kim Su-young, Still Controversial The Complete Works of Kim Su-young, Vol.1 (Poems) Kim Su-young, Minumsa Publishing Group 2003, 394p, ISBN 9788937407147

Count less poets bega n writing poetr y after the liberation of Korea from Japan.

But it is difficult to find another poet who aroused as much interest and stirred as much controversy as Kim Su-young. He died at the relatively young age of 48 in 1968, but his poetry has become a symbol of freedom and revolution during the democratization of Korea, embodying literature that represents social concerns while being an example of modern, avant-garde poetry. Moreover, his life and work have elicited praise and criticism as well as a debate on imitation versus ref lection by liberals, socialists, anti-Communists, and diverse types of intellectuals.

T h e C o m p l e t e Wo r k s o f K i m S u young, Vol.1 published posthumously by Minumsa Publishing Company in 1981, is a compilation of The Big Root (1974); a selection of essays Spit, Poetry (1975); and the popular Even If the Moon's Path Is Trodden, (1976). This collection of poems can be viewed as an outcome of the heightened interest in his work since the 1970s. As the first edition of the book has undergone 27 printings and the second edition, 19 printings, it goes to show that the great

interest in Kim’s poetry is not temporary.

T he u nd e r l y i n g b a s i s of how t he Minumsa Publishing Group’s version of The Complete Works of Kim Su-young, Vol.1 became a steady seller is the undying appeal of his poetry and the passionate debate it still triggers from readers. What continues to inspire young readers are the issues of freedom, revolution, conscience, and love, as well as the fiery spirit with which the poet engaged in his poetry.

Kim Su-young was born, lived, and died in Seoul. He was an urbanite who lived in the capital, a place that rapidly metamorphosed into a modern city and was therefore free from the traditionalism and conventions of rural life. The reason why Kim actively pursued the themes of change and revolution, new forms, and abstruse styles of expression is not unrelated to the changes he experienced in his everyday life in Seoul.

Born in 1921, he died in 1968. The 48 years during which he lived was a period of great turbulence for the Korean people who experienced Japanese colonialism, national independence on August 15, 1945, the division of the Korean peninsula and

the Korean War, the dictatorship of Rhee Syngman, and the student revolution on April 19, 1961.

It was not simply Kim himself but the historical time period in which he lived that made him leave to study in Japan during the colonial era, become mesmerized by the proletariat poet Lim Wha after the liberation of Korea, be incarcerated in the Geojedo Prisoners’ Camp during the Korean War, and become actively involved in the socio-political movement after the April 19 Student Revolution. In other words, his direct confrontation with the critical events and issues of his time, led Kim to actively ref lect on the meaning of the individual, family, and society in a poetic context.

When Kim's collected works of poetry was first published, it was around the time when the literary establishment in Korea was distinctively split into what the hegemonic literary sect called the establishment group and the critical group. The latter group founded quarterlies like Changbi Quarterly and Literature and Intelligence, as well as organizations like The Council of Writers for Freedom and Practice, which fought against the authoritarian government.

Consequently, the meaning and the value of Kim’s poetry also showed a great range of differing opinions, depending on the viewpoint of the literary figures and their political beliefs. On one hand, the nature of civilianism, proletarianism, realism, and honesty inherent in his poems were viewed in a positive light, whereas on the other hand, some criticized them for being esoteric, bourgeois in nature, and self-contradictory.

For ex a mple, t he popu list gra ss root s movement interpreted the phrases from Kim’s most well-known poem, “Grass,” such as “lying down faster than the wind” and “rising faster than the wind,” as signifying the tenacious vitality of the masses. Those who were critical about populism claimed such a reading renders the masses as being opportunists who give into conditions of the present state, thereby igniting a debate about its meaning.

After democracy was achieved in Korea in the 1990s, many of the works by countless anti-government literary figures have lost their meaning. The Complete Works of Kim Su-young, which has stirred debate on the excesses and deficiencies of modernity, has continued to survive the times.

by Hong Jung-sun

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Reviews Nonfiction

Reviews Nonfiction

An Intellectual Rivalry?

Two Stars, Two Maps: The Rivalry of Dasan and Yeonam Go Mi-Sook, Bookdramang Publishing Company 2013, 432p, ISBN 9788997969234

Two Stars, Two Maps explores the alleged rivalry between Dasan Jeong Yak-yong (1762~1836) and Yeonam Park Ji-won (1737~1805), two great thinkers of the late Joseon period.

The two men were born 25 years apart, but they both lived in the Jeongjo era (1776~1800) and were recognized for their talent by the king. Dasan belonged to the Namin faction, and Yeonam to the Noron Byeokpa faction. As such, this served as a dramatic setting to their rivalry.

But author Go Mi-Sook attempts to draw attention to this inaccurate view of history. Although regarded as rivals, the two men had never met even though they shared the same friends. They must have been aware of each other, yet there is no record of them ever exchanging a letter. In fact, Yeonam did not mention Dasan in his books, while Dasan only briefly mentioned Yeonam’s work in the form of a footnote.

Rivals who have never come face to face? Against this peculiar backdrop, the book explores the intellectual history of late Joseon.

In Korea’s intel lectua l histor y, Dasan and Yeonam are classified under Silhak (practical learning). Perhaps because the country had collapsed on the threshold of modernism, the influence of Silhak in the late Joseon period is often overestimated. This can be attributed

to the compulsive search for the seed of independent modernism during that time.

This book analyzes the beliefs of Dasan and Yeonam, and captures the essence of their lives. For this reason, it was titled “Two Stars.” Humans group stars into constellations, but the stars are too profound to be approached from such a two-dimensional level.

Constellations are merely the result of a mythical imagination, and the stars themselves each shine in a vast darkness.

Similarly, it was the postmodernist imagination that led to the grouping of Dasan and Yeonam as Silhak rivals, but the scholars themselves exceled independently.

Instead of adhering to a postmodernist tendency, this book focuses on the different paths taken by Yeonam and Dasan, and reveals where they intersect. Yeonam supported the doctrines of Wang Yangming while goi ng a g a i n st neo - C on f ucia n i sm, and Dasan was a baptized believer influenced by Western learning. At that time, neo-Confucian rule was enforced in the pursuit of a Confucian utopia, so Western learning and the teachings of Wang Yangming were regarded as heresy.

Of course, Yeonam and Dasan were neither advocates of Wang Yangming nor missionaries of Western learning.

But with the ensuing power struggle

linked to modern neo-Confucianism, the two had to live in seclusion (Yeonam) and exile (Dasan).

Two Stars, Two Maps successfully integrates the postmodern values of Yeonam, an independent thinker who went against dominant thought, and the modern values of Dasan, a scholar who reorganized neo-Confucianism in a systematic and practical manner based on Western learning, into the intellectual topography of the late Joseon period.

by Bae No-pil

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Reviews Nonfiction

Understanding the Classics The Secret of Greek Tragedy: Twelve Most Famous Tragedies Kang Dae-jin, Munhakdongne Publishing Corp.

2013, 398p, ISBN 9788954621403

Classics are books that have survived through the ages. When a work is referred to as a “modern classic,” it ref lects the hope that future generations will continue to read and enjoy the work for many years to come. In other words, classics withstand the test of time. Yet this brings up the issue of how readers can deal with the gap between the present and the distant past whenever they try to read the classics, works that are often written using archaic language that modern readers struggle to understand.

Author Kang Dae-jin uses his golden pen to help readers deal with these issues when reading the classics. His book The Secret of Greek Tragedy introduces readers to the 12 works written by the immortal Greek playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Kang’s detailed explanation of the original ancient texts helps readers attain a deeper understanding of Greek tragedy by providing the historical context of the era in which these works were

Monsters Inside Us Monsters in Art : The Human Fascination with the Sensual and Fantastic Lee Yeon-sik, EunHaeng NaMu Publishing Co. 2013, 263p, ISBN 9788956606941

Humans are captivated by beauty. Our hearts stir and our pulses quicken when we lay eyes on ideal ratios and curves. When we were children, however, monsters inhabiting the darkness captured our imagination instead, terrifying us with their hideous forms and violent natures.

An examination of humanity's cultural history reveals that our artistic imagination has been piqued more by the monstrous serpent in the Garden of Eden than by Eve's flawless beauty. Author Lee Yeon-sik unearths all manner of monsters from the annals of Western art, categorizing them through their appearance and other traits, which makes for interesting reading.

The beautiful prose and fantastic illustrations transform terrible monsters into exceptional neighbors from whom we can learn how to maintain mystery in modern life through “the other.” It is through the realization that humans 62 list_ Books from Korea

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are not human that we can truly accept ourselves as people. Monsters are the ultimate “other” for humanity, but through their monstrous inf luence, humans are reborn. Monsters in Art is concerned with this process of rebirth.

by Kim Su-yeong

created. Even some of the best-known masterpieces of Greek tragedy appear in a different light once readers learn from Kang's thorough literary analysis.

T h e b o o k 's t a s t e f u l l y s e l e c t e d illustrations and photographs, in addition to the meticulously footnoted manuscript and list of books for further reading, are testaments to both the publisher's and the author's care in creating a quality work.

The Secret of Greek Tragedy represents the standard to which other commentaries on the classics should aspire.

by Kim Su-yeong

Reviews Nonfiction

History Revisited The Montage of Memory Rieu Dong-min, Hankyoreh Publishing Company 2013, 212p, ISBN 9788984317086

The Montage of Memory by Rieu Dongmin, an economist, reads like a memoir, or humanist essay, if not a novel. The author himself describes the book as a “philosophical essay.” In other words, it is a record of philosophical introspection on experience, memory, history, recreation, and stories.

The first part of the book is set against the backdrop of Seoul and takes place in the summer of 1988. This part of the book unravels the story of a protagonist who partakes in the project of proofreading the complete translation of Karl Marx’s Das Kapital. One can readily infer that the protagonist is the author himself.

Until the end of 1980s, Das Kapital was banned in Korea. One could get arrested for simply having it in one’s possession. The watershed years in modern Korean history were 1987 and 1988 when the democratic movement reached its peak and the authoritarian government

had to more or less surrender. But a true democracy was not attained. In the midst of change, many progressive or leftistinclined publishing companies started to become more active. The author, who was a graduate student during that time, depicts the relationship of an individual to a society and an individual to the given era through episodes having to do with the translation of Das Kapital.

The second part of the book provides an analysis of the first part by the author himself. W hen memory is reenacted, and experiences are rehashed, some kind of editing or distortion is inevitable.

The author analyzes the conscious or subconscious editing and distortion that may have been added to the first part of the book. In this way, the second part becomes a book about the philosophy of storytelling or the philosophy of history.

by Pyo Jeonghun

All About the Body Brain, Medicine, Mouth, and Body Park Tai-hyun et al., East Asia 2013, 304p, ISBN 9788962620702

This book comprises the lectures held at Seoul National University's Bio-MA X Institute. As these lectures aim at making biotechnolog y more accessible to the general public, even young people will find them easy to understand. The authors, that is, the lecturers, come from the fields of pharmacology, medicine, veterinary science, molecular biology, dentistry, and agriculture.

How does the brain remember and how can we keep our brain healthy? What does the mouth have to do with the health of our mind and body? Why do we get fat and what can we do to prevent it? What are the new possibilities in the field of pharmacology? The authors answer these important questions.

T he e r a of “c u s tom-t a i lore d pharmacology” has begun in pharmacology. Medicine is prescribed in accordance with patients’ genetic

dif ferences such as their weight and biological clock. The optimum quantity is injected at the best time via the best method, thus maximizing the effectiveness of the drug and minimizing side effects.

The content about obesity is also interesting. Fat cells that have already been made do not disappear. This is the reason why obesity in childhood and adolescence is more serious than adult obesity; the number of fat cells we will have for life is decided during childhood and adolescence.

The weight loss in adults due to a decrease in adipose tissue does not mean that fat cells have disappeared. It just means they have temporarily decreased in size.

This book will help us broaden our scientific knowledge of the human body and health as well as gain the common knowledge we need in order to maintain a healthy life.

by Pyo Jeonghun

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Reviews Nonfiction

Big Brains, Big Ideas The Google God Knows Everything Jeong Ha-woong et al., ScienceBooks 2013, 400p, ISBN 9788983718822

K AIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) is Korea’s leading educ at iona l inst it ut ion specia li zing in science, technology education, and research. It holds a similar status as the California Institute of Technology or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States. This book contains lectures by three scientists whose fields of research are complex system networks and data science, bioinformatics, and quantum information theory.

According to Professor Kim Dongsup, one of the authors, seen from an informatics perspective, all the information that makes up life is embedded in DNA. A living organism deciphers information written on DNA and executes the orders given. In other words, a living organism is a system which, like a computer, processes and executes information.

Another author, Professor Lee Haiwoong, points out t hat t he ex isting information processing methods are based on Newtonian physics and how using quantum mechanics can create methods t hat have been u n i ma g inable u sing previous processing methods. That is to say, a computer, which only spends three

minutes solving an equation that requires a thousand years using existing methods, can become a possibility.

Professor Jeong Ha-woong says that analyzing complex system networks will reveal the structure of the network through which information flows. He predicts that the era of the “big plan” where a complex system is controlled at will by combining big data with networks is coming.

It is rare to find a book that makes advanced science and technology so easy to read and understand. Conversations between the authors at the end of the book is also interesting.

The Economics of the Apartment Apartment Park Cheol-soo, MATI 2013, 320p, ISBN 9788992053761

T he majorit y of Korea ns live in a n apa r t ment bec au se Korea is a sma l l country with a large population. But an apartment in Korea is more than a living space. An apartment is a way to increase one’s assets and show off one’s social status.

Author Park Cheol-soo, a scholar of architecture, says spatial understanding v a r i e s a c c o r d i n g t o o n e ’s l i v i n g arrangement. While the responsibility for the neighborhood of a private homeowner falls collectively on the neighbors, it is strictly individual for the people who live in an apartment. For example, when snow falls, apartment residents do not engage in shoveling snow. The apartments in Korea are far removed from the pursuit of public good or public comity. In short, an apartment is the epitome of one’s attempt to increase personal profit.

Park is critical of the governmental 64 list_ Books from Korea

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policy that leans heavily toward economic efficiency and distribution of housing.

