[Korean Literature Now] Vol.38 Winter 2017

VOL. 38 | WINTER 2017

VOL. 38 |

WINTER 2017

Korea and Its Literature as a World of Religious Pluralism

FEATURED WRITER

MUSINGS

BOOKMARK

Jung Young Moon

One Language

Sweet Escape Yun Ko Eun

Interview

Ann Goldstein

In Search of Lost G Kim Kyung Hyun Let’s Write a Novel Kim Un

Vaseline Buddha

Han Yujoo

BCLT EPILOGUE

Interview

A Walk in the Woods

The Impossible Fairy Tale

Elmer Luke

FOREWORD

Strength in Diversity

A

t the risk of sounding less than perfectly humble,

narrative, and the questioning of form and novelistic structure.

I feel that the Winter issue of Korean Literature

We are also extremely fortunate this winter to be able to

Now is one of our strongest and most diverse to

host a column by Ann Goldstein, former head of the New

date. It includes a welcomely robust admixture of genres and

Yorker’s copy department, and accomplished translator in

personalities, which I hope will allow it to cross borders, moving

her own right. In a column titled “One Language,” she shares

beyond the oft-times narrow confines of national literature.

the experience of comparing Italian translations of the Bible

In a partial testament to the aforementioned diversity,

over a span of five centuries. From the different word choices

Winter opens, appropriately enough, with an interview with

displayed in a single passage in Genesis 11, Goldstein shows

Jung Young Moon by Justine Ludwig. Jung was born in 1965

the translators’ careful deliberation put into each word and

in Hamyang, South Gyeongsang Province, well outside South

the resulting diversity.

Korea’s academic and literary center in Seoul. He made his

Our Special Section demonstrates the range and variety

way, however, to its most prestigious institution of higher

of Korean literature. Titled “Korea and Its Literature as

learning, graduating from Seoul National University with

a World of Religious Pluralism,” it includes a solid overview

a degree in psychology, a field not surprising to those familiar

by Professor Bang Min-Ho, which is followed by excerpts

with his works. Since his literary debut in 1996, he has won

from both fiction and poetry that span several decades and

prestigious literary awards. He is, however, much more than

cover everything from ancient native shamanism to modern

a mere writer of fiction. As testament to his work in drama,

Protestant Christianity.

the Korean National Theater produced his play, The Donkeys,

Evidencing Korean literature’s ever increasing global reach

in 2003. Jung is also an accomplished translator, having

and exposure, this issue also includes a very special essay,

wrought more than fifty works from English into Korean. The

penned by none other than the renowned editor, writer, and

interview is followed by an excerpt from his novel, Vaseline

publishing consultant Elmer Luke. Other captivating features

Buddha, which was translated by Jung Yewon.

of the Winter issue include excerpts from and reviews of the

This opening piece will be followed by a second interview,

works of many of today’s finest writers of both fiction and

this time of Han Yujoo by Scott Esposito. Han was born in

poetry, as well as the acceptance speeches of the translators

1982, and made her literary debut in 2003, at only twenty-

who have won this year’s LTI Korea Translation Award.

one years of age, when her short story “To the Moon”

In all, the Winter issue of Korean Literature Now seems

won Literature and Society’s New Writers Award. She was

both a fitting way to end a year that has seen many momentous

formally trained in literature, studying German literature as

changes in South Korea and around the world, and to ring in

an undergraduate, and is presently a master’s candidate in

hope for a better year to come.

aesthetics. Her books include the novel The Impossible Fairy Tale, an excerpt from which appears following her interview.

Han is also a productive and acclaimed translator, having

John M. Frankl

made Michael Ondaatje and Geoff Dyer’s works available

Professor of Korean and Comparative Literature

in the Korean language. What distinguishes Jung and Han’s

Underwood International College Yonsei University

writing from others is their deviation from the traditional VOL. 38

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PUBLISHER

Kim Seong-Kon

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR

Ko Young-il

MANAGING DIRECTOR

Park Chanwoo

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Shin Sookyung

EDITORS

Agnel Joseph

Charse Yun

DIGITAL MEDIA EDITOR Yoo Young-seon INTERN

Jennifer Lopez

ADVISORY BOARD

Bang Min-Ho, Steven D. Capener

John M. Frankl, Kang Yu-jung

Kim Suyee, Krys Lee

EDITORIAL ADVISORS

Brother Anthony of Taizé

Chan E. Park, Kyeong-Hee Choi

Theodore Hughes, Jean-Noël Juttet

Anders Karlsson, Grace E. Koh

Nayoung Aimee Kwon, Peter H. Lee

Andreas Schirmer

Andrés Felipe Solano, Dafna Zur

COORDINATION BY

ch121

Art Direction by Kim Jungwon

Editorial Assistant Kim Yeonsoo

Design by Kim Soojung

Photographs by Hansyart

Illustrations by Amy Shin

PRINTED BY

KumKang Printing Co., Ltd.

FEATURED WRITER

Jung Young Moon 04 About the Writer 06 Interview 1 1 Excerpt from Vaseline Buddha

Han Yujoo 16 About the Writer 18

Interview

23 Excerpt from

The Impossible Fairy Tale

DATE OF PUBLICATION DECEMBER 15, 2017

All correspondence should be addressed to: Literature Translation Institute of Korea 32, Yeongdong-daero 112-gil (Samseong-dong), Gangnam-gu, Seoul, 06083, Republic of Korea To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your mailing address, contact us at:

koreanlitnow@klti.or.kr +82-2-6919-7714 koreanliteraturenow.com

01 FOREWORD 28 MUSINGS 30 BCLT EPILOGUE

Cover Art by Yeesookyung Left: The Very Best Statue, Echigo, Japan, 2006 Right: The Very Best Statue, Anyang City, Korea, 2008 Courtesy of the artist Photo: Shin Ohseok

SPECIAL SECTION

BOOKMARK

Korea and Its Literature

Fiction

as a World of Religious Pluralism

56 Sweet Escape by Yun Ko Eun

Curated and introduced by Bang Min-Ho

61 Introduction to In Search of Lost G

32 Overview

by Kim Seong-Kon

62 In Search of Lost G by Kim Kyung Hyun Fiction & Poetry 37 The Shaman Painting by Kim Tong-ni 40 Distant Holy Man by Cho Oh-hyun

Poetry 68 Selected Poems by Kim Un

43 Naked Foot by Moon Taejun 44 Mandala by Kim Seong-Dong

74 REVIEWS

47 The Cross by Yun Dong-ju

82 THE 2017 LTI KOREA TRANSLATION AWARD

49 Autumn Prayer by Kim Hyunseung

88 TRANSLATORS

50 The Abject by Yi Chong-Jun 52 Choi Sun-dok, Filled with the Holy Spirit by Lee Kiho

FEATURED WRITER

JUNG YOUNG MOON

Jung Young Moon

On the Humor of

Meaninglessness Jung Young Moon graduated from Seoul National University with a degree in psychology. He made his literary debut in 1996 with the novel A Man Who Barely Exists. Among his works, Vaseline Buddha, A Most Ambiguous Sunday and Other Stories, A Chain of Dark Tales, and A Contrived World have appeared in English. He has won the Dongsuh Literary Award, the HMS (Hahn Moo-Sook) Literary Award, the Dongin Literary Award, and the Daesan Literary Award. He has participated in the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program in 2005. Jung is also an accomplished translator who has translated more than fifty books from English into Korean, including works by John Fowles, Raymond Carver, and Germaine Greer.