He says that construction companies and residents are also only interested in profit.

The author regards apartment complexes critically primarily because the facilities that should be built with public funds have to be taken care of through private resources.

For example, the resident of a private house does not have to spend money to fix the broken light on the street in front of their house; it is taken care of by the city.

In contrast, apartment residents have to shoulder all the expenses for an apartment complex. This kind of privatization, a key to neo-liberalism, has long been taking place in apartment complexes. The apartment is like a magnifying glass that helps one to view Korean society in the most accurate way.

by Pyo Jeonghun

by Pyo Jeonghun

Reviews Nonfiction

Revolutionizing Management Samsung Way Song Jae-yong, Lee Kyung-mook, Book21 Publishing Group 2013, 408p, ISBN 9788950949723

Samsung is without doubt one of the world's best known brands, perhaps better known to the world than Korea itself.

Samsung Way delves into the leadership of Chairman Lee Kun-hee who made Samsung the global company that it is today, as well as the secrets behind its innovation.

In 1993, Sa msung unveiled what i t c a l l e d “ N e w M a n a g e m e n t ,” a n ambitious plan to become one of the top global companies in the 21st century by improving the quality of its products and services to a world-class level. Under t he slog a n “Cha nge e ver y t hing you can except for your wife and children,” Samsung sought sweeping change across the conglomerate. Twenty years later, the Samsung way is accepted as the global standard for creativity and innovation, surpassing Toyota or GE. In the 20 years since the declaration of Ne w M a n a g e me nt , t w o le a d i n g business experts in Korea take an in-

depth analysis of the secrets of Samsung's success. According to their book, the key is “paradox management.” For a large organization, Samsung has maintained speed and efficiency. For a conglomerate w it h a ver t ic a l st r uc t u re, Sa m su n g has ensured that each of its affiliates is specialized. By pursuing seemingly incompatible elements together, such a s m i x i n g Ja p a n e s e a n d A m e r i c a n ma na gement st yle s, Sa msu ng ha s established a competence that has set it apart from others and made it outperform its competitors in the rapidly changing world market.

There is a reason behind every success.

While many academics and CEOs have been eager to uncover the secrets of Samsung's success, there has yet to be a book available for such a purpose, until now.

by Richard Hong

Outgrowing Your Problems Stethoscope for the Heart Mun Yo-han, Hainaim Publishing Co., Ltd. 2013, 296p, ISBN 9788965743774

Many people are suffering from mental starvation. Even though their bodies are much healthier and their wallets much fatter than before, their minds have never been more ill and poor. Why is that? The author, a psychiatrist, proceeds to explain in this book. For eight years, Mun Yo-han sent out a series of healing e-mail messages with the subject heading “Energy Plus, a Voice Awakening Life” that reached out and touched the hearts of people tired with life. This book features the 94 compelling messages that resonated most with his readers.

In l i fe, e ver yone fac e s su f fering and hardship at one time or another.

Overcoming obstacles isn’t easy without help from others. Heartwarming support and encouragement is most helpful in developing resilience. This book points out that we all have within us the instinct for

growth and healing, which, if awakened, will enable us to overcome any hardship.

The short essays and illustrations featured in this book awaken the power of life within us, just as a gentle spring breeze shakes seeds to life.

"The koi, a species of carp, is known to grow to different sizes depending on where it is. In a small fishbowl, for example, it grows to no larger than five to eight centimeters, limited by the size of the bowl. In a large aquarium or pond, on the other hand, it grows from 15 to 25 centimeters. If released in a river, it grows even larger, up to 90 to 120 centimeters."

What about the place of our growth? Some of us may be trapped in a small fishbowl, afraid of venturing out to a bigger world and getting hurt. Grow big, and your problems will get smaller. Grow small, and your problems will get bigger.

by Richard Hong

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Reviews Nonfiction

In Search of Hidden Beauty On Impulse: Chuncheon, Jeonju, Gyeongju Lee Ji-ye, Joe Anbin, Booknomad 2013, 306p, ISBN 9788997835287

All of a sudden, one might feel like packing up and taking off somewhere. For South Koreans who cannot go somewhere exotic, Chuncheon, Jeonju, and Gyeongju offer a refreshing alternative. Chuncheon is a city of romance and leisure. Jeonju is known for its elegance and taste. Gyeongju, the ancient capital of the Silla dynasty, is the very symbol of history and culture.

On Impulse is a detailed travel guide for the three cities that are generally well known and familiar to South Koreans.

The two authors were born and raised in Jeonju and Gyeongju, respectively, so the book is structured in a way that they introduce their own hometowns.

T he aut hor s c u r re nt ly l i ve i n a large city where intimacy is rare; their hometowns are like old friends, always welcoming their visits with warmth. The authors introduce these cherished places in a kind yet cautious way. Instead of squeezing travel information into the book, they allow the readers to appreciate the three cities comfortably with the help

Encountering a Robot Adult Park Oh Yeong-jin, Changbi Publishers, Inc. 2013, 275p, ISBN 9788936472290

In the mid-1990s there was a revolt by young graphic novelists in Korea against what appea red to be a uniform a nd monotonous world depicted in mainstream graphic novels. Independent magazines such as Nemorami, Spring in Animation Experiment, and Hwakkeun opened up an entirely new art world of graphic novels through experimentation and unconventional storylines. The prominent artists during that period have since moved into various fields including newspaper comic series, webtoons, and pop art, except for one that remains constant: Oh Yeongjin.

In Oh’s new graphic novel Adult Park, Mr. Park, deputy department head of a battery company, leads a hard life. At work he is about to be let go. One day he goes to see a friend that has opened up a restaurant and finds out that the friend obtained 66 list_ Books from Korea

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funds for his business by selling one of his kidneys. Frustrated and feeling depressed, Mr. Park takes his wife on vacation to Mokpo after he happens upon a coupon for a hotel stay. Because of torrential rain, however, they give up on the idea of ferrying to the nearby islands and end up visiting the adult park nearby.

To Mr. Park’s surprise, the park is not a sex-themed sculpture park. It is a place where you can have a conversation with a beautiful female robot. The park’s target customers are middle-aged men worn down by life and unable to talk about their problems with anyone. Mr. Park meets a robot that knows his former colleague, Seo Jun-ho. He discovers that the memories of Seo Jun-ho’s wife have been implanted into this robot.

Adult Park is a science fiction graphic novel that slightly strays from reality with

of evocative photographs.

T he book fe at u re s C hu nc he on’s f a mou s c h ic k en ba rb e que , Je onju’s kongnamul gukbap (bean sprout soup with rice), and Gyeongju’s Hwangnam bread.

In addition, the beautiful nature and traditional culture that are featured in the book include Nami Island in Chuncheon, Hanok Village in Jeonju, and Bulguk Temple in Gyeongju. This travel guide will be an excellent companion for those who want to travel in search of Korea’s hidden beauty.

by Richard Hong

its story told in stark black and white. The dark, depressing world in the book is like a mirror of our modern world. People who have lost the ability to communicate and robots with the ability to talk but cannot make facial expressions, discover themselves by looking into each other.

by Yi Myung-suk

Poetry

Ha… No Shadows

by Kim Su-young Our enemies are nothing to look at.

Our enemies do not look fierce like Kirk Douglas or Richard Widmark.

They are not in the least fierce villains, they are even virtuous.

They disguise themselves as democrats, they term themselves good citizens, they term themselves the people’s choice, they term themselves company employees, they ride in trams, they ride in cars, they go into restaurants, they drink, they laugh, they gossip, their faces express sympathy, sincerity, they do their work quickly, say they’re busy, write texts, keep accounts, they’re in the countryside, by the seaside, in Seoul, they take walks, go to movies, have charm.

Which means to say that they’re right beside us.

as we set our watches to the siren, as we are shining our shoes… our combat knows no rest.

Our combat fills all the space between heaven and earth.

Since it’s democracy’s battle, it has to be fought democratically.

As there are no shadows in the heavens, democracy’s battles likewise know no shadows.

Ha… no shadows.

Ha… just so…

Ha… and yet… why, just so indeed… that’s how it is. …

Uhuh… uh… what?

Ah, I see… I see, I see.

translated by Brother Anthony of Taizé

Our battle line is invisible to the eye.

Which makes our combat all that more difficult.

Our battle line is not at Dunkerque, or Normandy, or Yŏnhŭi Hill.

Our battle line cannot be found in any atlas.

Sometimes it lies in our homes.

Sometimes it lies in our workplaces.

Sometimes it lies in our neighborhoods but it is invisible.

In appearance our combat is not as active as burnt-earth strategy, or “Battle at Gun Hill,” neither is it nice to see.

Yet we are all the time fighting.

Morning, noon, and night, as we eat, as we walk down the street, as we enjoy a chat, as we do business, as we engage in engineering works, as we go on journeys, as we weep and as we laugh, as we eat spring greens, as we go to the market and sniff the smell of fish, fully fed, and thirsty, making love, dozing off, in dreams, waking up, and waking up, and waking up… as we sit in class, as we go home

Kim Su-young (1921~1968) is undisputedly one of the best poets in the history of modern Korean poetry. The Moon’s Mischief is the only collection of his poems published while he was alive. His other works posthumously published include the poetry collections The Big Root and Even If the Moon’s Path Is Trodden; the essay collections Spit, Poetry and A Portrait of the Puritan, and The Complete Works of Kim Su-young (Poems, Vol. 1 and Essays, Vol. 2)

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Reviews Children's Books

Where Food Lives

Restaurant Sal So Yunkyoung, Munhakdongne Publishing Corp.

2013, 48p, ISBN 9788954620987

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In the picture book, Restaurant Sal, which depicts the relationship between food and people, both the fabulous and the cruel exist side by side. The story starts off with a polite invitation sent out by Restaurant Sal. With the introduction, “For your enjoyment and happiness, the cook and the staff at Restaurant Sal do not stop working even for a moment.” It continues by emphasizing the art of cooking, the hygienic conditions, and the freshness of the food that is served daily at the restaurant.

However, the illustrations contradict this. On the front cover, one can see the Restaurant Sal sign hanging precariously by a thick chain and threatening sharp hooks. The legs of the tables, and the chairs for patrons, are pointy and look on the verge of collapse if anyone sits on them.

"The Pain of Salvation" is written on a big bowl, which is engraved upside down

like a code. This phrase that foreshadows the theme of the whole book is also the name of a progressive heavy metal band in Sweden. In one of their songs, “Where It Hurts,” the lyrics begin: “Tell me where you hurt. So that I can get to your suffering.”

At Re st au ra nt Sa l, t he su f fering signifies the pain of the animals that we eat. In the ensuing pictures, the author paints true to life images of the cruelty of the slaughtering process and the breeding business behind cooking.

W hen the customers come to the elegant restaurant and happily look over the menu, resting their chin in their hands, dozens of people are mechanically cooking food, like laborers around a conveyor belt in the rear kitchen. The child protagonist, who came to Restaurant Sal with her mother, discovers in the bathroom the tail of an animal sticking out of the wall and tries to save it. But instead, together with the animal, she gets sucked into a hidden industrial livestock processing machine, and witnesses how animals get bred and then butchered for optimal taste. The little girl presses the exit button

so the imprisoned animals are given a chance to escape. However, the security at Restaurant Sal is top-notch, so she and the animals fail in their attempt to escape and collapse in exhaustion.

T he w riter a nd il lu strator So Yunkyoung is k nown for her acerbic parody of the rampant materialism and the heartless attitude toward living things in today’s age. Restaurant Sal delineates the theme of animal rights and the value of life that the author is greatly interested in. “Sal” is the etymology of salt, which is the basic ingredient of food, but in Chinese it also means, “to kill.” The book conveys that the tasty food that is served to us, which is obtained from slaying something, ultimately annihilates the essence of our existence. For grown-ups who are concerned about the problems of human greed and ecological issues, Restaurant Sal will also be a philosophical and meaningful reading experience.

by Kim Ji-eun

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Reviews Children's Books

Where Korean Fairytales Are Born The Lily Star and The Little Star: The Complete Works of Ma Hae-song, Vol.1 Ma Hae-song, Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd. 2013, 356p, ISBN 9788932024134

Have you ever wondered what Korea was like in the first half of the 20th century?

Are you curious about what kind of life children led back then? Or about the literature from that period? If that is the case, then you should read the collected works of Ma Hae-song.

Ma Hae-song is one of t he most important figures in Korean fairytales and literature of the early 20th century.

He, along with other famous pioneers in the field, wanted to protect the rights of children a nd wa s a proponent of enlightenment. Ma was also active in the cultural movements of the time and left behind many beautiful children’s stories.

In particular, his story “The Lily Star and The Little Star” is known as Korea’s first fantasy children’s book. The love story between a completely isolated lily flower and an utterly repressed little star can be analyzed in various ways. One possibility is that the story is a metaphor for Korea’s colonized state by Japan. Even though it was a story created for children, it could

What Fat Means Go-Go-Go, Fat Club!

Cheon Hyeon-jeong; Illustrator: Bak Jeong-seop BIR Publishing Co., Ltd., 2013 200p, ISBN 9788949121482

Go Eun-chan has such a big appetite that people refer to him as the boy who can eat for 10. Consequently, he’s a very big boy who has amazing strength. His mother wants him to lose weight even if that means sending him to a special class for overweight children. But then during a tug-of-war contest, a coach from the weightlifting department sees Eun-chan and asks him to join the department.

This is where Eun-chan begins to feel conflicted. The choice he has to make is played out humorously in the book.

What makes Go-Go-Go, Fat Club! so appealing is that the book is full of humor as well as elements that draw emotional responses from the reader. Even though Eun-chan’s mother tries to do everything to keep her son from gaining weight, she does the opposite herself. The job she 70 list_ Books from Korea

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keeps to support her family is as an obese model on a home shopping network. In order for her to keep her weight up, she forces herself to eat, which makes her vomit at night. As Eun-chan witnesses this scene, the readers also feel what Eun-chan feels.

The story of a stylish grandmother who hides her illness from her daughter so that she doesn't feel burdened, and the story of Eun-chan’s girlfriend Ye-seul, a former track and field athlete, who ends up with a disability from a leg injury, all break the readers’ hearts. And the most heartbreaking of all are the memories of Eun-chan’s father, a boxer, who died of injuries from a boxing match.

This is a book that touches on the social problems of obesity and lookism by showing complex dimensions of people’s lives with humor and warmth.

by Kim Kyung-yun

not have been too far removed from what was happening at the time, and the story could have been a form of social commentary.

“The Lily Star and The Little Star” could also have been about the author’s own sad coming of age love story. Ma may have used literature as a medium for self-expression rather than writing to enlighten.

The publishing town in Paju, a unique place, has only one memorial for a writer, which is devoted to Ma Hae-song. One longstanding publishing company even gives an award in his honor. And now, the first collection of Ma Hae-song’s literary works is being published. The 40 works in the book are comprised of different genres, including realism, fantasy, and folk stories. If you want to understand Korean children’s books then you should know about the author Ma Hae-song, and, for that, reading this book is essential.

by Kim Inae

Reviews Children's Books

Kids Step It Up Candidate No. 3 An Seok-bbong Jin Hyeong-min; Illustrator: Han Ji-sun Changbi Publishers, Inc., 2013 152p, ISBN 9788936442712

Candidate No. 3 An Seok-bbong won first prize in the upper-grade-level school children’s books category awarded by the Changbi “Good Books for Children” Competition, which is one of the most prestigious competitions in Korea. It weaves various episodes involving an election campaign for school president by An Seok-bbong, son of a rice cake maker at the local market, and tension and conflict between merchants at the local market and the big superstore that opened at the market entrance.

By chance, An Seok-bbong, a very ordinary boy who is not particularly good at anything, runs for school president.

With active support from his classmates who are also from the market—Jo Jo, grandson of a sundaeguk (pork sausage soup) shop owner, and Kim Eul-ha, son of a dried seafood shop owner—Seok-bbong sets out on a lively election campaign and soon becomes the candidate representing school’s students that are not good at studying and who are poor.

Students sympathize with Seok-bbong’s promises to decrease the number of hours for math classes and to choose cheaper places for school trips. He attracts the attention of his classmates with fun and bizarre events such as wearing traditional Korean clothes and writing calligraphy in front of the school gate.

Meanwhile, “white haired witch ” Baek Bo-ri, daughter of a corner shop owner, approaches Seok-bbong and he gets entangled in her audacious plot to protect the rights of small to mid-sized merchants against a megastore, which earns him a visit to the police station. Can Seok-bbong become the school president and stop the tyranny of the megastore with Baek Bo-ri?

The strong point of this book is its humorous portrayal of how “adult” issues such as megastores taking over local shops and the electoral system can become a part of children’s lives, becoming their issues too. The characters like An Seok-bbong, Jo Jo, and Baek Bo-ri turn the plot from a potentially simple allegory into a dynamic story.

by Yu Youngjin

Powered by Rice Setting the Table Joo Young-ha; Illustrator: Seo Young-a Borim Press, 2013, 60p, ISBN 9788943309107

Three times a day. A long histor y is contained in the meals we eat. Before rice, soup, and kimchi became the backbone of Korean cuisine, there was an extended cu l i na r y h istor y st retch ing back to prehistoric times. Food is a window into humanity. That is why the illustrated book Setting the Table is subtitled “The History of Culinary Culture in Korea.”

T he K ore a n p e ople h ave a lon g history of farming rice. The main staple is often accompanied by soybean paste and kimchi. Dishes vary depending on the era and social class. The nobility of the Goguryeo kingdom enjoyed meat, but Korean cuisine during the Goryeo dynasty was mainly vegetarian as a result of Buddhist influences.

W h a t w e e a t , h o w e v e r, d o e s n’t tell the entire story. Related items like cooking utensils, tables, and tableware are

countless. Ritual food and royal cuisine are another aspect of Korea’s traditional culture. There are numerous stories related to food that excite one’s curiosity, covering questions as diverse as: When did Korean people start eating peppers? How big were bowls in the old days? Was there fast food long ago?

Despite industrialized societies being similar around the globe, traditional cuisine is preserved as each country’s unique culture. There is no better way to understand Korea than to read this book.

Its faithful illustrations of food, clothes, and homes are noteworthy. The long list of references demonstrates how much planning and research has been invested in this little book.

by Kim Min-ryoung

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Reviews Children's Books

Healing Stories The Tiger’s Eyebrow Lee Bandi; Illustrator: Seo Hyun Hankyoreh Publishing Co., 2013 100p, ISBN 9788984316539

In t he world of c h i ld ren, t here a re sometimes things that are invisible to adults. While it is a reality for children, it is a fantasy for grown-ups. The four children’s tales in this book show what exists in the world of children.

“I Knew It” is a story of Hui-dong who moves to a new neighborhood. Huidong, who boldly ventures out to the forest thinking his house is just one slope away, gets lost. While he is looking for his house, he encounters a tiger, a dinosaur, and an ant. After much tribulation, he finally finds his way home and sees his mother but doesn’t tell her about what happened in the forest because he doesn’t think she’ll believe him.

“The Shoe the Fox Wore” is a story about Somi who shops at a f lea market held at t he playg rou nd, a nd buy s a pair of shoes that were worn by a fox.

The moment she puts on t he shoes, she becomes invisible. Only Gaettong’s grandmother knows about Somi’s exciting adventures that happen when she becomes invisible.

Spring on a Bike Blue Bicycle Kang Hyoun-sun, Jaimimage Publishing Co. 2013, 40p, ISBN 9788986565003

A boy rides through an alley on his blue bicycle. In the alley, there is a man holding a boy in each hand, and a woman cutting up vegetables in front of her house. The boy greets the woman, and it seems that he has just finished school. Neighbors are talking to one another, and a pair of siblings is choosing snacks in a shop nearby. By the utility pole, a group of children are playing noisily. The boy continues on his blue bicycle. The sky clears after a bit of wind and rain. The boy skips stones across the stream. He gets back on his blue bicycle and heads home, where he will be welcomed by his mother and pet dog.

This book does not focus on a distinct event, but tells the story of a boy riding on his blue bicycle on a spring day. The

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writer was inspired by Pi Cheon-deuk’s “Early Spring.” Through the boy skipping stones instead of heading straight home after school, she expresses how one’s heart flutters at the thought of early spring.

by Eom Hye-suk

“The Tiger's Eyebrow” is about how an enormous tiger appears before Dongy while he is home by himself. The tiger offers him a hair from his eyebrow and asks him to view the world with it. Thanks to the tiger’s eyebrow, Dongy is able to tell the real difference between people and animals.

“Troublemaker Kiddy Dragon” is a story about Jae-ha who befriends a young dragon. Jae-ha feels a barrier between him and his mother because of his younger brother. The more he dislikes his mother and his brother, the bigger the kiddy dragon grows, filling up the room in no time.

Are the four main characters and the amazing experiences they go through in the four stories for real or fantasy? No one can tell—except the fact that all four of them matured considerably after the encounter with their special friends who helped each one of them gain courage and heal their emotional wounds.

by Yoon So-hee

Steady Sellers

Dreaming in Color Man-hee’s House Kwon Yun-duck, Gilbut Children Publishing Co., Ltd. 2008, 34p, ISBN 9788986621105

Korea has grown into a modern, advanced country at an astonishingly fast rate.

This phenomenon has been accelerated, ironically, by the destruction caused by the Japanese occupation and the Korean War. At a time when tradition had collapsed both physically and spiritually, Korea could embrace things that were new, Western, and advanced without much resistance.

W hen look ing back on t he pa st, Koreans seem to feel a bit of guilt. Perhaps we have given up our roots too easily. We feel obliged to preserve what we can for future generations and to teach traditional values to our children.

One way of relieving this guilt is to write children’s books dealing with the topic of tradition. Man-hee’s House, the story of a three-generation household originally published in 1995, is a good example. Built in the 1970s, Man-hee’s house is not a traditional Korean house but it is older than apartments, where the majority of Koreans reside today. By

reading about the lives of their parents and grandparents, children will develop a natural interest in the past. This is one of the reasons behind the everlasting popularity of Man-hee’s House, which has been loved by Koreans for almost 20 years.

This book shows scenes of children living together with their parents and grandparents. In the beautiful house “with the most f lowers and trees in the neighborhood,” the loving family raises two dogs that “recognize Man-hee just by t he sound of his footsteps.” The grandparents look after Man-hee in his bedroom and garden, while the father plays with him in the bathroom and study.

Man-hee’s friends come over and leave toys scattered around the room. His mother always accompanies him in the kitchen, shed, and backyard. She hangs out the blankets to dry on a sunny day, and Manhee swims like a fish in the soft covers.

How happy he must be! How we yearn for a house with a happy child, trustworthy grown-ups, and a beautiful garden! This

book goes beyond emphasizing tradition and evoking memories. It allows us to reflect on the happiness of the present and helps to fulfill our dreams.

The pictures are based on a traditional drawing technique, creating a peaceful veneer despite the use of a variety of colors.

The drawings display the passion of the young writer, who is one of Korea’s most famous illustrators. Her portrayal of a happy household living in harmony with the past and present has earned the praise of Korean readers.

by Kim Inae

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A New Opportunity for Korean Literature in Poland First I would like to thank LTI Korea for supporting translators and publishers from around the world.

Without LTI Korea many books would never see the light of day.

Korean literature is still not very popular in many countries. While several works have been published into English and other popular languages (including Japanese and Chinese), some of Korean literature’s greatest works have remained hidden from readers worldwide.

I would like to share my ideas and strategies for promoting Korean literature and to pass down some of the experiences I’ve had during my last five years of being both a translator and publisher. I will explore some general parallels which can be found between world literature and Korean literature in context of the Polish market. My objective is to draw a contemporary picture of Korean literature and to suggest some strategies for more effective dissemination of Korean literature abroad. I will be touching on such subjects as readability, authenticity, marketability, and ultimately, responsibility.

The publishing house Kwiaty Orientu, meaning Flowers of the Orient, was established in Poland in October 2007 by myself and my colleague Edyta Matejko-Paszkowska. We both graduated from Warsaw University reading Korean Philology. Having worked for many years as translators for several Polish and Korean companies, a huge interest and genuine passion for Korea encouraged us to establish a publishing company that promotes the country, its culture, and literature. We became the first and only publisher in Poland dedicated to this cause. The publishing roadmap includes all kinds of Korean literature, poetry, history, geography, religion, and even cuisine.

We are the only Polish publishers dedicated to Korean literature and, quite possibly, the only one outside of Korean shores. So far we have published 20 books. In that five-year time frame we have published more Korean books than the previous accumulated total since Poland started having political relations with South Korea in 1985. Relations with North Korea ended in 1989, which spawned a new era between Poland and South Korea. Poland has thus had diplomatic relations with South Korea for a mere 24 years. Japan, on the other hand, to take just one contrasting Asian example, celebrated 100 years of Polish cooperation last year.

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What does this mean for Korean literature? Up to 2007, a total of 17 titles of what could be classified as modern or classical literature have been translated from Korean into Polish. This is extremely low when compared to the likes of titles from Japan or China which both run into the hundreds. There have been several other books written by the well-known professor and founder of Korean Philology at Warsaw University, Halina Ogarek Czoj, on Korean literature, mythology, and religion, but they remain all but hidden in the middle of the university library shelves. Two popular subjects among Polish writers were the Korean economy and of course, North Korea. There have been several works published exploring the North Korean regime and also the boom of the South Korean economy from virtual anonymity to a global power. But these volumes, again, were principally published by small educational publishing establishments and never intended for the high street.

There are key factors as to why Korean literature has not been widespread, particularly prior to 2007. First, a proficient knowledge of Korean language was rare in Poland. Take the Korean Philology undergraduate course at Warsaw University 20 years ago and you would have expected just two other students who shared your passion. Chances were that you wouldn’t continue this path post-graduation, let alone become a translator or dedicate a career to publishing Korean literature. Secondly, it was very difficult to persuade anyone to publish anything. Translation was a hobby or an academic project, and never a commercial venture.

Thirdly, it was very difficult to reach Korean writers to negotiate foreign rights and there weren’t any agents representing Korean writers outside of Korea.

Last year was a big step in our publishing journey.

We received several awards: The Best Book for the Summer (Please Look After Mom), The Best Book of 2012 (The Chicken Who Dreamed She Could Fly) and one nomination for a very prestigious award, The Best Translation of the Year. Last year we sold more books than ever before. But there are a few reasons for that: award nominations have been very helpful for publicity.

T he Korea n Wave: a lmost ever ybody k nows “Gangnam Style.” There are two big K-Pop fan clubs in Poland. One of them already has 5,000 members! Kwiaty

Overseas Angle

by Marzena Stefanska

* adapted from a speech given at the 12th International Workshop for the Translation and Publication of Korean Literature

Marzena Stefanska is a translator of Korean

literature and co-founder of Kwiaty Orientu, a Polish publishing house fully dedicated to Korean literature.

She has translated Oh Jung-hee (The Bird), Shin Kyungsook (Please Look After Mom and I'll Be There) and Gong Ji-young (Our Happy Time). In 2013 she was awarded the Distinguished Service Award by LTI Korea.

As a founder of a literary agency specializing in literature in translation, attending the 12th International Workshop for Translation and Publication of Korean Literature organized by LTI Korea was both fascinating and instructive.

The range of talks at the workshop were interesting, informative, and varied; it was good to hear how publishers worldwide seek to publish and promote Korean literature. The publishers ranged from France (Keulmadang/ Universite Aix-Marseille), the U.S. (White Pine Press), Poland (Kwiaty Orientu), to the Czech Republic (Argo Publishing).

The presentations by Marzena Stefanska from Kwiaty Orientu and Richard Klicnik from Argo whose talks I had the enjoyable role of discussing were fascinating.

Ms. Stefanska’s dedication and passion for Korean literature was very evident. Her publishing house has made great strides to present and promote Korean literature to a Polish audience. It was interesting, particularly, to hear how social networking has been helpful in her work, and it would be good to hear that Korean institutions based in Poland could help Kwiaty Orientu in their work.

Richard Klicnik’s presentation was also riveting. Though still early in the introduction of Korean works, Argo’s display of draft artwork for the Korean titles they’re working on was interesting to see, as was hearing some of the suggestions for promoting literature in the Czech Republic such as having well-known Czech actors drive around the country and perform works of literature.