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KOREAN LITERATURE NOW

©Hansyart

ABOUT THE WRITER

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FEATURED WRITER

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INTERVIEW

Writing for Skeptics: Navigating Meaninglessness

by Justine Ludwig

Justine Ludwig: In your writing you present a tension

issue of the fact that we don’t know the reason why our

between the “person actually writing this story,” the

world came to exist and that we never will know—that’s

narrator, and the author. How do you negotiate these

existence’s biggest paradox. This world that we know is not

roles?

eternal—at some point it will end—and eventually it will return to nothingness. This world that I know is a world

Jung Young Moon: At some point, my novels stopped having

with no necessary reason for existing, no goal. In my novels,

third-person protagonists and gradually moved towards

narrative as it’s traditionally understood is absent, and when

a first-person narrator. In these works, the narrator is also the

there is narrative, it’s to the slightest possible degree, and

author, and because the reader can’t really separate the two,

conflict between the characters in the novel and dramatic

he or she doesn’t feel much of a tension between narrator

developments are honestly nonexistent. In short, there’s

and author. The reader is captivated by the narrator’s

almost no romantic or novelistic framework. I purposefully

compulsion to tell the story, and if the author—who can’t

rule out those things, and that’s because I think that they

help but be caught up in the idea that all stories are pointless

consist of an endless repetition of very small and trite things

anyway—decides for some reason to take the lead, it feels

that people will mostly forget about as their lives go on.

like he or she is trying to delay or suspend the action.

Many people think that novels reflect real life, but they still expect the novel to have drama in it, and the truth is

Ludwig: Nothingness and banality appear as sources of

that drama is hard to find in real life. Novels with a drama-

inspiration in your publications. How do you mine these

based narrative are only a very small part of the large and

traditionally monotonous conditions to create a dynamic

varied spectrum of the novel genre. The dated concept that

narrative?

novels are narrative by design is all too predominant, and that constricts the freedom that novelists have to explore

Jung: In my life and in my novels, nothingness is the biggest

new potentials for the genre. The twentieth-century novels

problem that I wrestle with. Well, not nothingness per se,

that were really revolutionary and turned a new leaf in the

which is itself perfect and free of problems, but the fraught

history of novels were mostly free of narrative, and they tried

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KOREAN LITERATURE NOW

INTERVIEW

to knock down this old idea that novels are narrative. The more

spring and fall, and a libertarian in summer, but always

that novels stay faithful to existent norms of composition, the

a skeptic regardless of the season. This was a joke, but I think

more boring they become. On the other hand, the less they

that everything I write is kind of a joke.

worry about novelistic structure, the more they ignore that, the freer and more experimental with style they can become.

Ludwig: What is the purpose of writing in a world with no

By ignoring the things that are seen as absolutely necessary in

necessary reason for existing? Perhaps dedicating oneself

novels—even subject, structure, and plot—you can go on to

to meaninglessness is the ideal position for a skeptic?

create a new structure for the novel. When I write, the biggest worry I have in regards to structure has to do with the novel

Jung: In a world where there is no real reason for existence,

itself. With the medium of the novel, I’m using language

writing with a goal is impossible. You can’t help but

and ideas to play a kind of pure game. Many of my novels

become a skeptic in the face of absolute meaninglessness.

are made up of wordplay: trains of thought that carry on

I think that Samuel Beckett is the writer who was most

endlessly, continuing until my thoughts about a certain

cognizant of this. Later in his life, his writing became almost

concept extinguish completely, things like that. This is

nonsensical; it was no different from if he’d written nothing

more visible in A Contrived World than in my prior novel

at all. It surrendered to the lack of reason, I think, and

Vaseline Buddha, and you can also see it in my collection

accepted defeat. It seems like the only way to deal with this

of short stories Arriving in a Thick Fog, which came out in

meaninglessness is by accepting and making peace with it.

South Korea this year and is currently being translated to be published in America next year. In A Contrived World,

Ludwig: I like how you equate your writing to conceptual

there’s a chapter called “The Fruit That Did Not Roam the

art. That makes me wonder what you see your relationship

Pacific Ocean Because of My Complete Lack of Motivation.”

to the reader as. The commitment to a novel is far more

Like the name suggests, the chapter is an anecdote in which

time-consuming and demanding than the commitment

I go to the Golden Gate Bridge, the world’s most popular

to a conceptual work of visual art. Perhaps asking for that

suicide destination, and bring several kinds of fruit with the

dedication and never knowing where it goes is part of your

intention of throwing them into the Pacific Ocean. I end up

conceptual framework?

not doing so because of a lack of desire and finally throw them out underneath a tree in a San Francisco park. I was

Jung: In “Arriving in a Thick Fog,” there’s an anecdote in

happy to be able to draw out such a meaningless story, really

which I bring a stone that I picked up on the bank of the

no different from conceptual art, to twenty full pages. I think

Mississippi River to South Korea’s Gangwon Province,

that meaningless is the ultimate topic in literature, and

where I leave it on a mountain. I then take a stone from this

awareness of meaninglessness frees us from the shackles of

mountain in Gangwon and leave it in a forest in Hawaii.

our lives. Because this world is meaningless, I don’t think

Then I take a stone from the forest in Hawaii and throw it

there’s anything that absolutely has to happen in our lives.

into the Strait of Dover in England. The chapter has another

And this means that as long as we don’t hurt others, we have

story where I imagine swimming across an expansive lake in

the freedom to do whatever we want. I do despair that we

the middle of the night during a full moon, a fraying rope

can’t ever know the ultimate meaning of existence, so I’m

in my mouth and a cold smile on my face. I think of these

a dreadful skeptic, but skeptics also accept everything with an

stories as a kind of performance art. Many of my novels

air of amusement. In one of my medium-length novels, I wrote

feature scenes that consist of conceptual or visual imagery.

that I am close to being a socialist in winter, an anarchist in

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FEATURED WRITER

JUNG YOUNG MOON

©Hansyart

memorable scene, or characters or objects come to mind,

Ultimately, this means that the things I say in my novels are

and I take note of the sort of movement that they inspire as

all meaningless.

time passes and use this to structure the novel. You could interpret many parts of my novels as visual art expressed in

Ludwig: In reading your work I become wrapped up

prose form. Sometimes when I’ve started writing a novel but

in a natural cadence as if the words were coming forth

don’t know how to move forward, the thing that paves the

equally from the reader and the writer. It is a sort of radical

way for me is those series of connected and disconnected

intimacy that offers a conflation between the positioning

images.

of the teller of the story and its receiver. Has this innate flow always been present in your writing? How did you

Ludwig: Throughout your texts you negotiate the role of

come to this approach?

reality and imagination in storytelling by directly negating previously established conditions. What led you to this

Jung: At first I was creating these conventional, romanticized

stylistic strategy?

characters, but at some point my novels changed to stories composed mainly of strings of connected thoughts in which

Jung: I’m a skeptic and I don’t have any interest in spreading

the first-person narrator is triggered by the most trivial

a message or impressing emotions through my novels.

events. When the reader can freely entrust his or her own

Building upon things I’ve already written and then rejecting

thoughts to those of the narrator’s, you realize that the two

them is honestly the same as if I’ve said nothing at all.

are really not so different.

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KOREAN LITERATURE NOW

INTERVIEW

I like to think of writing as losing my path in a dense forest. When my path is blocked and I have to find a new one, I turn my eyes in a direction I haven’t imagined Ludwig: Your style also brings attention to the frustration

for myself at all.

often inherent in the writing process—something I certainly suffer through when I write. It appears that at times your ostensibly stream-of-consciousness writing echoes the technique of writing any and all things that

Jung: You could say that my writing is more like a twisting

come to mind in order to combat writer’s block. Is

of the travel memoir legacy in a strange and exciting way.

this continuous flow established in a singular pass or

I’m uninterested in people experiencing exotic things.

something that is achieved through trial and error or in

What I am interested in is the everyday, or experiences

the editing process?

and things I see in my travels that inspire imagination in my own way. In “Wild Hawaiian Rooster,” one of the

Jung : Writer’s block is an unavoidable obstacle to the

chapters of A Contrived World, the narrator is staying in

author, and every writer has felt the frustration of being

San Francisco and intends to travel somewhere else, but he

unable to overcome it. But when you finally do circumvent

can’t think of anywhere he wants to go. As he is drinking

or skip past this seemingly impassable obstacle, when you

coffee at a hotel, he learns serendipitously that the last

write down those words that have allowed you to break

king of Hawaii died there unexpectedly, and this makes

out of the block, your words find a new direction from

him think of a story of Richard Brautigan in Hawaii.

which to exit. I like to think of writing as losing my path in

Brautigan had gone there to give a lecture but afterwards,

a dense forest. When my path is blocked and I have to find

in his remaining time on the island, became so bored

a new one, I turn my eyes in a direction I haven’t imagined

that he had to try and think of things worth doing there.

for myself at all. The interruption of my thoughts at that

Finally, he found a live chicken and took a picture with

moment is really a lucky blessing, and of course on the new

it, and then he was able to leave the place happily. The

path I’ve taken unintentionally, that luck will continue.

narrator uses this story as a catalyst to go to Hawaii himself,

Thoughts mostly arise randomly, and most of them are

and as expected, it’s dull. Unexpectedly, however, he sees

not things you can put into words, so you have to tighten

a wild rooster in the forest and like Brautigan is able to

the reigns on those few that can be driven in a certain

leave Hawaii happily. Several years ago, I stayed in Aix-en-

direction. I tend to tighten my reigns as loosely as possible

Provence in France through a writer’s residency program,

to allow the thought to develop on its own.

but this small city—so famous as a tourist destination— was so dull to me that I spent my time there writing a mid-

Ludwig: Travel and the relationship between the

length novel called In Penal Colony X, just making fun of

unfamiliar and the quotidian appear central to your

the city. As I wrote stories about these places that were so

narrative interest. Are you interested in the legacy of the

boring to me—Hawaii and Aix-en-Provence—I began to

travel memoir?

see them as something a little more special.

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FEATURED WRITER

JUNG YOUNG MOON

©Hansyart

Ludwig: What other writers have inspired your work?

and I think that because of that, my books are free from some of the conventions of Korean wording.

Jung: Franz Kafka, Virginia Woolf, Samuel Beckett, Richard Brautigan. These are the writers who looked into the depths

Ludwig: How then do you experience the translations of

of existence’s emptiness and plunged into despair and

your own novels? Do they appear changed or foreign once

depression, but they’re the most humorous writers, too.

presented in a different language?

More than anything else, I learned humor from them.

Jung: My novels are written in Korean, but they rarely take Ludwig: How do you approach the role of translation in

place in a specified location, and I refer to my characters

your work when you have a history of translating English

with personal pronouns rather than names. My novels don’t

text into Korean and your own writing directly addresses

deal with any particularly Korean sentiment either, so there’s

the shortcomings of Korean in supporting your stylistic

almost nothing that’s uniquely Korean about them. They

choices?

aren’t restricted by time or place, and the stories they tell are commonplace, so when they’re translated into foreign

Jung : I didn’t separately learn how to write novels. As

languages, they don’t feel unfamiliar to readers.

I translated great English works like Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer and The Ebony Tower by John Fowles, I very naturally

Justine Ludwig

became familiar with how one writes a novel. I think that

Writer

translating really is the best practice for your own writing.

Senior Curator, Dallas Contemporary

From translating, we become accustomed to a literary style, 10

KOREAN LITERATURE NOW

EXCERPT

Vaseline Buddha

by Jung Young Moon

That night, in a hotel in a small town in France, I thought for a long time about how you could spend your dying moments. Since dying moments could be important to anyone, or could be considered important, I could think about them for a very long time, and then maybe get a small live octopus and spend my dying moments with it, thinking that the only thing left for me to spend my dying moments with was an octopus, and feeling a certain gratitude toward it for that, and time it well and die at the same time with the octopus, which can’t live long out of water, or die thinking that I’m following the octopus which died before I did. Or I could go buy an octopus a little earlier, and spend my remaining hours, Deep Vellum Publishing,

the rest of my life, with it, and die with the realization that there’s no difference

2016, 226 pp.

whatsoever between the death of the octopus and my own. And I could realize anew, or not anew at all, the fact that death is what eliminates the difference between every living thing, which isn’t anything new, and that everything becomes one before death and extinction, as I share my fate with the octopus. And looking at the octopus, I could mutter, That really strange looking green cat looks like a pineapple somehow, and think, But even as a pineapple, it looks somewhat strange.

And looking at the octopus, and continuing to think about the octopus, and recalling the black pebbles I think I saw once, glistening with water on a pebbled beach, under a blazing summer sun, and the octopus wriggling among the pebbles, I could think about how the octopus wriggled, how many black pebbles there were on the beach, and how black they glistened, and how, looking at them, I felt a certain joy at the fact that they would glisten with water for a long time to come, perhaps even after mankind disappeared, and how absorbed in the joy I was, and wonder which beach it was where I thought I saw the countless pebbles glistening with water, or if the wet pebbles glistened incredibly under the bright moonlight because it was night, not midday, or if it was pitch dark night and I saw the pebbles glisten momentarily because of the light from a lighthouse, or if I heard, between the sound of foam constantly breaking, the comforting sound that pebbles make as they roll around, crashing somewhat uncomfortably into each other, the sound that makes you feel that your heart is being carelessly caressed, but not uncomfortably, and above all, if I had ever been to such a beach, and think that VOL. 38

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FEATURED WRITER

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JUNG YOUNG MOON

what I was trying to recall was not an octopus wriggling

I also thought about writers who, like Oscar Wilde,

among pebbles, but black pebbles, glistening with water

couldn’t stand their own countries, and tried to abandon

and reflecting some sort of a light, or the countless beams

them, such as Beckett and Thomas Bernhard, and I thought

of light reflected by them, and wonder why I had recalled,

about the country in which I was born and raised and

of the many things I’d experienced or thought of in my life,

still living, and thought that the biggest thing I tried to

black pebbles glistening with water, while at the same time

accomplish in the country was to leave it permanently,

breathing my last breath, feeling pleased that I had recalled

even though there wasn’t really another place I wanted to

them.

settle in.

And in the hotel room where I was staying, there was

I fell asleep thinking such thoughts, and when I woke

a flowerpot with daffodils in it, and it didn’t seem like

up the next morning I was able to think almost nothing

a bad idea to leave my will to the daffodils. So I said in the

at all about the girl I never ended up meeting. But while

direction of the daffodils, as if leaving some kind of a will,

having breakfast at the restaurant on the third floor of

The treadmill left behind by a squirrel that left on a search

the hotel, resenting the girl, who could have rejected me

for a new path must meet more than three unfortunate

for a reason she couldn’t tell me, or explain herself—this

ends, regardless of who takes it; in any case, the daffodils

because the waitress who brought me my food, who was

that were either in full blossom or were budding, had

around the same age as the girl, made me think of her—

a shape that seemed fit to talk to.

I saw, through a window whose curtains were drawn, two

And it occurred to me that in the act of talking to

workmen who were replacing the round red roof tiles on

daffodils there was an element of an aside in a play, which

the roof of a house across a little alley that was about the

is uttered with the assumption that someone is listening,

same in height as where I was sitting, and I was pleased

different from a monologue, which is uttered when no one

beyond words. They worked very slowly, and I ate very

is listening, even though the daffodils couldn’t talk back,

slowly as if to keep some kind of a pace with them. And

and I may have felt this way because I felt that the flowers,

I was able to eat slowly because I was lost in thought, about

at least, listened to every word of what someone said.

an anecdote which I wasn’t sure was true or not, about

In any case, daffodils were certainly better than shoes

Salvador Dali, who supposedly painted the droopy clock

to talk to, feeling as if you were talking to each other, and

in the painting “The Persistence of Memory” not long after

if there was something else that was decent to talk to, it

watching, as if in a trance, the camembert cheese that was

would be something like a fedora. I thought that I could

melting on a dinner table. On the table before me was, in

blurt something out to daffodils before I died, and that the

fact, a plate holding two pieces of cheese, which I placed

act would bring some kind of a pleasure.

deliberately where the sun was shining to make them

KOREAN LITERATURE NOW

EXCERPT

I also thought about writers who, like Oscar Wilde, couldn’t stand their own countries, and tried to abandon them, such as Beckett and Thomas Bernhard, and I thought about the country in which I was born and raised and still living, and thought that the biggest thing I tried to accomplish in the country was to leave it permanently.

melt slowly, and as I watched them melting and changing

spot where van Gogh died, and painted the wheat or corn

in shape, not as if I were in a trance but as if I couldn’t

field where crows were flying around, cawing loudly, or

take my eyes off them, and tried to think of something

sitting.