From my own work experience at Peony, selling and promoting works of translation to an international audience can be a slow process, but also a very rewarding one. It takes patience and determination as well as a consistent approach. The LTI Korea International Workshop was inspiring, with an excellent choice of speakers showing how publishers are working towards finding international audiences for Korean literature in innovative and imaginative ways. It also suggests a bright future with many ideas to move forward and find a larger audience for Korean works.

Copyright © Roger Lee Production

Orientu contacted them right away to gain their cooperation. We even took part in some big events by giving away books as awards.

Facebook: a year ago we built a good Facebook fanpage and our online sales are improving month to month. We have over 1,000 likes.

Word of mouth: people are talking about us. Kwiaty Orientu is gaining popularity; we have started a trend. If you read Korean books, you are cool. We have put forth a lot of effort, including designing modern covers and selling books at reasonable prices so that the Y Generation likes us and talks about us.

T he g loba l trend is t hat we a re reading fewer books. That’s a fact. But also, in Poland we are buying more, so there is still potential for promoting new titles.

Reflections on the 12th LTI Korea International Workshop

by Marysia Juszczakiewicz

Marysia Juszczakiewicz is one of the

founders of Peony Literary Agency.

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Expanding the Overseas Appeal of Korean Literature in Translation I recently attended the Seoul International Book Fair in mid-June and was greatly impressed by the dynamism and multiplicity of the Korean trade publishers exhibiting there. Korean publishers are active in translating books from all over the world, especially from the Japanese and English languages. As a literary scout based in New York and working in 19 countries, it was an eye-opening experience to see books from all over the world displayed in the Korean publishers' booth. I was also surprised to see how many people are fluent in English and familiar with English language authors.

I met with Lee Chae Eun of LTI Korea to discuss Korean literature in translation and exchange ideas about the flow of Korean books in translation, particularly in the English language markets. The first thing to emphasize is that the U.S. is a country that translates very little from any language. The typically quoted statistic is that only three percent of books published in the U.S. in any given year are translations. This statistic makes translation from any language a near impossible feat. The one Korean author who has really broken through in the U.S. market in a significant way is Shin Kyung-Sook with her book Please Look After Mom. Using this book as a case study, one can say that it was first and foremost an excellent novel with universal themes.

Its translation was excellent as was its editing, marketing, and publication. It was a perfect storm of a publication that happens very rarely with a book in translation. Robin Desser, the book's editor, is one of the best working in the English language and Knopf, its publisher, is one of the best in the world. These two factors contributed greatly to the book's success and to the attention it received.

How to duplicate this experience for other Korean writers is a question that I pose myself and will discuss further in my comments. The first thing that is necessary is a great translation or sample excerpt in English, as this is the international gateway language for translation. LTI Korea with its formidable team is well-positioned to execute excellent translations. The next step is getting the translations in the hands of the right editors both in the U.S. and other countries. This work of connection often requires a capable agent or "connector" that has a good handle on the particular market in question and knows the right editors working with publishers who have the capacity to put a book on the world stage. The U.S. is often not the first port of call for books in translation as Americans like to see that a book has already been translated in several countries before they embark on a translation. An ideal interlocutor would be a person familiar with both Korean literature and the local literature who can serve as a bridge between the two cultures. Translators sometimes serve this purpose but there is always the need for a more objective third party who can advise an international publisher about how and why to bring a book to their market. Why not enlist some of the Korean agents who work in the market selling international books to also work more actively in selling Korean writers abroad? They travel frequently to book fairs and have contact with rights people, who in turn can introduce them to editors with an international

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perspective who would be interested in introducing Korean writers to their markets.

LTI Korea produces an excellent magazine that reviews many Korean books and addresses specific themes in Korean writing.

However, more targeted profiles of single authors and single books could also supplement this work. Korean agents could advise LTI Korea regarding writers and books that have more "commercial" prospects and could be more easily marketed. This is not an attempt to "dumb down" the offering of Korean books but simply to broaden it.

An author like Michael Sandel has sold more copies in Korea than in any other country. Are there Korean authors with a similar profile? Nonfiction is an area that is often overlooked in translation. There must be authors writing about global economics, politics, and culture in Korea who have an international reach. North Korea is much in the news but remains a mysterious and impenetrable country. Who better than a South Korean to demystify it and write a compelling book for the international market?

International agents could also be enlisted to help introduce Korean writers to the world. There are now agents working in Hong Kong, London, and New York who are interested in widening their net of authors to include international authors.

Literary magazines like Words Without Borders, Guernica, and The Paris Review to name just a few, all feature some international writers. Words Without Borders, for example, is completely devoted to international writers. It would be useful to research such magazines in France, Germany, the U.K., the Netherlands, and Sweden to collaborate and to help them introduce Korean writers.

LTI Korea has a broad reach among universities and academic communities that can also be tapped. Korean immigrants are a vital part of the U.S. More outreach to them would also be an asset in reaching the U.S. market as they are perfectly positioned to be liaisons. Young people who are first, second, and even third generation Korean-Americans have an interest in preserving their language and culture. What better way is there than to connect with books that can illuminate Korea?

by Maria B.Campbell

Maria B. Campbell is the president

of Maria B. Campbell Associates, Inc., a New York–based company that identifies books to be translated for the world market and for adaptation to film. Maria B. Campbell Associates currently scouts adult and children’s books for a distinguished roster of 19 publishers in Asia, Europe, Latin America, and for Warner Bros. She currently serves as the Co-Vice Chair of the Board of Directors for Words Without Borders (WWB), an international magazine promoting the world’s best writing and authors who are not easily accessible to English-speaking readers.

Overseas Angle

A Fateful Meeting with Modern Korean Poetry It was by coincidence that I encountered Jeong Ji-yong, the first modernist Korean poet. That is why I never imagined that he would become so central in my life.

Twenty years ago when I had just enrolled in a master’s degree program, I visited the home of a friend of my father and came across Jo Jung-rae’s epic novel, Taebaek Mountain Range in his study. I borrowed it and read the whole series. Twenty years has passed, yet I still have a vivid memory of the poem “Nostalgia” that was in the book. I cannot forget the shivers I experienced upon reading that poem which was an integral part of the narrative of the novel. But there was no way of knowing about the poet Jeong Ji-yong, the writer of “Nostalgia,” the poem I fell in love with, or his other works. It was not until the following year that China and Korea established diplomatic relations, and until then there was very little material on Korean studies that I could get my hands on.

It was not until four years later in the spring of 1997 that I was able to re-encounter Jeong Ji-yong. I was pursuing my second doctoral degree at Inha Univeristy in Korea. The course on “Modern Korean Poetry,” which I had registered for during that semester required that I submit an essay every week. It was a truly difficult task for someone who was just getting used to attending college in Korea as a foreign student. But it was from this course that I was at last able to come in contact with the treasure chest of Korean modern poetry and found myself being mesmerized by the beauty of Jeong Ji-yong’s poems. In the process of studying and analyzing poems like “Nostalgia,” “Glass Window 2,” “Mount Jangsu,” and “Indongcha,” I discovered that Jeong, who was known only as a modernist to me, was deeply knowledgeable about classical Chinese poetry. I subsequently ended up choosing Jeong Ji-yong as the topic of my doctoral dissertation.

The time I spent preparing to write my doctoral dissertation provided me with a diverse range of emotional and intellectual experiences. I found out that the best way to appreciate poetry was to keep a relatively objective aesthetic distance. The more I liked someone’s poetry, the easier it was to get attached to the poem in a personal way, hence making it difficult to gain an objective and rational understanding. After much pondering, I decided to change my strategy and delve into his biography and get a hold of his essays in order to analyze the influence

of Chinese in his work. With great difficulty, I sought out Jeong Gu-gwan, Jeong's eldest son, and conducted a number of in-depth interviews. In the process, I was able to confirm the influence of classical Chinese literature on Jeong's poetry and his deep love of the Book of Odes and Tang dynasty poetry. Then I read his prose writing with great care and discovered the poems with direct references to the following poets: TuFu, Yu-hui, Beomseongdae, Wang An-seok, and Samagwang. I also found out that he had made a direct reference to the Book of Odes, the Analects of Confucius, and Mencius (Hsün Tzu), and the Book of Lesser Learning (Xiao Xue). Jeong Ji-yong stressed how poetry should enrich and develop the classical tradition in a theoretical way. After going over his prose writing, I applied a detailed analysis to his poetry and was able to find new aspects of his work.

For example, the line from his poem, “Indongcha,” which is as follows, “In the mountains without even a calendar/ the three months of winter are all white,” is not about his feelings about leisure, as expressed in Tang dynasty poetry, but instead it is derived from the poetry of Shin-hwal who lived during the Joseon era, who wrote, “Upon hearing the news of Shimyang, I enter the mountains with mixed emotions… All alone in the midst of the mountains without a calendar/ I shall remember the spring by the blossoming of the flowers”; these lines reveal the poet’s strong criticism and resistance against the Qing dynasty (1644-1912), which brought about the collapse of the Ming dynasty.

In effect, Jeong Ji-yong’s poems from beginning to end reflect the influence of Chinese classical poetry, his later poems, in particular. Hence, the reason why Jeong Ji-yong can be known as the “father of modern Korean poetry” is that his poetry is written in a very sophisticated language while also succeeding in perfecting and bridging the classical tradition with modernism for the first time in the history of Korean poetry.

After I completed my degree, I returned to China and began teaching Korean literature at a Chinese university. But I was often asked outrageous questions as to whether or not there is actually any world-renowned Korean literature, or whether or not there is any immortal work like Tang dynasty poetry or the History of Song. At first, I was simply cynical and dismissed these ridiculous

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questions. But for someone who truly loved Korean literature, and taught it at the same time, I could not remain mute or indifferent. That is because while Guiyeoni (pen name), a Korean Internet writer, is significantly inf luencing contemporary Chinese readers, classical Korean literature is being neglected. Thus, I felt an urgent responsibility to introduce and acquaint Chinese readers with classical Korean literature. That is how I embarked on a project of translating the famous modern Korean poems with a grant from the Daesan Foundation. In order to render the most accurate meaning and image of each and every poem, I did thorough research into the original text and studied all the relevant research materials that were available. I must add, in the actual process of translating, I spent days mulling over a simple name.

Occasionally, when I was able to come up with a wholly satisfying line with the help of inspiration, I felt great catharsis. To make the poetry more easily comprehensible for Chinese readers, I added footnotes and asked professors of Chinese literature to edit and proofread my translation. That is because the translation of poetry calls for a similarity of form and more importantly, a similarity of spirit with the writer. That is how it can move the heart of a reader, as well as provide them with a wonderful aesthetic experience.

Translation is commonly thought of as a kind of betrayal but “it is better to like something than to know

it and better to enjoy it than to like it.” However, if one undertakes the endeavor of translation with a solid literary background and ample understanding of the humanities, and not be negligent with a single word, then the translated work cannot be an easy betrayal of the original work. At present, I am relishing both the anguish and the bliss of translating the poetry of Baik Suk and will continue to make an effort to accurately translate the full spectrum of the poems — for reasons none other than that Korean literature is connected to me by fate.

by Yin Hai-yan

Yin Hai-yan is a professor of Korean

Language and Literature who has taught at universities in China and Korea. Since March 2010, she has also served as director of the Korean Studies Center at Nanjing University. Her areas of specialization are Korean contemporary poetry and Chinese and Korean comparative literature. Her major translations include: Reading the Best of Korean Contemporary Poetry (2006) and German Ideology and MEGA Literature Studies (2010).

LTI Korea

Overseas Publication Grants LTI Korea provides publication grants to overseas publishers who are planning to publish or have already published translated Korean books. The aim is to reach more international readers through increased overseas publications of Korean books.

Qualifications

Application

Schedule

• Any publisher who has signed a contract for the publication rights of a Korean book and can publish the book by December 2013.

• Any publisher who has already published a translated Korean book in 2013, based on a contract for publication rights of the book.

• Required Documents 1. Publisher’s profile 2. Publication plan 3. A copy of the contract between the publisher and the translator.

4. A copy of the contract between the publisher and the copyright holder.

• Register as a member on LTI Korea’s English website. (http://eng.klti.or.kr) • Complete an online application form on the website and upload the required documents.

• Submission deadlines: March 31/ June 30/ September 30 • The results will be announced in April/ July/ October.

• If the book you wish to publish has received a LTI Korea Translation Grant, you may apply for funding at any time.

Grants • Part of the total publication expense.

• The amount varies depending on the cost of publication and the genre of the book.

• The grant will be issued after publication.

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Contact grants@klti.or.kr Jenny Kim

New Books

Fiction

Copyright © Kim Han-min, Travel Painting Recommended, Minumsa Publishing Group

Recommended

by Publishers Korean editors have handpicked their favorite titles from their own publishing houses. The following list contains hidden gems in Korea’s publishing industry.

For further information, please contact the agents directly.

The Moment the Ice Shines

Beautiful Things in the World

Lee Geumyi, Prooni Books, Inc. 2013, 320p, ISBN 9788957983492

Two boys struggling on the tortuous border between childhood and adulthood are depicted in this book, taking paths that turn out to be squarely opposite of each other. They share the same experiences, but they make different choices that result in markedly different lives. The interplay between the two characters sheds light on the innermost truths in life filled with a stream of choices.

Copyright Agent: Choi Jin-woo agency@prooni.com 82-2-581-0334 (Ext. 117) www.prooni.com

The Boy of Heaven (2 vols.)

Minimal Love

Kim Jae-sung Munhakdongne Publishing Corp.

2013, 204p, ISBN 9788954621526

Lee Jungmyung, Yolimwon Publishing Co. 2013, 296p, ISBN 9788970637730

Jeon Gyeong-rin, Woongjin ThinkBig Co., Ltd. 2012, 368p, ISBN 9788901148977

The Boy of Heaven is the latest by Lee Jungmyung, whose recent works such as The Deep-rooted Tree and The Painter of Wind drew keen attention from readers and critics alike. In the story, an autistic yet brilliant boy manages to escape from North Korea and wanders around the world. Armed with an unprecedented mathematical talent, he bravely confronts the world.