other than what Dali must have been thinking of as he

And I also thought about a gifted American cartoonist

watched the camembert cheese melt, or in other words,

who mostly did sexually abnormal drawings, who said

what he must have been thinking of as he tried to see the

in a documentary film about himself that he always felt

camembert cheese before his eyes as something else, or, in

suicidal whether he was drawing or not, and whose life

other words, tried to see it as something that couldn’t be

itself was more fascinating than the cartoons he drew, and

thought of as something else, and again, in other words,

his morbid younger brother who ended up killing himself,

of something other than a droopy clock, but nothing else

and about another younger brother of his who also drew

came to my mind other than a droopy clock.

cartoons when he was a child but became a drug addict,

But at that moment, I saw a crow that flew over to the roof where the workmen were, and through a process of

who in my opinion was even more gifted than his older brother who had become a famous cartoonist.

association, I thought of van Gogh, who killed himself

All through the meal, and after the meal, I was still

with a gun he claimed to have borrowed to shoot the crows

hungry, not only because I ate little, but also because I ate very

that annoyed him, and suddenly wondered if he didn’t

slowly, thinking about people who had committed suicide,

shoot himself, mistaking himself for a crow, and where

which also pleased me. The breakfast, which I actually

exactly he killed himself with a gun. He could have done

started eating somewhat late in the morning, came to an end

it while painting in his studio, while crows cawed loudly

at last at lunchtime. And picking up a yellow flower that was

outside, or while standing absently before an easel with

on the plate I had polished off, and picking out the petals

a brush in his hand, not being able to even think about

and eating them one by one, I thought of crocuses, thinking

painting because of the crows, but I fancied that he did it

that it looked like a crocus but was certainly not a crocus,

in a wheat or corn field while a flock of crows watched him.

and recalled the fact that crocuses that bloom in spring

As he died, he could have thought, You win, but this isn’t

are called crocuses and ones that bloom in fall are called

your or anyone else’s victory, and if you must determine

saffrons, and thought about how certain facts that were

whose victory it is, it’s the victory of the corn field, where

insignificant in reality pleased people at certain moments,

countless corn kernels are ripening. And as he slowly bled

and I was mostly pleased by such things.

to death, the crows could have fled for a moment, startled

And the fact that I was in a situation that was still

by the gunfire, and then returned and spent the day eating

obscure but no longer seemed so unpleasant, in which I had

grains, after which other painters could have come to the

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JUNG YOUNG MOON

Turin, where you could pass by countless statues depicting humans in squares and streets, as if passing by passersby, seemed to me like a city of statues, a city where the silence of statues ruled over noise. It seemed that in such a city, I might be able to dispel the gloom that always accompanied me.

well, whom I knew nearly nothing about and who knew

Anyway, there was a framed painting hanging by a window

nearly nothing about me, thinking of possibilities of one

in the restaurant, which depicted a scene that was almost

kind or another regarding her, then was turned away,

exactly the same as the scene out the window, seen from

made me feel so content and pleased that I had to smile,

where I was. When I moved a little to the side, the

for it let me devour the yellow flower that made me think

painting looked the same as the scene, as if I were where

of crocuses, and think arbitrarily, after finishing the last

the artist was when he was painting it. But there were no

of my coffee, and looking at the dregs, that my luck had

workmen in the painting, and there was a crow sitting

run out.

on the top of the rooster-shaped weathercock, and when

And after a short while, when the workmen took a break

I moved my gaze from the painting to the scene outside,

even though they hadn’t done that much work, and

there was a crow sitting on the weathercock. The crow

lay sideways on the roof enjoying the warm rays of the

was at an angle slightly different from that of the crow

sun, I too buried myself deep in my seat, and bathed in

in the painting, but it still looked like the crow in the

the peace of the little town that could be seen out the

painting. The scene seemed just perfect for looking at

window. I heard the quiet murmur of people talking near

while passing time in leisure after breakfast.

the kitchen, but there was no one else at the restaurant.

I suddenly recalled that Napoleon kept “Mona Lisa”

The town made you feel as if everything were passing

in his bedroom in the Tuileries Palace for some time.

slowly.

Perhaps he could feel, while looking at “Mona Lisa”

It looked as if the workmen had fallen asleep in the

before he fell asleep, that he really was an emperor who

sun, and a very light breeze stirred up their hair and shirts

enjoyed all the privileges in the world, and felt that the

and pants, taking them into pleasant dreams, and the

greatest of all his privileges was having “Mona Lisa”

breeze, which had come in through the open windows

in his bedroom and looking at it before falling asleep.

of the restaurant, was taking me into such a state as well.

Perhaps there was no painting like “Mona Lisa” to hang

On the rooftop there was a weathercock in the shape

in someone’s bedroom. And perhaps Hitler tried to lay

of a rooster, which kept stirring very slightly and then

his hands on “The Art of Painting,” an enigmatic painting

stopping, for no other reason than that there was a very

by Vermeer, for the same reason. Looking from the scene

light, irregular breeze, and it seemed as if the rooster,

out the window to the painting depicting the scene, I felt

too, were sleeping and dreaming, squirming lightly. The

that, in that moment at least, I was enjoying some kind of

rooster, with a red comb on its head, was moving very

a privilege.

minutely, and seemed to be quietly enjoying everything about the moment in its own way.

14

KOREAN LITERATURE NOW

In that small town, there was a feeling of coziness found in all places where everything happens so slowly

EXCERPT

that time, too, seemed to pass slowly, and the feeling

unknown nature, or go to Turin, the city that Nietzsche,

allowed me to stay lost in leisurely thoughts that rambled

who planned from very young to write a little book of

on because they were leisurely. I recalled my long-

his own, and who in a way carried out the plan, said

held belief that the roof, like the living room, should

was the city he loved the most. Turin was also the city

become a part of everyday life, and that people should

where Giorgio de Chirico, who saw countless riddles in

spend more time on the roof, and also thought that the

the shadow of one human being, read Nietzsche, found

roof, indeed, was the most peaceful place in the house,

“a strange, profound, mysterious, and infinitely lonely

that most quarrels take place in the living room or the

poem” in Nietzsche, painted “Melancholy in Turin” and

kitchen, that people don’t go up to the roof to quarrel,

“Spring in Turin,” and said that the city was the source

and that the roof is a good place to calm yourself down

of a series of his paintings, found melancholy. Perhaps in

when you’re angry. But soon it occurred to me that if the

Turin, you could feel, as Chirico said, statues “come to

roof became a part of everyday life, a lot of quarrels could

life, talk, and even begin to walk, and come down from

take place on the roof, which then could become even

the pedestal and disappear.” Turin, where you could pass

more dangerous than the inside of the house.

by countless statues depicting humans in squares and

I came out of the hotel and went to the station that

streets, as if passing by passersby, seemed to me like a city

was at the hub of the town, and even when I was on

of statues, a city where the silence of statues ruled over

my way to the station, I was thinking that I could go to

noise. It seemed that in such a city, I might be able to

the Lascaux Cave, which I knew was not too far from

dispel the gloom that always accompanied me, or at least

the station, and see the paintings there and think for a

feel differently about it. But it was certain that Turin was

little while about how short the history of the present

no longer the Turin that Nietzsche loved.

civilization was, and how it hasn’t been that long since

pp. 86-94

humans came out of caves, or go a little further to the island of Mallorca, where Chopin wrote the “Raindrop

Translated by Jung Yewon

Prelude,” and spend time in a room there listening to

Excerpt from Vaseline Buddha . Copyright © 2010 by Jung Young

the sound of rain falling , or by a window where the

Moon. English translation copyright © 2016 by Yewon Jung.

sun shone through, feeling, to my heart’s content, an anxiety different from what Chopin felt, preferably of an

▶

Reprinted with the permission of Deep Vellum Publishing, Dallas, Texas.

Visit koreanliteraturenow.com to watch a conversation with the author.

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HAN YUJOO

©Hansyart

FEATURED WRITER

16

KOREAN LITERATURE NOW

ABOUT THE WRITER

Han Yujoo

My Experiments with

Language

Han Yujoo debuted in 2003 by winning the Literature and Society’s New Writers Award for the short story “To the Moon.” She won the Hankook Ilbo Literary Award in 2009. She has authored the short story collections To the Moon, Book of Ice, and My Left Hand the King and My Right Hand the King’s Scribe, and the novel The Impossible Fairy Tale, which has been translated into English and French. She is also a noted translator, whose works include translations of Michael Ondaatje’s The Cat’s Table, and Geoff Dyer’s But Beautiful and The Ongoing Moment, among others, into Korean. She is an active member of an experimental group called Rue and also runs Oulipopress, an independent publisher.