The book portrays the journey of Heesoo, who searches for her abandoned sister Yu-ran. Her dying stepmother asks her to track down Yu-ran, who turns out to be living in a border town. Heesoo, however, finds that her sister has already disappeared. Living in the empty house used by Yu-ran, Hee-soo begins to retrace her long-forgotten sister’s life.

Copyright Agent: Lee Bokee bokeelee@munhak.com 82-2-3144-3237 www.munhak.com

Copyright Agent: Angela Koh angela.koh@yolimwon.com 82-2-3144-3700 www.yolimwon.com

Copyright Agent: Min Ji-hyoung penpen@wjbooks.co.kr 82-2-3670-1167 www.wjthinkbig.co.kr

The book is a collection of 38 unpublished articles written by the late writer Park Wansuh from 2001 until her death. The writings cover a wide range of topics: autobiographical confessions about her personal history leading up to her debut as a writer; everyday musings; messages for today’s Korean society; stories about houses and nature; and memories of her loved ones.

Copyright Agent: Jung In-hye threshold@maumsan.com 82-2-362-1451 www.maumsan.com

Play Play, Galaxy Boys

On Eunha High School’s soccer team, three 18-year-old players stage a makeor-break showdown. The story captures their inherent good-naturedness and a belief in justice while sharply criticizing the society that forces children to give up their dreams. The manipulation of game results, and conflicts and strife surrounding the soccer games, vividly reveal the dog-eat-dog structure.

Park Wansuh, Maumsanchaek 2012, 288p, ISBN 9788960901445

The Reason Why You Came to Planet Earth Kim Hey-jung, Suseonjae Books 2012, 310p, ISBN 9788967270490

Why is it that people are born? Why do people live in a whirlwind of pain and agony? Why do people eventually die?

Who creates humans with this wretched fate, and why? The author, who worked as a nurse at a hospital’s emergency room, deals with important questions about life in the novel. The central character chases after his father’s afterlife; in the process, he witnesses the birth and death of humankind.

Copyright Agent: Park Jei-young jyoungnim@gmail.com 82-10-7129-7860 www.ssjbooks.com

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Fiction

Love Fills

What Should I Do?

My Inventor Neighbor

Eerie Tales from Old Korea

Sim Yunkyung Munhakdongne Publishing Corp.

2013, 284p, ISBN 9788954621892

Kim Ih-eun, Jaeum & Moeum 2013, 324p, ISBN 9788957077696

Choi Woo-geun, Bookgoodcome 2013, 384p, ISBN 9788997728374

Brother Anthony, Seoul Selection 2013, 176p, ISBN 9781624120022

The book contains eight short stories, including the title work, “What Should I Do?” a tragic love story between an embattled servant and a member of the elite yangban class. The stories feature the sadness and scars that characters must cope with. The characters, confronted with obstacles, escape or search for a route to a new world, and cast light on a demanding reality.

My Inventor Neighbor is a collection of plays written by a screenwriter with about 20 years of experience in the field.

The author’s first play “My Inventor Neighbor” was staged in May 2008 and was well received by critics and audience alike. As actors focus on their characters, dramatic effects are amplified, generating more laughs from the audience, which transforms into grief.

Copyright Agent: Kim Young-lan jamoglobal@jamobook.com 82-2-324-2347 www.jamo21.net

Copyright Agent: Lee Soon-young bookgoodcome@gmail.com 82-10-9036-5433 www.bookgoodcome.com

In the late 19th century, Western missionaries Homer B. Hulbert and James S. Gale came to the Joseon Kingdom and compiled exotic local stories into a book. Marking the 150th anniversary of the authors, respected Korean literature translator Brother Anthony has compiled 29 stories into a book titled Eerie Tales from Old Korea.

Ghost stories from the eyes of Western missionaries offer a unique and rare perspective.

Love Fills follows up on Love Runs, which is concerned about the love story between Hye-na and Wook-yeon. Love Fills focuses on Hye-na, a 39-year-old woman who works at an obstetrics and gynecology clinic and falls in love with the head of the hospital. Sometimes events look ordinary, but her story unfolds in a way that highlights the shining moments of her life.

Copyright Agent: Kate Han mshan@munhak.com 82-31-955-2635 www.munhak.com

Copyright Agent: Park Shin-hyung sales@seoulselection.com 82-70-4060-3950 www.seoulselection.com

Nonfiction

The Voices of Heaven

Nonetheless

Maija Rhee Devine, Seoul Selection 2013, 316p, ISBN 9781624120039

Won Jong-kook, Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd. 2013, 286, ISBN 9788932023915

A Korean-American writer takes up the topic of traditional values that are threatened in the aftermath of the Korean War. In the story, a “second” mother gets introduced; her role is to give birth to a son to the family. In this irony-laden situation, the story also accentuates the healing power of love.

In Won Jong-kook's second collection of short stories, he showcases his imaginative ability to create variations of a single motif. He mixes the sci-fi genre and experimental techniques in three serialized works titled “Mix-and-Match,” which deals with human cloning and related philosophical problems. The collection, featuring a total of eight short stories, depicts characters who all struggle with the imperfect and the broken, yet suggests hope throughout the work.

Copyright Agent: Park Shin-hyung sales@seoulselection.com 82-70-4060-3950 www.seoulselection.com

Copyright Agent: Choi Ji-in jiin@moonji.com 82-2-338-7224 www.moonji.com

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Today, I’m the Prettiest Woman Hwang Jung-sun, Goldenowl Inc. 2013, 249p, ISBN 9788960303522

Popular image consultant Hwang Jungsun offers a comprehensive style guide for women of a certain age. The target readers are those in their late 30s through 40s, mostly working women who are far removed from the typical image of “ajumma.” Styling tips to highlight the sexiness of 40-year-olds, fashion tips based on trendy items, tips on body shape, and seasonal information are packed into the guidebook.

Copyright Agent: Cho Yeon-kon nahappydream@goldenowl.co.kr 82-2-338-9150 www.goldenowl.co.kr

Discovery of Politics Park Sang-Hoon, Humanitas 2013, 178p, ISBN 9788964371695

The book is based on five lectures by the author, targeting those who want to follow progressive politics. The author observes the trials and errors of the past decades in the wake of the 1987 democracy movement. As a political scientist, he maps out his ideas and tries to objectively describe the concept of progressivism. Yet his endeavor turns out to be harder than he had imagined.

Copyright Agent: Lee Jin-sil ljstruth@hanmail.net 82-2-739-9929 www.humanitasbook.co.kr

Big Data: A New Way to Understand the World Park Soon-seo, ReadySetGo Co., Ltd. 2013, 252p, ISBN 9788997729050

A great amount of data is being generated on a daily basis due to the widespread use of computers, the Internet, and smartphones. The book provides analysis by and the concerns of some 30 experts on big data. How big data gets generated and how it influences people’s everyday lives are presented in an easy-to-understand and entertaining fashion.

Copyright Agent: Song In-hye readysetgo7@naver.com 82-2-711-5507 www.ReadySetGo.co.kr

If You Are Called Crazy, You Are Leading a Life of No Regrets Kim Gyeong-su, Myungjin Publications Inc. 2013, 250p, ISBN 9788976777348

In Seoul, the author is an ordinary office worker; in deserts and remote places, he is a bold adventurer. The book introduces the writer’s experiences and ideas, with a strong message suggesting that if you want to change your life, you must experience nature, where there is no trace of civilization.

Copyright Agent: Han Hye-jung myungjinbooks@gmail.com 82-2-326-0026 (Ext. 112) www.myungjinbooks.com

Travel Painting Recommended Kim Han-min, Minumsa Publishing Group 2013, 276p, ISBN 9788937487361

The book contains pictures drawn by the author, who has traveled extensively in the past 10 years. Instead of a camera, he used sketchbooks to turn his travels into special experiences, observing at a deeper level and rediscovering something new from otherwise ordinary scenes.

For those who hurriedly take pictures at scenic spots, the book offers a good alternative.

Copyright Agent: Michelle Nam michellenam@minumsa.com 82-2-515-2000 (Ext. 206) www.minumsa.com

Evolutionary Theory of Dieting Nam Se-hee, Minumin 2013, 292p, ISBN 9788960173453

Why is it so difficult to lose weight even though one takes up various methods and dietary therapies? The author’s answer is that people tend to adopt a couple of tips without knowing the full mechanism of their body. The book deals with issues of true health and beauty, as well as false information about dieting tips, in order to present a new paradigm.

Copyright Agent: Michelle Nam michellenam@minumsa.com 82-2-515-2000 (Ext. 206) minumin.minumsa.com

Symphony of Life

Machiavelli

Because We Are All Humans

Future: My Job

Oh Kil-kwon, Sciencebooks 2013, 256p, ISBN 9788983716040

Kim Sang-kun, Book21 Publishing Group 2013, 310p, ISBN 9788950946005

Leu Eun-sook, Little Mountain Publishing Co. 2012, 272p, ISBN 9788989646860

Kim Rando, Munhakdongne Publishing Corp.

2013, 416p, ISBN 9788954621915

In the past three years, the author has serialized nature articles on a major portal site under the title of “Biology Promenade.” Accompanied by photos, the articles are detailed observations of nature by a veteran researcher, whose lifelong endeavor is to unlock the secrets in the natural world.

For hundreds of years, the perceptions about Machiavelli and his philosophical principles have been distorted. Existing discussions are mostly limited to his representative work, The Prince. Going beyond widespread prejudices, the book attempts to reinterpret Machiavelli's humanistic aspects. His presence in Italy and other parts of Europe are also collected and illustrated in the book.

The author has engaged in the human rights movement for the past 21 years.

She has also been working at a restaurant for 12 years. In this collection of essays, she delivers the message of helping those in need. The author calls on readers to join the struggle and never give up even if there are no immediate results.

Professor Kim Rando has written the bestselling book Youth, It’s Painful, and sold its rights in 10 countries, sparking the first-ever Korean Wave in foreign publishing markets. His new book is based on his observation that most of the concerns of youth stem from the job search. He attempts to find answers about what should be done to get your dream job and envision tomorrow in pursuit of happiness.

Copyright Agent: Michelle Nam michellenam@minumsa.com 82-2-515-2000 (Ext. 206) sciencebooks.minumsa.com

Copyright Agent: Kim Young-hee youngheekim@book21.co.kr 82-31-955-2117 www.book21.com

Copyright Agent: Jung Woo-jin hinejma@gmail.com 82-2-335-7365 www.littlemt.com

Copyright Agent: Kate Han mshan@munhak.com 82-31-955-2635 www.munhak.com

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Nonfiction

Graphic Novels

Harihara's Science Blog

A Snail Can Never Be Late

Lee Eun-hui, Sallim Publishing Company 2005, 220p, ISBN 9788952204318

Jung-mok Bhikkhuni, Sam & Parkers 2013, 263p, ISBN 9788965701675

Biologist Lee Eun-hui is at the forefront of a campaign to make science more available to the public. She explains breakthroughs in modern science while analyzing lesser known aspects of science.

The book takes up hot topics such as antibiotics, environmental hormones, atomic energy, genetically modified food, test-tube babies, and organ transplants.

Jung-mok Bhikkhuni touches upon issues that plague many people: anger, desires, relationships, and fear. The Buddhist monk explains how to control anger, handle pain, heal hurt feelings, and recover peace and happiness in an easy-to-understand style.

Copyright Agent: Park Jina jina@sallimbooks.com 82-31-955-1396 www.sallimbooks.com

Copyright Agent: Jeong Hye-ri hrjeong@smpk.kr 82-31-960-4831 www.smpk.co.kr

There Is No Nation for the Youth Han Youn-hyung, Across Publishing Company 2013, 308p, ISBN 9788997379231

In different parts of the world, people begin to notice and classify economically struggling young people: the 1,000 Euro Generation, the Dankai Generation, and the 880,000 Won Generation. A prominent political critic, the author analyzes the social issues that bind the East Asia region in an incisive and humorous style.

Copyright Agent: Kim Rumee acrossbook@gmail.com 82-70-8724-0876

Hwa-ja (2 vols.)

Hongjackga, Middle House 2011, 304p, ISBN 9788993391084 (Vol.1)

The book is a mix of various genres.

Mystery, horror, thriller, fantasy and romance are infused into the title. The comics also deliver a message that more social efforts and attention should be devoted to tackling crimes against children and taking care of young victims. The author also published the French edition of the three-volume Dorothy Band via the leading comics publisher Casterman.

Copyright Agent: Lee Hee-sun subhuti77@hanmail.net 82-2-333-6250 www.middlehouse.co.kr

Children’s Books

No Parking Baek Mi-sook; Illustrator: Oh Seung-min Nurimbo Publishing Co., 2013 36p, ISBN 9788958761600

When Ttori’s car gets a flat tire, his father assigns the name “No Parking” to the troubled tire. It asks other cars not to stop in front of Ttori’s house, but the tire does not like his new mission. It wants to function as a tire for other cars such as trucks and excavators, only to be rejected.

What will happen to the “No Parking” tire?

Copyright Agent: We Jung-eun nurimbo_pub@naver.com 82-31-955-7391 www.nurimbo.co.kr

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Sohn Hye-ryung’s Comics: Greek and Roman Myths Sohn Hye-ryung, Amoeba 2013, 172p, ISBN 9788965690290

The book, a hybrid of comics and fiction, features Greek and Roman myths.

Describing the famous myths in ancient times through comics together with concise texts, it is a family-oriented title suitable for both younger readers and adults.

Copyright Agent: Hong Chan-mi haru@amoeba.co.kr 82-2-3449-0360 www.amoeba.co.kr

Because He Is an Only Child

What Kind of Seed Are You?

Song Eon; Illustrator: Kim Byeong-ha Bombom Publishing. Co., 2013 80p, ISBN 9788991742444

Choi Sook-hee, Bear Books 2013, 40p, ISBN 9788993242812

Chang-soo is the only child in the family.

He is also a good at fighting. Encouraged by his parents, he often beats up and harasses his school friends. One day, he comes home crying, apparently after a fight with his friends. His father, angered by his son’s defeat, marches toward the school to punish Chang-soo’s friends.

Copyright Agent: Heo Sun-young bbsun@bombombook.com 82-2-2212-7088 cafe.daum.net/bbpub

Seeds have a wide range of appearances: wrinkled, shrunken, even barbed ones can be found. The book tells younger readers that every child is like a seed that can blossom into a flower. At first glance, a small seed might look like nobody. But the book shows how it develops into a beautiful flower, a process that is linked to the unlimited potential of children and their dreams.

Copyright Agent: Choi Hyun-Kyoung bearbooks@naver.com 82-2-332-2672 www.bearbooks.co.kr

The Cooking Princess: Party Food (3 vols.)

Studio Haedam; Illustrator: Kim Suk-hee 2010, 160p, ISBN 9788992479790 (Vol. 1)

Catered to girls, this comic book on cooking is filled with pretty pictures that will charm younger readers. Good storytelling stands out in scenes about cooking contests and fantasy-filled moments. Cooking fairy Robin and Brownie play delightful roles.

Copyright Agent: Jung Sun-woo nksunwoo@hanmail.net 82-32-323-9985 www.gobook2.com

Catch Me If You Can Won You-soon; Illustrator: Yoon Bong-sun Sigongsa Co., Ltd. 2013, 136p, ISBN 9788952768964

In this tale, six characters including a larva in the cabbage patch, a chipmunk struggling under the threat of a new natural enemy, and starving wild boar family members are fighting to stay alive.

Although the characters have different looks and lifestyles, their life and death are surprisingly interconnected. This omnibus-style story suggests that all the living creatures are just pieces of nature’s grand puzzle.

Copyright Agent: Amelie Choi amelie@sigongsa.com 82-2-2046-2855 www.sigongjunior.com

Kim Hong-do: Artist for the People of the Joseon Dynasty Jin Jun-hyun, Namusoop 2004, 48p, ISBN 9788989004158

Kim Hong-do is one of the most beloved painters in Korea. The Joseon period painter produced such masterful works as “Ssireum” and “Seodang” in the folk painting genre. He also drew excellent works in other genres such as portraits, landscapes, and paintings of immortals, while revealing his talent in music, calligraphy, and the Korean poetic form sijo. Kim was born to a middle-class family, but he made continued efforts to become a great painter.

12th Nation Kim Hye-jin, Baram Books 2013, 468p, ISBN 9788994475370

The book is the fourth installment of the “Perfect World” series. The writer has serialized the fantasy story over a period of several years. It is an unofficial biography to existing fans and a prequel for new readers. In the book, there are 12 tribes forming their own nations, and readers can expect that each nation will present plenty of interesting stories.

Copyright Agent: Lee Min-young windchild04@hanmail.net 82-2-3142-0495 cafe.daum.net/barampub

Copyright Agent: Ha Un-ha supeseo@daum.net 82-2-540-7118 cafe.daum.net/namukids

Math Restaurant, Vol. 1

Pretty Face On Sale

The Boys Are Coming

The Polar Bear

Kim Hee-nam; Illustrator: Kim Jin-wha Thinking & Feeling Publishing, 2012 112p, ISBN 9788992263191

Sun Ja-eun; Illustrator: Kim Moo-yeon Prunsoop Publishing Co., Ltd. 2013, 148p, ISBN 9788971849750

Yun Hye-Sook, Sakyejul Publishing Ltd. 2013, 216p, ISBN 9788958286660

Lee Mi-jung, Mirae N Co., Ltd. 2012, 32p, ISBN 9788937885273

A math lecture for first graders has been set up in the form of a cooking recipe.

A chef, who has devoted his life to researching math meals, and his protege named Dangke lead a topsy-turvy life at the Math Restaurant, offering problemsolving techniques and mathematical principles to young readers.

The book reflects the recent trend of children’s tendency to prioritize looks. But the author does not put forward obvious points such as “Looks are not important.”

Instead, she introduces the unique idea of “a shop selling pretty faces” and reveals how today’s children think about looks in a positive and entertaining style.

In the 1920s, things were changing rapidly and dramatically. This is a story of three boys who led a life as storytellers.

One boy left in search of money, the second tried to maintain friendships, and the third never stopped pursing his dream. They are now telling their innermost stories.

This picture book without text shows how a white bear trapped in a zoo gets back to where it should have been. Just like in a road movie, the story’s fantastic journey is shown through images that often shift between reality and imagination.

Copyright Agent: Kim Min-kyeong tfbooks@naver.com 82-2-335-7345

Copyright Agent: Park Hyun-sook anne620@prunsoop.co.kr 82-31-955-1410 (Ext. 306) www.prunsoop.co.kr

Copyright Agent: Kang Hyun-joo kanghjoo@sakyejul.co.kr 82-31-955-8600 www.sakyejul.co.kr

Copyright Agent: Park Ji-young rights@mirae-n.com 82-3475-3870 www.mirae-n.com

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Meet the Publishers 出版社巡礼

Sallim Publishing Company

Sallim Publishing is quite well known to Koreans. The Korean edition of The Secret

by Australian writer Rhonda Byrne was published by Sallim. Published in 2007, the book sold one million copies within the shortest time in Korean publishing h istor y. T hu s, Sa l l i m is a fa m i l ia r publisher to those who found courage and hope in the book.

H o w e v e r, S a l l i m i s r e g a r d e d differently by book lovers with a wealth of experience, especially readers who love literature. Many novels published

by Sallim in the 1990s were their own tour de force in the publishing market so much, so that people were considered to be behind the times if they had not read those books. The publisher has since then been firmly established as one specializing in literature.

Sallim, however, does not have a long history. It was founded in 1989 by the current president Sim Mansu who worked as editor-in-chief for MunyeJoongang, an inf luential literary magazine, for more than 10 years. The name “Sallim,” which is a pure Korean root word without Chinese characters, is an interesting choice for a publishing company. It refers to housekeeping by a housewife and also implies the managing of family traditions that have been passed down through generations in Korean society, such as the relationship between a wife and a husband, children’s education, and ethical values. Many Koreans think that a family will be happy and in harmony if a housewife manages the household well.

Kang Sim-ho, director of planning

and editing, explains that “publishing a series of million copy sellers in the early 1990s helped the company establish itself quickly and firmly.” Novels such as I Wish for What Is Forbidden to Me, Love of a Thousand Years, and Contradictions

by Yang Gui-ja, who had an excellent ability to tell stories that appealed greatly to fiction lovers, are some of them. Sallim also published works by Yi Mun-yol, Lee In-hwa, and Ki Hyung-do, all well known figures in the history of Korean literature.

Sallim’s direction changed in the early 2000s. Director Kang explains: “The inf luence of fiction declined greatly by the late 1990s.” The company changed its course from literature to the humanities.

The most notable outcome of this change is the Sallim Knowledge Series, viewed as the publisher’s most important publication.

With the first volume published in 2003, all the books of the series are just big enough to hold in one’s hand, that is, they have a pocketbook format. With 460 books published so far, the series covers a variety of subjects.

Director Kang says, “The main idea of the series was to discover unknown writers and to appeal to readers who prefer short books.” Each book is about 60,000 words long. The series is also published in an electronic version and a large-print version in order to cater to people with poor vision, including the elderly. The publisher plans to publish the series for as long as they can up to over 2,000 books.

2002 was a historically meaningful year for Koreans. The FIFA World Cup was co-hosted successfully with Japan,

and a liberal candidate was elected as the president of Korea. When two middle school girls were run over by an American armored vehicle that was in training, Koreans were greatly shocked. Largescale anti-U.S. demonstrations took place daily, which had not happened since the 1980s. The first 10 books in the Sallim Knowledge Series are devoted to analyzing the economy and national security of the U.S., Korea’s closest ally, as well as its target of fierce criticism. The titles include The Left and the Right Wing of the United States, The Other Side of the United States, and The Identity of the United States.

When disputes broke out between Japan and Korea concerning the small island Dokdo on the east coast of the Korean peninsula, Professor Shin Yongha’s Story of Dokdo was published.

Book s published by Sa l l i m have become even more diverse since the mid2000s. Harihara’s Science Blog, a science book for young people, became popular when it was published in 2005. Other books have increased readers’ interest in historical knowledge: Gyeongseong Adventure (Seoul was originally called Gyeongseong) which solves 10 horrific and mysterious cases that shook Joseon society in the 1930s; Russian Coffee, a story of Joseon’s first barista at the beginning of the 20th century; and Bank, which portrays the currency war between Korea and Japan during the Joseon era.

by Shin Junebong

Sallim Knowledge Series Sallim Publishing Company.

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Afterword

Messy Business: Translating Ambiguity If you read a translation later of any of the books presented in this autumn issue of list_ Books from Korea, you may appreciate the translation more if you know something about the difficulties that the translator will most likely have encountered. Probably the most intractable and most interesting difficulty that the translator will face is the proper treatment of the various ambiguities that present themselves in the original work.

There are different kinds of ambiguities, and the nature of each determines how it will be handled. Most ambiguities are unintended, but some are intended; in some cases we don’t know whether the ambiguity is intended or not, and have no way of finding out.

If the translator knows that the author intended the ambiguity, she will take one of two approaches: either clarify the ambiguity or maintain it. Most translators will retain the ambiguity. Usually, however, the ambiguity simply cannot be properly rendered. Take the well-known example: Flying planes can be dangerous. Is the act of flying dangerous, or is the flying plane dangerous? Try rendering that in Korean, and the reader won’t get the point at all.

When rendering is possible, though, it should be rendered in a way that reflects the experience that the reader of the original was subjected to, allow the reader of the translation to experience, in other words, the various possible choices of interpretation that were presented by the author. This is usually a frustrating and time-consuming task because different cultures present ideas in different constructs, which prevents the translator from employing a point-bypoint corresponding construct. A really true rendering of the ambiguity will often require a modification of its structure.

Dražen Pehar said, The translator must “construct, or invent, a kind of target language-discourse to which the audience can take the same attitude that a speaker and an author take to their sentences.”

How about unintended ambiguity? If the author did not intend ambiguity, it would seem logical that the translator should figure out what the author meant to say, and then express that in the translation. Or not.

First, a little background. Many authors are not careful about clarity. I have encountered this in the translation of short stories, works on topics in the humanities—especially art—and corporate writing. Most of these authors know what they want to say; they’re just careless in expressing it. In such a case, the translator can usually clarify the ambiguity with a phone call. But some authors do not even have a clear understanding themselves of what they have written. I have found this to be true on more than one occasion. For example, I call an author to ask precisely what he intended, and the author, after hemming and hawing in answer to my embarrassing but unavoidable interrogation, gives up

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in exasperation and says, “Oh, just write what you think I meant.” If that is truly the last word, the ambiguity is clarified—unethically—with a little imagination.

What should the translator do when the author insists that his expression is not ambiguous? In the process of translating one short story I thought that an event in it was ambiguous.

One native-speaker informant, after much deliberation, said it meant A, and another informant said it meant B. So I conducted an informal survey to find out what a few more native speakers thought. I found that three quarters of those surveyed thought it ambiguous, and the number who understood it as A was about the same as the number who understood it as B. In a later conversation with the author, he insisted that the passage was not ambiguous. Should the translator therefore present it unambiguously, or, assuming that he is not concerned about losing the author’s regard, should he craft it in a way that ideally approximately three quarters of the readers of his translation find it ambiguous?

There are translators who think that the unintended ambiguity should be presented to the reader as close as possible to the way that the reader of the original writing encountered it. And this same principle applies to other flaws with which the writing may be encumbered. This reflects the attitude that a translation is not mainly a conveyor of ideas but a whole package of ideas and language and rhetoric.

In the case that an ambiguity was intended, most translators will maintain the ambiguity; if the translator knows it was not intended, he may or may not clarify it. If he doesn’t know, though, whether it was or was not intended and does not have access to the author, what can he do? The translator who focuses mainly on conveying the author’s ideas to the reader (and understands what the author intended to say) will probably clarify; the translator who focuses on the process of writing, on the work as a whole rather than only the work’s ideas, will probably maintain the ambiguity.

But I hope this messy business doesn’t prevent you from enjoying the next translation that you read!

by John Holstein

John Holstein recently retired from

his teaching position in the Department of English at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul. When his teaching duties allowed, he both translated and wrote works on Korean literature and culture.

Contributors Bae No-pil is a reporter with the JoongAng Ilbo.

Bok Dohoon is a literary critic. His

collections of critical essays include A Portrait of a Blindman and The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. He is on the editorial board of list_Books from Korea.

Cho Yeon-jung is a literary critic.

She made her debut in 2006 when she won the Seoul Shinmun New Critics Award. Her collections of critical essays include Time for Touching.

Choi Jae-bong is a senior reporter

at the culture desk of The Hankyoreh newspaper.

Eom Hye-suk conducts research in

children’s literature and is an illustrated book critic who also works as a translator. Her most well-known work is Reading My Delightful Illustrated Books.

Hong Jung-sun is a literary critic and

Professor in the Department of Korean Language and Literature at Inha University. His career as a literary critic began in 1982 when he founded The Age of Literature. He is the author of Literature as a Branch of Humanities, Kafka and North Korean Literature, and Prometheus’ Time.

Huh Eui-do is a journalist and poet.

He was the publisher of The Economist, a weekly business magazine by Korea Joongang Daily. His works include Romantic Apartment, M-Everything (Media Ever ything), and Wa r m Capitalism.

Jeong Yi-hyun is a writer. She made

her debut in 2002 when she won the New Writers Contest sponsored by Literature and Society. She is the author of the short story collections, Romantic Love and Society, Today’s Lies, and the novel My Sweet Seoul. She received the Hyundae Munhak Award.

Joseph Lee is a literary agent and 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 Yeo-ul is a literary critic. Jung

teaches at Seoul National University and the Korean National University of Arts. She is the author of a collection of critical essays, A Small Antenna in My Study.

Park Hae-cheon is a researcher

of design. His major works include Interface Chronicle; Human, Design, and Technology; and Concrete Utopia.

Pyo Jeonghun is a book reviewer,

columnist, translator, and freelance writer. He has translated 10 books into Korean and written Books Have Their Own Destiny, A Short Introduction to Chinese Philosophy, and An Interview with My Teacher: What Is Philosophy?

He is on the editorial board of list_ Books from Korea.