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INTERVIEW

The Sum of the Worlds I Have Experienced

by Scott Esposito

Scott Esposito: You made your writing debut in 2003,

submit it for one of the annual contests. That’s how I became

when you were just twenty-one years old with the short

a writer. I’d hardly even lived much back then, let alone gone

story “To the Moon,” which won Literature and Society’s

through the usual process of writing practice, so for the next

New Writers Award. Can you tell us a little about how you

few years it felt like I was banging my head against a brick

chose to get into writing literature and how your career

wall. To make things worse, because I came out with a string

progressed after the publication of this story?

of short stories that didn’t appear to follow the traditional rules of narrative, I had to face a lot of disapproval. Still,

Han Yujoo: There were just two things I wanted to do by

from my debut onwards, I have continued writing works

going to university. One, leave home. Two, read loads of

that question the very form they are written in. To tell the

books. Because of this I decided to study German literature at

truth, I think my focus on form comes from the fact that I’m

a university in Seoul, far enough from Daejeon where I grew

no master storyteller.

up. Just as I’d planned, I was able to read books non-stop, but there was never exactly a time when I thought I wanted to

Esposito: Do you feel that the criticism you faced early on

be a writer. It wasn’t something I actively didn’t want, I just

was in any way related to your gender?

don’t think I even dared to wonder whether I might be any good at writing. Then one semester I took a class on creative

Han: Thinking about it now it seems as though both my

writing theory which was run by the Korean literature

gender and my age did play a role in this. Come to think of it

department, and I had to submit a short story for the end

though, I can’t recall having ever seen a male Korean novelist

of term assignment. That was how I came to write “To the

in their early twenties, so I can’t really compare. I think being

Moon,” and thinking about it now, it was an assignment, but

female and being so young had both negative and positive

I was able to write really freely. When a friend of mine who

effects.

was a budding writer read “To the Moon,” he advised me to 18

KOREAN LITERATURE NOW

©Hansyart

INTERVIEW

Esposito: Negative reviews and harsh responses to one’s

kind of skepticism and belief. To start with, while not having

work can be very challenging to bounce back from,

any great certainty in myself, I was going over and over

particularly for young writers at the beginning of their

questions like “What does good writing even mean?” or else

career. To what do you ascribe your ability to have

“What is writing anyway?” And now, although I still haven’t

weathered these early critiques while remaining true to

found an answer, I’ve come to think of literature as a form of

your aesthetic and not letting this disapproval influence

practice at least, something I can do for a lifetime, my life’s

your direction as an author?

work. What I mean is, my aesthetic now may merely be a question of technique, but perhaps practice will take me in

Han: In this case it helped that I was so young. There was

the direction of the aesthetic I have to find. If I think about

a huge age gap between me and my fellow writers, so I was

it in this way, whatever other people say, be it good or bad, it

automatically able to keep life in the “literary world” at a safe

becomes less important.

distance. And being so young, I didn’t really know what was going on around me. It was also helpful that I wasn’t

Esposito: What writers have been some of your biggest

majoring in creative writing. This meant I was able to avoid

influences as an author?

being directly confronted by harsh criticism from people of my own age. But more than anything, what helped me the

Han: A huge number of writers have influenced me. When

most was that I had a small number of writers and readers

I was a teenager I read a lot by authors like Yi In-seong and

who believed in me. It’s impossible to write creatively

Oh Junghee. Then at university I mainly read writers working

without a great amount of skepticism and questioning of

in German, like Thomas Bernhard, Botho Strauß, Elfriede

oneself, so really, I think it’s very difficult for anyone to put

Jelinek, and Franz Kafka. Since then I’ve been influenced by

their work out into the world without a strong sense of self-

so many writers that I couldn’t begin to list them individually.

love or self-belief. It’s like walking a tightrope between this

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greater than the sum of what they have read. These days I’m

sum of everything I’ve read up until now, I think it’s also

reading through Flaubert’s works again.

very difficult to write anything that goes beyond the sum of the worlds that I have experienced. As someone born

Esposito: I very much like your point about writers

as a Korean in the 1980s, living in a country that is attached

not being able to create things that are greater than the

to a continent but feels like an island, and only speaking

sum of what they’ve read. It recalls Cormac McCarthy’s

Korean, it’s a little difficult to experience different worlds.

statement that, “The ugly fact is books are made out of

In the case of female writers, to say it in a slightly distorted

books, the novel depends for its life on the novels that

way, you’re kind of living in two worlds at once. Because,

have been written.” Is there a particular kind of writing—

especially in Korean society, “male” has a default value. I’m

be it of a nation, a language, an aesthetic or collective,

someone who is really interested in language, so to start

a kind of format, or a certain subject-matter—that you

with, I am examining languages. Things like the different

are interested in investigating in-depth as you develop

ways people use language.

your future work?

Esposito: Your most substantive release thus far in English Han: At the end of October I had the opportunity to go to

translation is your novel The Impossible Fairly Tale, which

a book festival in Bali in Indonesia. Because I majored in

came out in spring 2017. This novel largely deals with the

German literature and I have studied English and French,

world of children, as it centers on a grade school class.

I have a certain familiarity with European languages and

The main character is named Mia, and she’s something

I’ve been to countries that use these languages on a number

of a lost child, uncertain of who she is and living in a

of occasions. A few years ago I went to Thailand, and it was

psychologically abusive family. The other lead character is

the first time I had experienced visiting a country without

simply called “the Child,” and she comes across as rather

knowing anything of the language used there. I was faced

sinister, but also fragile and vulnerable. The first half of

with a script that I couldn’t decipher at all, and to be honest

the book deals with Mia, the Child, and their school class,

I felt a little embarrassed. So this time I started going to

culminating in a rather shocking moment. This was your

online classes to learn even just a little bit of the grammar

first novel, published when you were thirty-one years old.

of the Indonesian language before going there. And I felt

Why did you choose to explore the world of children so

a strange sense of freedom. Whenever I learned a foreign

deeply for your first novel?

language before it felt like I was being knocked down at every turn by things like declension, the usage of articles,

Han: As you just mentioned, The Impossible Fairly Tale was

irregular verbs, and fussy changes in tense (this was probably

my first full-length novel. Theoretically, because of the length

because I was such a beginner), but with Indonesian, things

of the work, I needed to give a lot more complexity to the

felt relatively easy and intuitive. For example, “book” is

characters. But at that time the only ages of characters

“buku” and “books” is “buku-buku.” And if you connect the

that I could look at with a suitable distance were the pre-

words “me-dislike-leave-eat-food-outside” it means “I don’t

teens. I thought that even if they were middle or high school

want to go out to eat.” It’s pure coincidence, but in the novel

students it would be difficult to maintain an objective distance

I’m working on at the moment the narrator is losing her

between myself and the characters. And in a way, I thought

syntax, the ability to construct sentences in her language.

that with characters of this age, at the same time knowing

She has to communicate only by making lists of words.

a fair amount about how the world works, there would

Just as I cannot write something that goes beyond the 20

KOREAN LITERATURE NOW

be lots of things that they understood in very ambiguous

INTERVIEW

ways. I considered this to mean that they would be able to

a story having been told.

make more radical choices. Also, people don’t usually take the voices of such young people seriously or listen to them in

Esposito: What surprised you about The Impossible Fairy

earnest. I wanted to make a deliberate effort to foreground

Tale’s English-language reception?

characters whose voices often go unheard.

Han: Well first off, it seems more people are reading my work Esposito: The first half of The Impossible Fairy Tale

in English than they did in Korean, so I’m pretty happy.

revolves around the development of Mia’s world and a

I think in South Korea, people took more interest in the

strange “crime” that the Child commits: adding sentences

behavior of young people and the idea that it’s impossible

into the children’s journals at school. But then the second

to understand. With readers of the English [version]

half of the book goes into entirely new territory, as it

though, there has not only been interest in the social context

becomes heavily metafictional, with a character described

surrounding such behavior by young people, but there have

as the author—who may or may not be yourself—

also been reactions as to why this becomes the momentum

confronting the Child and having a series of strange

leading the form of the second half of the book.

conversations with her. Can you tell us a little about this second half and how the novel came to take such a radical

Esposito: In an essay in the Times Literary Supplement,

turn?

you wrote that “one issue with which we [Korean authors] are grappling is how to rescue and revive female

Han: When I first came up with this novel I was mulling over

autonomy,” a sentiment that I have heard expressed

the idea of “atonement on behalf of another.” This led me to

frequently by other Korean writers, particularly women

ask the following kinds of questions: One, how should a crime

writers. Is this something you feel that you’ve grappled

committed by a child (with many years left to adulthood) be

with in The Impossible Fairy Tale or elsewhere?

understood or atoned for? Two, if a writer makes a character commit a crime in order to make the story happen, who

Han: Aside from the fact that almost all the characters in

should take responsibility for this fictional crime? Three,

The Impossible Fairly Tale are female, there are no particularly

can a writer rescue a character? Four, can a character

feminist elements to it. I guess this is because the main

rescue a writer? Five, why are we still fixated on the modern

characters are children who still have not been through

concept that you must have a sense of guilt in order to

adolescence, and the dynamics of the relationships within

become an adult? And so on and so on. I started writing the

their families are not yet overtly clear. But my being a feminist

second half of the novel with such thoughts in mind. (The

has probably had direct and indirect influences on the work.

“author’s dream” chapters at the beginning of the second

Lately I’ve been thinking about what methods there might

half are there to create a spatial, temporal distance between

be to orient a work toward what’s right and proper without

the first and second halves. I’m not sure if they succeed

making it serve as propaganda.

in doing that though.) So, of course, in the second half, a metafictional rotation takes place. When the character

Esposito: That’s an important line to maintain and, given

comes to find the writer, the boundaries between narrator,

what I know of you as a writer, I can’t imagine you would

character, and writer disappear. (Or at least that was what

publish a novel that even remotely resembled propaganda.

I hoped.) Rather than the story coming to a “proper ending,”

What sorts of interventions do you feel that literature can

I wanted to end it with the traces of a crime, the traces of

make into political and social issues?

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women in society, the poverty faced by young people, the fantasy of a nationalized homogenous race and racism, or the concentration of fine dust in the air.

Esposito: You’re working on a novel at the moment. Can you tell us something about it?

Han: In essence, it’s a work about suicide. I’m writing about things like the problem of how to properly mourn, how to write again or rewrite.

Esposito: What do you feel are the characteristics that distinguish South Korean literature from other national literatures, and what do you believe makes it relevant to world literature in contemporary times?

Han: That’s a very wide-ranging question so it’s not easy to answer, but what I can say is, it hasn’t been that long ©Hansyart ©Hansyart

since the nation known as South Korea established the modern national system, and modern Korean literature too has a relatively short history. So I think it can still be

Han: A few years ago I realized that up to that time I was a kind

very new, like in the fact that it can still ask questions about

of formalist. I realized that I’d consistently concentrated on

“identity.” I think it can continue asking new questions in

the form of language, the form of the novel. Of course, the

debates that are already over in the West. I’d say that what

novel is a narrative genre, so content cannot be overlooked

connects it with world literature of the same era is simply

entirely, but I was more interested in the form than the

time. Synchronism, the present—it’s things like these that

content, in the “how” than the “what.” If I want to write

make South Korean literature intimately related to world

about certain content, there comes a moment when

literature. Now, when there are more writers than ever

there’s no way other than to write about things I have not

before, when almost anyone can write if they feel like it,

experienced myself. But I think that it would be wrong not

when rather than vast epic stories there are more microscopic

to write such things “well.” So I thought that perhaps I had

stories that are being taken much more seriously than before,

been trying to avoid that moment when I would have to

I think that at its core writing is a genre of equality. This

write about content that was not my own. This thought

kind of equality also means that South Korean literature

came to me as there became more and more times when

cannot really be examined as something separate from world

I felt outrage, as a citizen, as a woman. So lately, I think

literature.

the focus of my deliberation is on how to mix content and form together. One way or another, I want to bring into my

Scott Esposito

novels the things that are having a direct impact on my life,

Senior Editor and Publicity Director,

things like the Sewol Ferry incident, the prevalent hatred of 22

KOREAN LITERATURE NOW

Author of four books, including The Doubles Two Lines Press

EXCERPT

The Impossible Fairy Tale

by Han Yujoo

Surprisingly, the key inside the Child’s pocket might remain undetected. If she is interrogated as to why she is in possession of an unfamiliar key, she has rehearsed several answers: her homeroom teacher sent her to make an extra copy of the classroom key; the class monitor must keep the extra key; she found the key on the street. But the Child must first provide an excuse for something else. An excuse for why her spoon and chopsticks haven’t been used when the lunch containers are completely empty; licked clean. And she does. She manages to invent an excuse on the spot. An excuse that is quite plausible. When she relays her few words, as clearly as she can, she is let off more easily than she expected. Nothing happens today. Not Graywolf Press,

Tilted Axis Press,

yet. When evening comes, she will be left alone at home. Then she will be able to

2017, 214 pp.

2017, 352 pp.

breathe easy. But until then she must hide. She goes into her room, with her head bowed. But she must not bow her head too much, or raise her head too much. She must not tread too heavily, or too lightly. She must not draw too much attention; she must draw a moderate amount of attention. From the opposite room, she hears the ticking of the wall clock.

A wall clock also hangs in the Child’s room. Next to her bed is an alarm clock.

She can distinguish the busy ticking of the second hand of all the different clocks.

Time is passing. She hopes that time will pass quickly, that time will burn out at the fastest possible speed. She is twelve years old; she stopped growing before she turned twelve. She has never gone hungry. But the grains of rice that she has forced down have not become blood and bone, no one knows where they went. The Child will grow no more. Probably. Her face has already fallen. To the bottom, to the pit. Her face sinks and falls, over and over again. The top corners of most of her books and notebooks are torn. She habitually eats paper. Without being aware of it, she tears the paper into little pieces and puts them in her mouth. Paper tastes like paper. She can’t sense the taste of paper. Even though paper simply tastes like paper and only paper, she doesn’t know how much of the tasteless paper scraps she has swallowed. All that is certain is that she has grown up on paper, and that she has already finished growing. The torn corners that are perilously missing give evidence to that end. That is probably why she sometimes looks like a paper doll. Like a paper doll, though she is half-plant or half-animal, with the face of an herbivore. But she isn’t seen. No one sees her. The children don’t know her name or they don’t care VOL. 38

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When I opened the window, a light breeze blew in. I wanted ice cream, so I went to the store. There was dew on the green leaves. I saw the yellow cat’s family. It was strange that their eyes were green.

24

to know it. She is crumpled up like a piece of paper. Her

too, writes in her journal. But she records nothing. Nothing

fingernails and toenails grow very slowly, but even before

about herself. Every time the journal is returned to her, she

these slow-growing nails have a chance to grow out, they are

learns how to camouflage more and more words with other

cut short, so short the flesh underneath becomes exposed.

words. Cheek with leaf, bruise with wind, blister with light

She sometimes wishes that mice or ants would eat her nail

breeze, fingernail with butterfly, curse with song, calf muscle

clippings, just like in the old stories, and transform into

with stick, tongue with ice cream, palm with moon, hair with

her image, and then appear before her. The Child hopes

stars, sigh with whistling, grip with tree branch, shoe heel with

that many children, many who look like her, will become

footprint, glass shard with sky, spine with dog, thigh with cat,

her and take her place. She hopes that these children who

stick with streetlight, crying with bird, pain with bright colors.

appear in the old stories, in fairy tales, will wear her clothes

When I opened the window, a light breeze blew in. I wanted

for her. Then she would be able to hide herself. She would

ice cream, so I went to the store. There was dew on the green

not have to grow darker. She would be able to disappear

leaves. I saw the yellow cat’s family. It was strange that their

forever. She never cries. If she cries, crying becomes the

eyes were green.