Richard Hong is a book columnist

and the head of BC Agency. He translated 13: The Story of the World’s Most Notorious Superstitions. He has appeared on KBS 1 Radio’s “Global Today,” and writes columns for The Korea Economic Daily and Posco News.

Kim Do-eon is a writer. His literary

career began in 1999 when his fiction won the Hankook Ilbo New Writers Contest. He is the author of short story collection, A Riverside View with an Iron Staircase.

Kim Dongshik is a literary critic

and a Professor of Korean Language and Literature at Inha University. His collections of critical essays include Cynicism and Fascination and Memory and Vestige.

Kim Inae is a children’s story writer,

critic, and the president of the KBBY (Korean Board on Books for Young People). She is the author of the children’s stories Across the Duroke River, The Brave Little Mouse, and a collection of critical essays, Why Children’s Stories Are Fun to Read. She is also the recipient of Today’s Young Artist Award.

Kim Ji-eun is a children’s book

critic, and author of a collection of critical essays Ethica Falling.

writer and children’s literature critic.

She currently lectures on theories of children's fiction writing in the Department of Creative Writing at Hanshin University. She is on the editorial board of list_Books from Korea.

Shin Junebong is a reporter with the

Kim Kyung-yun is a critic of

Shin Hyoung-cheol is a literary

JoongAng Ilbo.

Shin Soojin is a freelance children's book editor.

Son Jong-up is a literary critic and Professor in the Department of Korean Language and Literature at Sunmoon University. His major works include Theater and the Woods and The Fear of the Analyst.

Kang Yu-jung is a literary and film critic, and the author of Oedipus’ Forest, a collection of critical essays.

She is on the editorial board of list_ Books from Korea.

children’s and young adult literature and translator. She is the author of a collection of critical essays Our Portraits of Others and a number of translations.

Kim Mansu is a professor with the Department of Culture and Contents at Inha University. His works include Plot and Character in the Age of Storytelling. He is on the editorial board of list_Books from Korea.

Kim Min-ryoung is a children’s

Hankook Ilbo.

story writer who also studies children’s literature. She made her literary debut in 2006 when her children’s story won the Munwha Ilbo New Writer’s Contest. She is the author of My Cousin Sera.

Kim Chong-khwang is a writer.

Kim Su-yeong is President of Rhodus

Kim Beomsoo is a reporter with the

He made his debut in 1998 when his short story “Farewell to the Police Station” appeared in the quarterly Munhakdongnae. His major works include short story collections, Farewell to the Police Station and Rice Planting Blues, the novel A Tale of the Military, and the historical novel A Story of the Gwangjang Market.

Publishing Company and an instructor in philosophy.

Uh Soo-woong is Editor-in-Chief of the Chosun Ilbo Weekly Magazine.

Yang Yun-eui is a literary critic. She

won the 2006 Joongang New Writer’s Award in the literary criticism category.

Yi Myung-suk is a columnist. He

has published Yi Myung-suk’s Japanese Comics; Manhwa; Finding the Critical Point; and A Cafe for Every Day.

Yoon So-hee is a children’s book

writer. She has written Prejudice, Aram’s Secret, and 7 Stories To Help You Study. She is the winner of the 13th MBC Children’s Writing Prize.

Yu Youngjin is a children’s literature

critic and a teacher at an elementary school. He is the author of The Body’s Imagination and Fairytale.

Translators Ally Hwang holds a doctorate

in Comparative Literature from B i n g h a m t o n Un i v e r s i t y a n d i s currently translating the short story collection, Myoungrang by Cheon Un-yeong. She was a fellow of the International Translation Foundation and has recently published a short story translation of Seo Hajin's “At the Gunwale.”

Brother Anthony has been translating

Korean literature for over 20 years, and has published some 30 volumes, mostly of modern poetry. Currently, he is Distinguished Professor at Dankook University, Professor Emeritus at Sogang University, and President of the Royal Asiatic Society Korea Branch.

Cho Yoonna is a freelance interpreter and translator.

Choi Inyoung is an artist and translator specializing in Korean literature and the arts. She has been translating for over 20 years.

D a v i d I . St e i n b e r g r e c e i v e d

his under-graduate education at Dartmouth College and Lingnan University in Canton, China. His graduate training in Chinese and Southeast Asian subjects was at Harvard and the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He is the author of several books on Korea and on Burma.

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87

Featured Authors

E.K. DuBois is a freelance translator.

She currently resides in Seoul.

H. Jamie Chang is a Bostonian/ Busanian freelance translator.

Heidi Shon is a freelance translator.

She has also taught English as a fulltime lecturer at Hongik University.

Jaewon E. Chung is working on

several translation projects under the guidance and support of the International Communication Foundation and LTI Korea. Chung received the 38th Korea Times Modern Literature Translation Commendation Award For his translation of Hwang Jung-eun’s “The Door.”

Jung Yewon is a freelance interpreter

and translator. She received the Daesan Foundation Translation Grant in 2009, the LTI Korea Translation Grant in 2010, and the Korea Times Translation Award in 2011. She is currently working on the translation of Vaseline Buddha, a novel by Jung Young Moon.

Kari Schenk was the co-recipient of

the commendation award in the 2006 Korea Times Literature Translation Awards, and in 2010 she attended a special course in translation at LTI Korea. She teaches at Korea University.

Kim Soyoung is currently working

on translating fiction and nonfiction from Korean into English.

Kim Ungsan is a freelance translator.

He has worked as a lecturer in English literature at Seoul National University and at Korea National Open University.

Park Kyoung-lee is a graduate

student at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies. She won the 9th Korean Literature Translation Contest for New Translators in 2010.

Yang Sung-jin is a staff reporter and

editor at The Korea Herald. Yang wrote a Korean history book in English, Click Into the Hermit Kingdom, and a newsbased English vocabulary book, News English Power Dictionary.

Fiction pp. 42-44, 57-58

Yi Jeong-hyeon is a freelance

translator. She has translated several books and papers, including Korean Traditional Landscape Architecture and Atlas of Korean History.

Editors Kim Stoker is an editor and lecturer a t Ew h a Wo m a n s Un i v e r s i t y ' s Graduate School of Translation and Interpretation.

Bae Suah made her literary debut

in 1993 in the quarterly Fiction and Philosophy with “The Dark Room of Nineteen Eighty-Eight.” She is the author of the short story collection Green Apples Along the Highway, and the novels Sunday Sukiyaki Restaurant, North Living Room, and Untold Nights and a Day. Bae is the winner of the Hankook Ilbo Literary Award.

Krys Lee is a writer and Professor of Creative Writing at Yonsei University's Underwood International College.

Her short story collection Drifting House was published by Viking/ Penguin in the U.S. and Faber and Faber in the U.K., in 2012.

Cover Art Park Sang-hyeok graduated from

the Braunschweig University of Art in Germany, with a double major in photography and graphic design. His works of digital photography, digital painting, and animation appeared in a number of group exhibitions in Germany and Korea. He uses nonexistent but imaginable comic subjects, such as talking animals or moving shade, in creating a world with a touch of hope, humor, and humanism. His short comic book collection (2012) and his feature-length comic Seni (2013) were published electronically.

Jung Mi-kyung made her literary

debut in 1987 as the winner in the drama category of the JoongAng New Writer’s Award, then went on hiatus before publishing a short story in the quarterly World Literature in 2001. She is the author of the short story collections Bloodstained Lover, They Gave Me Balkan Roses, My Son’s Girlfriend, and The French Laundry; the novels La Vie en Rose, The Strange Sorrow of Wonderland, and Stars of Africa. She is the winner of the 2006 Yi Sang Literary Award.

Peter J. Koh is a freelance translator and interpreter who completed LTI Korea's Special Workshop in 2009 and Intensive Workshop in 2010.

Lee Hyun-soo made her literary

debut in 1991 as the winner of the Chungcheong Ilbo New Writer’s Award. She is the author of the short story collection The Rosewood China Cabinet and the novels New Tales of Gisaeng and Four Days.

88 list_ Books from Korea

Vol.21 Autumn 2013

Kim Soom made her literary debut

in 1997 as the winner of the Daejeon Ilbo New Writer’s Award for the short story “On Slowness.” She is the author of the short story collection Liver and Gallbladder and the novels Water and Women and Their Evolving Enemies.

Han Yujoo made her literary debut

in 2003 as the winner of the quarterly Literature and Society New Writer’s Award. She is the author of the short story collections To the Moon; The Book of Ice; My Left Hand Is King, My Right Hand the King’s Scribe; and the novel The Impossible Fairytale. She is the winner of the Hankook Ilbo Literary Award.

Lee Yeon-sik is an art historian. He

Mun Yo-han is a psychiatrist,

Rieu Dong-min majored in

Oh Yeong-jin is a comic book artist.

is a writer and translator whose tastes in art history run to the grotesque, the macabre, and the erotic. He is the author of Art History of Forgeries and Stolen Works; Ukiyo-e: Pictures That Seduce; and Monsters in Art.

therapist, and counselor. His long-term interests include expanding the narrow definition of therapy with an emphasis on personal growth. He is the author of Goodbye, Laziness and Stethoscope for the Heart.

Nonfiction pp. 60-66 Lee Gi-ho made his literary debut in

the monthly Hyundai Munhak in 1999 with the short story “Bunny.” He is the author of the short story collections Earnie; Having Been at a Loss, I Knew It Went That Way; Who Is Dr. Kim? and the novel At Least We Can Apologize.

economics at college, and wrote his dissertation on Marx’s labor theory of value. He currently teaches economics at various universities. He is the author of Marx Asked Me If I Was Sick, The Economics of Prometheus, and The Montage of Memories.

Go Mi-sook is a scholar of Korean

classical literature. She is the author of Yeolha Ilgi: Space of Laughter and Irony; Yeolha Ilgi: Dazzling Vision of Life and Civilization; Two Stars, Two Maps; and others.

Seo Joon-hwan made his literary

debut in the quarterly Literature and Society in 2001 with his short story “Aquarium.” He is the author of the short story collection You Are the Memories of the Moon and the novels The Goldberg Variations and The Death of Robespierre.

His unique point of view on current affairs is well documented in such works as The Pyeongyang Project, Fishy Terrace, and Visitor from the South which have won him recognition both inside and outside Korea. He is the winner of the 2008 Prix Asie-ACBD for the French translation of Visitor From the South (Le Visiteur du Sud).

His book, Adult Park, will be published in France before the Korean market, due to popular demand in Europe.

Park Cheol-soo is a professor of

Kang Dae-jin is an independent

scholar of Greek classics. He wrote his master’s thesis on Plato’s Symposium and doctoral dissertation on Homer’s Iliad. He is the author of such books as The Iliad: Epic of Heroes in the Warfield; The Odyssey: An Epic Study of the World and Man; and The Secret of Greek Tragedy.

architecture at the University of Seoul. His key research interests lie in exploring the relationship between residential architecture and culture and the relationship of urban space and the social environment. He is the author of A Cultural History of Apartments and Apartments, and a co-author of Houses, Not Apartments.

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89

Children's Books pp. 68-72

Jin Hyeong-min won the Changbi

Good Children’s Book Award for his first book Candidate No.3 An Seokbbong.

So Yunkyoung is an illustrator. She

is known for her often grotesque and highly impressionistic style of drawing and illustration, mainly focusing on children’s books. She has illustrated s u c h b o o k s a s C a p s u l e W i t c h’s Abracadabra Drugstore and The Golden Feather, and wrote Restaurant Sal.

Joo Young-ha is professor of folklore

Ma Hae-song (1905-1966)

pioneered the field of creative children’s fiction in Korea. He penned such classics as “The Lily Star and the Little Star” and “Mother’s Gift.” He is the author of Haesong’s Fairytales, The Rabbit and the Monkey, Rice Cakes and Sweet Cakes, The Past and Present of Sand, The Barking Wanderer, and many others. A new 12-volume collection of his works, The Collected Works of Ma Hae-song, is being published in June 2013.

studies at the Academy of Korean Studies. His key research areas include folklore studies and food studies. He is an avid field researcher and writer of Korean, Chinese, and Japanese culinary culture since the 1990s. He is the author of such books as Food Studies as Humanities, Delicious World History, and Setting the Table.

Lee Bandi is a children’s writer. She is

the author of The Three Little Raccoons (winner of the 2010 Changbi New Children’s Writers Award), and The Tiger’s Eyebrow.

Cheon Hyeon-jeong won the 2013 Biryongso Gold Goblin Award for her first book, Go-Go-Go, Fat Club!

Kang Hyoun-sun is a children’s book illustrator. She is the author of Blue Bicycle, a picture book without words based on early spring imagery.