reason she can’t disappear, and if she doesn’t cry, not crying

The Child’s journal is filled with the most beautiful

becomes the reason she can’t disappear. The reason why one

words; the mice and ants have been erased and are nowhere

scar buds on top of another. The Child, who had grown up

to be found. Nothing has been transformed and nothing

floundering between these two states, ultimately forgets

looks familiar.

how to cry. She waits for the mice, for the ants. After setting

I looked up into the sky on my way home from the after-

aside everything that is beautiful, she waits for the mice

school academy and saw many stars. I could even identify

and ants. Things that are beautiful are useless. You can’t

some constellations. The moon was very large and very

forget anything with them. You can’t heal anything. The

round. But it appeared more red than yellow. Because the

Child has never seen anything beautiful. She has never

sky was black, the stars were more visible. The constellations

understood what people call “beautiful.” While her nails

were scattered everywhere. I learned how to find the Big

are being painfully clipped, she opens her eyes wide and

Dipper.

wordlessly accepts this punishment. The mice and ants flee

Every time the Child gets her journal back, there is the

and disappear before they can even come to her, as though

same comment. No concrete story. But she doesn’t know

the Child’s hands are a trap. Her fingertips hurt so much

how to write a concrete story. No, even if she knows how,

that she can’t write. In any case, she records nothing about

she must not write that kind of story. Although there is no

herself. No trace must be left. She must disappear instantly,

concreteness in her story, she herself is concrete. But most

as though she has never existed, not even for an instant. She,

of all, what is concrete is her sense of pain.

KOREAN LITERATURE NOW

EXCERPT

I saw a white butterfly. Butterflies don’t leave any footprints. It seems that spring is here.

the window she had left open. She opens it. She hears metal slide over metal. She grabs the ledge with both hands

The Child could not write anything, but still, she must

and lifts herself up. She crawls over the windowsill. Her

write something. Her inability to speak, her inability to

hands smell of metal. When she gets home, the first thing

write, paint her redder and bluer and yellower and darker.

she must do is wash her hands. After climbing through the

The Child sticks her hand in her pocket and checks

window, she lands softly on the floor. She tiptoes down the

that the key is there. She hears the thud of the front door

hall toward the stairs. She walks up. No one is there. On

opening and shutting. She’s been left alone. She slips out of

an ordinary evening in March, no one expects someone

her room and begins to inspect the apartment. As though

to sneak into the school. The teacher on duty is probably

checking to see if someone who’s been watching her has

watching television in the warm night-duty room. The

really left, as though she couldn’t be certain unless she

Child passes the second and third floor and continues up

checked. She opens the kitchen window and peers down

to the fourth. Her classroom is located in the middle of the

at the parking lot. Soon a car with its headlights on pulls

fourth floor. She stands in front of the door to Grade 5,

out of the parking lot. She whistles. No one is home. She is

Section 3. She puts her hand in her pocket and touches the

able to accept the fact only after she’s checked every corner

key. It’s safe. She takes the key out of her pocket and before

of the apartment, again and again. She must hurry. She

she pushes it into the keyhole, she scans the hallway once

doesn’t have much time. She quickly puts on her jacket and

more. No one. It’s dark. Even though the shaking of the

running shoes, and steps out of the house with a flashlight.

thin wooden door echoes louder than the turning of the

It is about a fifteen-minute walk to school. She runs. Her

key, no one hears. She carefully opens the door. She slips

breathing grows heavy. She reaches the school gate and

into the classroom. She carefully closes the door.

takes a minute to catch her breath. The flush fades from

The desks inside the classroom glare at her. The clock

her face. She passes through the gate, wearing a dark face.

hanging on the wall glares at her. The organ placed at

She knows where the open window is. Before heading

the front of the classroom glares at her. The chalkboard

home that afternoon, she had carefully and unobtrusively

eraser placed on the ledge of the chalkboard glares at her.

left a hallway window open on the ground floor. She walks

Kim Injung’s desk, set at a different angle from the other

quietly toward the back of the building. In the distance,

desks, glares at her. The bell on the teacher’s desk glares

the field is sunk in twilight. All of a sudden, she is curious

at her. The children who are not present glare at her. The

whether the coffee milk she left on the stands in the

teacher who isn’t present glares at her. The timetable

afternoon is still there. Also the food she had left in front

hanging beside the chalkboard glares at her. The Child

of the cat—is it gone? She must hurry. She walks toward

looks blankly at the objects glaring at her. She approaches VOL. 38

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FEATURED WRITER

HAN YUJOO

the teacher’s desk. The attendance book, documents, and

never come to meet me with an umbrella. I’ll always carry

textbooks are piled neatly on top. The students’ journals

my umbrella with me now. (It didn’t rain yesterday. My

are stacked on the floor under the desk. The Child snatches

mom will never come to meet me. An umbrella is hard.

a pencil sticking out from the teacher’s pencil container,

A broken umbrella is useless.)

crawls under the desk, and turns on the flashlight. Her

I kicked a ball without realizing my shoelaces were

face becomes dappled from the light. Beyond the light

untied and tripped. The field was hard, so I skinned my

is shadow. Her ears are turned toward the hall outside

knees. My mom saw my ripped pants and got angry. She

the door. Because her hearing was as good as an animal’s,

sewed up the holes. She said she wouldn’t buy me new

even if a mouse or ant should pass in the hall, she would

pants, because I was going to rip them again anyway. (The

probably be able to hear it. She picks up the journal on the

field isn’t thawing. Mom will get angry again. Shoelaces

top of the pile. With eyes that resemble the eyes of a fish,

hurt. A needle is pointy.)

she spreads open the notebook. The flashlight shines on the child’s bad handwriting.

I went to the market with Mom. I wanted to eat spicy rice cakes, so I asked her to buy me some, but she didn’t.

26

A boy who sits in the next row bought a chick. I didn’t buy one, because Mom doesn’t like animals. I don’t know the boy’s name. I want a puppy. (The boy’s name is Park Yeongwu. Park Yeongwu killed the chick.)

But she made them for me at home. I hope spring will

I want to kill a chick, too. (I want to kill, too.)

come soon. I realized today that a sudden frost is harsh.

The Child uses the flashlight to read the children’s

(Spring doesn’t come. Spring that doesn’t come is passing.

journals and adds a few sentences to the end of their entries

Spring is blue, yellow, red, black, white, and murky.)

by imitating their bad handwriting. Most children don’t

I practiced the violin all day. The sheet music looked

have secrets. Or perhaps, most children don’t know how

really easy at first, but it’s much harder than I thought. The

to properly reveal or hide secrets. Or perhaps, the Child

competition is coming up. My violin teacher said that my

doesn’t consider the things that children consider to be

right hand is too tense. I have to practice again tomorrow

secrets as secrets. She puts the journals back in their proper

right after school. (I don’t want to play the violin. I want to

place and crawls out from under the desk. She pictures the

throw it away. I don’t like my violin teacher. I hate her. The

expressions on the children’s faces when the journals are

bow is long. The body of the violin is hard.)

returned. She could have been a little more daring. She

It rained a lot. All the other moms were waiting behind

could have written sentences that were a little worse with

the school gate, but only my mom wasn’t there. But I still

her bad writing. But she doesn’t have much time. The wall

waited for her at the gate. I was really cold. She didn’t

clock that is half-submerged in darkness indicates it is

come, so I just walked home. Then I realized my mom has

8:15 p.m. Her pulse isn’t used to running this fiercely. Her

KOREAN LITERATURE NOW

EXCERPT

Every time the Child gets her journal back, there is the same comment.

No concrete story. But she doesn’t know how to write a concrete story. No, even if she knows how, she must not write that kind of story.

Although there is no concreteness in her story, she herself is concrete.

But most of all, what is concrete is her sense of pain.

shadow, which objects have gobbled up, jolts fiercely, but

a sudden, she wonders if the cat ate her lunch for her, but

without sound. She heaves a low breath. She doesn’t have

she thinks it’s better to hurry home, rather than waste time

to rush. She has about five minutes to spare. No sound

on something like that. It probably ate her lunch for her,

comes from beyond the classroom, but she must be careful.

and would have grown for her by a corresponding amount.