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

4p The Ultimate Baseball King (Magumaguyaguwang) Mirae-N Park Ji-young rights@mirae-n.com 82-2-3475-3870 www.mirae-n.com

The Vegetarian (Chaesikjuuija) KL Management Joseph Lee josephlee705@gmail.com 82-10-6239-9154

The Investigator (Byeoreul Seuchineun Baram) KL Management Joseph Lee josephlee705@gmail.com 82-10-6239-9154

The Greatest Leaders in Economics Who Managed the World (Segyereul Dwiheundeun Gyeongje Daetongnyeongdeul) Samsung Economic Research Institute Yu Da-young dayoung.yu@samsung.com 82-2-3780-8003 www.seri.org

6p Moonlight Tales (Darege Deullyeojugo Sipeun Iyagi) KL Management Joseph Lee josephlee705@gmail.com 82-10-6239-9154

Goguryeo V: King Gogugwon of the People (Gogulyeo) Saeum Publishing Co. Choi Hana mars-princess@hanmail.net 82-2-394-1037 saeumbook.tistory.com

Salt (Sogeum)

KL Management Joseph Lee Josephlee705@gmail.com 82-10-6239-9154

The Quotes of My Life (Nae Insaenge Yonggiga Doeeojun Hanmadi) VICHE KOREA BOOKS Cha Jin-hee jinhee@gimmyoung.com 82-2-3668-3203 www.gimmyoung.com

The Art of Reading (Ojik Dokseoppun) Gimm-Young Publishers, Inc. Cha Jin-hee jinhee@gimmyoung.com 82-2-3668-3203 www.gimmyoung.com

Life (Choi In-houi Insaeng) Yeobaek Media. Co., Ltd. Kim Mi-sun iyeo100@hanmail.net 82-2-546-5116

7p The Return of Hope (Huimangui Gwihwan) Wis&Vis Ha Seung-jin wisnvis@naver.com 82-2-324-5677

See Your Own Big Picture (Big Picturereul Geuryeora) The Business Books and Co., Ltd. Jo Min-jung rights@businessbooks.co.kr 82-2-338-9449 www.businessbooks.co.kr

They Cry Silently (Geudeureun Sorinae Ulji Anneunda) Lee & Woo Press Woo Jaeo editorwoo@hotmail.co.kr 82-31-901-9616

An Upside-down World (Geokkuro Segye) Woongjin ThinkBig Co., Ltd. Min Ji-hyoung penpen@wjbooks.co.kr 82-2-3670-1167 www.wjbooks.co.kr

It’s OK (Gwaenchana) Woongjin ThinkBig Co., Ltd. Min Ji-hyoung penpen@wjbooks.co.kr 82-2-3670-1167 www.wjbooks.co.kr

Hankyoreh Publishing Company Lee Ji-eun editorlee@hanibook.co.kr 82-2-6373-6710 www.hanibook.co.kr

World’s 100 Greatest Masterpieces More Exciting than the Louvre Museum (Rubeureu Bangmulgwanboda Jaemiinneun Segye 100Dae Myeonghwa)

Toe Ma Rok: The Records of Exorcism - Sidequel (Toemarogoejeon)

Samsung Publishing Lee Myung-jin ginny@ssbooks.com 82-2-3470-6811 www.samsungbooks.com

Elixir Kate Han mshan@munhak.com 82-31-955-2635 www.munhak.com

Secretly, Greatly (Eunmilhage Widaehage) GULLIVER Kim Chang-hee gulliver@hotmail.com 82-10-3709-2559

Faith (Vol.2) (Sinui) Cha Jin-hee jinhee@gimmyoung.com 82-2-3668-3203 www.gimmyoung.com

My Name Is Venus Flytrap (Nae Ireumeun Parijiok)

8p 28

Kang Publishing Kim Jeong-hyun gangpub@hanmail.net 82-2-325-9566

9p

A Wife’s Box (Anaeui Sangja)

Elbow Society (Palkkumchi Sahoe) Galapagos Publishing Co. Kim Ji-Hwan galapagos@chol.com 82-2-3142-3797 galapagosp.blog.me

Pressure To Be Happy (Haengbok Seuteureseu) Changbi Publishers, Inc. Choi Ko-eun copyright2@changbi.com 82-31-955-4359 www.changbi.com/english

Time Shop (Sigangage) Munhakdongne Publishing Corp.

Kate Han mshan@munhak.com 82-31-955-2635 www.munhak.com

An Upside-down World (Geokkuro Segye) Woongjin ThinkBig Co., Ltd. Min Ji-Hyoung penpen@wjbooks.co.kr 82-2-3670-1167 www.wjbooks.co.kr

Go-Go-Go, Fat Club!

(Euratchacha Ttungbokeulleop)

The Sloping Shade (Bitaljin Eumji) Hainaim Publishing Co., Ltd. Lee Jin-suk rainpoet@naver.com 82-2-326-1600 (Ext. 206) www.hainaim.com

Sweetfish Correspondence (Euneonaksitongsin) Munhakdongne Publishing Corp.

Kate Han mshan@munhak.com 82-31-955-2635 www.munhak.com

In This Earth And In That Wind (Heuk Soge Jeo Baram Soge)

41p

Munhaksasang Co., Ltd. Sara Jung munsa@munsa.co.kr 82-2-3401-8543 www.munsa.co.kr

Romantic Love and Society (Nangmanjeok Saranggwa Sahoe)

Smaller Is Better: Japan’s Mastery of the Miniature (Chuksojihyangui Ilbonin)

Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd. Choi Ji-in jiin@moonji.com 82-2-338-7224 www.moonji.com

Marriage Is a Crazy Thing (Gyeolhoneun Michin Jinnida) Minumsa Publishing Group Michelle Nam michellenam@minumsa.com 82-2-515-2000 (Ext. 206) www.minumsa.com

As You Know, Mother (Eommado Asidasipi)

My Wife Got Married (Anaega Gyeolhonhaetda) Munhakdongne Publishing Corp.

Kate Han mshan@munhak.com www.munhak.com

The Needle (Baneul)

43p

Changbi Publishers, Inc. Choi Ko-eun copyright2@changbi.com 82-31-955-4359 www.changbi.com/english

Untold Nights and a Day (Allyeojiji Aneun Bamgwa Haru) Jaeum & Moeum Publishing Co. Kim Young-lan kylan@jamobook.com 82-70-8656-9583 www.jamo21.net

Ginger (Saenggang) Changbi Publishers, Inc. Choi Ko-eun copyright2@changbi.com 82-31-955-4359 www.changbi.com/english

44p The French Laundry (Peurangseusik Setakso) Changbi Publishers, Inc. Choi Ko-eun copyright2@changbi.com 82-31-955-4359 www.changbi.com/english

33p Ginger (Saenggang)

21p A Long Day (Ginagin Haru)

37p

Munhakdongne Publishing Corp.

Kate Han mshan@munhak.com 82-31-955-2635 www.munhak.com

His House (Geu Namjane Jip)

45p

Jiwon and Byeong-gwan Series (Jiwoniwa Byeonggwani Series)

The Woman Herding Goats (Yeomsoreul Moneun Yeoja)

Choi Ko-eun copyright2@changbi.com 82-31-955-4359 www.changbi.com/english

Munhakdongne Publishing Corp.

Kate Han mshan@munhak.com 82-31-955-2635 www.munhak.com

Changbi Publishers, Inc. Choi Ko-eun copyright2@changbi.com 82-31-955-4359 www.changbi.com/english

Munhakdongne Publishing Corp.

Kate Han mshan@munhak.com 82-31-955-2635 www.munhak.com

Blue Child (Paran Ai)

Talking to Strangers (Tainege Malgeolgi)

Minumsa Publishing Group Kate Han mshan@munhak.com 82-31-955-2635 www.munhak.com

Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd. Choi Ji-in jiin@moonji.com 82-2-338-7224 www.moonji.com

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

Munhakdongne Publishing Corp.

Kate Han mshan@munhak.com 82-31-955-2635 www.munhak.com

The Semiotics of Space (Gongganui Gihohak)

Changbi Publishers, Inc. Choi Ko-eun copyright2@changbi.com 82-31-955-4359 www.changbi.com/english

A Stranger’s Room (Tainui Bang)

Fantasy Notebook (Hwansangsucheop)

22p

29p

Literature Translation Intitute of Korea info@klti.or.kr

Yolimwon Publishing Co. Angela Koh angela.koh@yolimwon.com 82-2-3144-3700 www.yolimwon.com

Changbi Publishers, Inc. Joseph Lee josephlee705@gmail.com 82-10-6239-9154

Candidate No.3 An Seok-bbong (Giho3beon Anseokppong)

The Flower at the Equator (Jeokdoui Kkot)

Winter Wanderer (Gyeoul Nageune)

The Fruit of My Woman (Nae Yeojaui Yeolmae)

Munhaksasang Co., Ltd. Sara Jung munsa@munsa.co.kr 82-2-3401-8543 www.munsa.co.kr

19p

39p

Munhaksasang Co., Ltd. Sara Jung munsa@munsa.co.kr 82-2-3401-8543 www.munsa.co.kr

BIR Publishing Co., Ltd. Sujin Lena Park sujinpark@bir.co.kr 82-2-515-2000 (Ext. 350) www.bir.co.kr

Haegreem Jeon, So-Hyun zaraza4@hanmail.net 82-2-335-5016

Gilbut Children Publishing Co., Ltd. Yie Ho-gyun webmaster@gilbutkid.co.kr 82-31-955-3270 www.gilbutkid.co.kr

The Empty House (Binjip)

KL Management Joseph Lee josephlee705@gmail.com 82-10-6239-9154

Munhakdongne Publishing Corp.

Kate Han mshan@munhak.com 82-31-955-2635 www.munhak.com

Four Days (Naheul)

Segyesa Publishing Co., Ltd. Heo Yun-jung 314yj@naver.com 82-2-6332-8082 www.segyesa.co.kr

The 5th Hwang Sun-won Literary Award Anthology

A Single Spark: The Biography of Chun Tae-il (Chun Tae-il Pyeongjeon)

RHKorea Jeannie Hwang 82-2-6443-8915 jeanniehwang@rhk.co.kr

Chun Tae-il Memorial Foundation Ha Jang-ho chuntaeil@chuntaeil.org 82-2-3672-4138 www.chuntaeil.org

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Vol.21 Autumn 2013

91

57p

64p

72p

Women and Their Evolving Enemies (Yeoindeulgwa Jinhwahaneun Jeokdeul)

The Google God Knows Everything (Gugeul Sineun Modeun Geoseul Algo Itda)

The Tiger's Eyebrow (Horangi Nunsseop)

Hyundae Munhak Publishing Co., Ltd. Kim Hyun-jee laputa79@chol.com 82-2-2017-0295 www.hdmh.co.kr

ScienceBooks Michelle Nam michellenam@minumsa.com 82-2-515-2000 (Ext. 206) sciencebooks.minumsa.com

Apartment (Apateu)

Who Is Dr. Kim? (Gimbaksaneun Nuguinga)

MATI Lee Chang-yeon matibook@naver.com 82-2-333-3110 blog.naver.com/matibook

Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd. Choi Ji-in jiin@moonji.com 82-2-338-7224 www.moonji.com

65p

58p

Samsung Way

The Death of Robespierre (Robespierreui Jugeum)

Book21 Publishing Group Song Jae-yong Lee Kyung-mook jsong@snu.ac.kr kmlee@snu.ac.kr 82-10-6486-9080 82-10-5328-6926 www.book21.com

Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd. Choi Ji-in jiin@moonji.com 82-2-338-7224 www.moonji.com

The Impossible Fairytale (Bulganeunghan Donghwa)

Stethoscope for the Heart (Maeumcheongjingi)

Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd. Choi Ji-in jiin@moonji.com 82-2-338-7224 www.moonji.com

Hainaim Publishing Co., Ltd. Lee Jin-suk rainpoet@naver.com 82-2-326-1600 (Ext. 206) www.hainaim.com

59p The Complete Works of Kim Suyoung, Vol.1 (Poems) (Kim Su-young Sijeonjip) Minumsa Publishing Group Michelle Nam michellenam@minumsa.com 82-2-515-2000 (Ext. 206) www.minumsa.com

Two Stars, Two Maps : The Rivalry of Dasan and Yeonam, Vol. 1 (Du Gaeui Byeol Du Gaeui Jido) Bookdramang Publishing Company Kim Hye-mi bookdramang@gmail.com 82-2-739-9918 www.bookdramang.com

62p The Secret of the Greek Tragedy: Twelve Most Famous Tragedies (Bigeugui Bimil) Munhakdongne Publishing Corp.

Kate Han mshan@munhak.com 82-31-955-2635 www.munhak.com

Hankyoreh Publishing Company Lim Yuni icepoint@hanibook.co.kr 82-2-6373-6711 www.hanibook.co.kr

Brain, Medicine, Mouth, and Body (Noe,Yak,Gu,Che) EAST-ASIA Publishing Co. Park Hyun-kyung dongasiabook@naver.com 82-2-757-9725 http://blog.naver.com/ dongasia1998

92 list_ Books from Korea

Adult Park Changbi Publishers, Inc. Choi Ko-eun copyright2@changbi.com 82-31-955-4359 www.changbi.com/english

68p Restaurant Sal Munhakdongne Publishing Corp.

Lee Bokee bokeelee@munhak.com 82-2-3144-3237 www.munhak.com

70p The Lily Star and The Little Star (Bawinariwa Agibyeol)

Monsters in Art : The Human Fascination with the Sensual and Fantastic (Goemuri Doen Geurim)

The Montage of Memory (Gieogui Mongtaju)

On Impulse: Chuncheon, Jeonju, Gyeongju (Eoneu Nal Mundeuk Chuncheon, Gyeongju, Jeonju) Booknomad Yun Dong-hee booknomadbooks@gmail.com 82-31-955-2675

61p

EunHaeng NaMu Publishing Co. Lee Jinny H ehbook@ehbook.co.kr 82-2-3143-0651 www.ehbook.co.kr

66p

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

Go-Go-Go, Fat Club!

(Euratchacha Ttungbokeulleop) BIR Publishing Co., Ltd. Sujin Lena Park sujinpark@bir.co.kr 82-2-515-2000 (Ext. 350) www.bir.co.kr

71p Candidate No. 3 An Seok-bbong (Giho 3bun An Seok-bbong) Changbi Publishers, Inc. Choi Ko-eun copyright2@changbi.com 82-31-955-4359 www.changbi.com/english

Setting the Table (Bapsangeul Charida) Borim Press Jeong Kee-yun edit@borimpress.com jebi@borimpress.com 82-31-955-3456 (Ext. 153) www.borimpress.com

Vol.21 Autumn 2013

Hankyoreh Publishing Co. Shin Eun-sun dastun@hanibook.co.kr 82-2-6373-6730 www.hanibook.co.kr

Blue Bicycle (Paranjajeongeo) Jaimimage Publishing Co. Kim Oh-hyun jaim@jaimimage.com 82-31-955-0880 www.jaimimage.com

73p Man-hee’s House (Manheene Jip) Gilbut Children Publishing Co., Ltd. Yie Ho-gyun webmaster@gilbutkid.co.kr 82-31-955-3270 www.gilbutkid.co.kr

85p Sallim Knowledge Series (Sallim Jisikchongseo Sirijeu) Sallim Publishing Company Park Jina jina@sallimbooks.com 82-31-955-1396 www.sallimbooks.com

list meets the tablet

list_Books from Korea app (iPad only) now available for download

Vol.21 Autumn 2013

Vol.21 Autumn 2013

Special Section

Korea’s Apartment Buildings Interviews

Literary Critic Lee O-young Novelist Cheon Un-yeong Spotlight on Fiction

“My Sister’s Menopause”

by Kim Hoon Theme Lounge

Dating Culture The Place

Gwangjang Market: Where History Breathes

ISSN 2005-2790