If she is found and the news reaches all the way home, she

The coffee milk would have now turned to ice in the shape

will probably have to endure pain that is incomparable to

of a pyramid. Except for that, nothing has happened. Not

anything she has experienced until now. She might not be

yet. The Child will cause more things to happen. More

allowed to go to school. She already had many experiences

things than what has happened to her so far. And yet, she

of being locked up, and each time, her shadow seized her

probably won’t catch anyone’s eye. She must believe that.

throat. Without thinking, she covers her throat with her

She must not catch anyone’s eye. Her dark face slips out

hand.

of the alley. Her shadow urges her on. She begins to run.

Before switching off the flashlight, the Child inspects the classroom once more, and wipes the pencil she had

Toward home. pp. 34-41

been holding with the hem of her shirt. No trace must be left. In the future, the Child will remember nothing. The

Translated by Janet Hong

sound of the pipe will not reach her ears. The mouse will

Excerpt from The Impossible Fairy Tale .

not appear. Even if it were to appear, it will not appear in the image of the Child. Nothing can take her place. The

Copyright © 2013 by Han Yujoo.

English translation copyright © 2017 by Janet Hong.

Reprinted with the permission of Graywolf Press

Child will simply, just as she always has, disappear without

(Minneapolis, Minnesota, graywolfpress.org)

a word, without a sound, without a trace. She must wait for

and Tilted Axis Press (United Kingdom, tiltedaxispress.com).

that time. That time. Time’s grime. The Child goes back home, retracing in reverse the steps that had brought her to the school. There is no one at the gate. The streetlights that dot the alley leading to the distant main road are lit. All of

▶

Visit koreanliteraturenow.com to read the next chapter and watch a conversation with the author.

VOL. 38

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MUSINGS

One Language C

omparing different English translations from different

The second Italian Bible, also published in Venice, in

eras of the same work is not so unusual, but I recently

1532, was that of Antonio Brucioli, a Florentine layman

had the chance to compare different Italian translations of

who worked from the original Hebrew. (He was said to have

the same work over a span of five centuries. That work was

Protestant leanings and in fact was tried three times by the

the Bible. I’m not a historian or a linguist or a philologist, but

Inquisition.) His first line is: Et era tutta la terra d’uno labro

from an amateur point of view, I became fascinated by how

& delle medesime parole, or, literally, “And the whole earth

the language in a single passage changed over those centuries.

was of one lip and identical words.” So while the structure

The earliest Italian translation, published in Venice in

has changed slightly, he also uses labro, “lip,” in the sense

1471, was made by Niccolò Malermi, a Venetian monk, and

of language, and medesimo, “identical” or “the same,” but

was based on the Latin Vulgate. The so-called Malermi Bible

Malermi’s verb parlare has become parole, “words.”

that I was looking at was a 1492 edition, illustrated with

The third translation, published in 1538 and revised in

woodcuts, and on my first encounter with it I happened to

1546, was done by Santi Marmochini, a Dominican monk

open to Genesis 11, the passage that recounts the story of the

who claimed to have worked from the original Hebrew but is

Tower of Babel.

thought to have in fact relied on Brucioli’s version. His first

Most of us know this story: the whole world speaks

line is: Et era tutta la terra d’un medesimo linguaggio & parlare,

a single language, and the people decide to glorify themselves

literally, “And the whole earth was of an identical language

by building a city with a tower that reaches to heaven. To

and speaking.” So he has eliminated the second modifier and

punish them for this sin of pride, God scatters them and

introduced the word linguaggio, “language,” but has returned

confuses their language so that they can no longer understand

to the verb parlare.

one another.

Then, in 1559, Pope Paul IV published the first index of

Malermi’s first sentence is: Era nela terra uno labro e uno

prohibited books, and on it were the Italian translations of

medesimo parlare, literally, “There was on the earth one lip

the Bible. All printing and reading of vernacular versions of

and an identical speaking.” Labro (or modern labbro) is “lip,”

the Scriptures without the permission of the Holy Office was

which, perhaps analogously with the English “tongue,” could

banned, and for the next 200 years no Catholic translated the

mean speech or language—a mouth part standing for speech.

Bible into Italian.

And parlare is the verb “to speak,” used as a noun, “speaking.”

28

KOREAN LITERATURE NOW

However, in 1607 an Italian translation by a Protestant

was published in Geneva. The author was Giovanni Diodati,

baked or cooked “with” fire, “on the” fire, or “in the” fire; brick

a Hebrew scholar whose family, threatened by persecution,

or bricks are used “for” stones, “in place of ” stones, or “instead

had left Lucca for Geneva. His version, revised many times

of ” stones. “Mortar” is calcina or malta until the twentieth

over the years, is still the standard Italian Protestant Bible.

century, when it becomes cemento. The 1471 Bible is the only

Diodati’s Genesis 11 begins: Hor tutta la terra haveva havuta

one that doesn’t have bricks but, perhaps more vividly, says, “Let’s

una sola favella, & un sol linguaggio, literally, “Now all the

make stones out of earth and bake them with fire, and they had

earth had a single speech and a single language.” It’s a more

baked stones for rocks.”

balanced sentence, using two ordinary nouns for “speech” and

You can get a sense from these examples—and it’s even

“language,” favella and linguaggio, and repeating sola/sol. (The

clearer if you look at the entire passage chronologically—that

“h” of hor, haveva, and havuta is etymological, from Latin,

the sentences seem to get plainer, less ornate, use fewer and,

and not pronounced, and is absent from the modern Italian

understandably and inevitably, more modern words. Verb forms

words.)

and spellings change, as one would expect. But then there are

Finally, in 1757, Pope Benedict XIV relaxed the ban on

also words that don’t change, like bitumen and bricks. Still,

Italian translations, and Antonio Martini, a priest who was

without making any assumptions about why the translator made

later named archbishop of Florence, made a new version. His

his choices, we can certainly appreciate how many choices he

version, published in 1781, was based on the Vulgate, but he

had to make. If you were to translate these five Italian versions

consulted with a rabbi on the Hebrew of the Old Testament.

of the first sentence into more idiomatic English, with the idea

His first sentence of Genesis 11 is quite straightforward: Or

of preserving something of their individuality, you might have

la terra aveva una sola favella, e uno stesso linguaggio, or, “Now

sentences like these:

the earth had a single speech and the same language.”

Until the first half of the twentieth century, Martini’s was the only approved translation for Italian Catholics, and not until after Vatican II (1962-65) was there a flowering of new translations and editions, thanks in part to the fact that Mass was now celebrated in Italian, not Latin. In the current official Catholic Italian version, called the CEI, or Conferenza Episcopale Italiana, published in 1974 and revised in 2008, we find Tutta la terra aveva una sola lingua e le stesse parole: “The entire earth had a single language and the same words.” Here we have the common modern word for language, lingua—

There was on the earth one tongue and a single speech.

(1471) And all the earth was of one tongue and the same words.

(1532) Now all the earth had a single speech and a single language. (1607) Now the earth had a single speech and the same language. (1781) The entire earth had a single language and the same words. (2008)

literally “tongue,” a body part that, unlike the lip, seems to have survived metaphorically.

What’s being described in all these versions sounds like a golden age of harmony and understanding, but without the

Verse 3 of the Babel passage describes the building of the city

differences, we wouldn’t have the fun of comparisons, and

and the tower. I won’t quote all the versions in Italian, but here’s

translators would be out of work.

the basic sentence: “One said to another: ‘Come and let’s make

Ann Goldstein

bricks and bake them with fire.’ And they used bricks instead of

Translator of Elena Ferrante

stones and bitumen instead of mortar.” Most of the versions use the normal word mattone for brick (or bricks); but the bricks are VOL. 38

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BCLT EPILOGUE

A Walk in the Woods

L

ate July 2017, in Norwich, UK, toward the eastern

program—Bengali-to -English, German-to -English,

edge of England, on the sprawling, easy-to-get-lost-in,

Korean-to-English, Lithuanian-to-English, Spanish-to-

very comfortable campus of the University of East Anglia.

English, English-to-Spanish, prose from multiple languages

We had converged from distant parts of the earth—all of

into English, and poetry from multiple languages into

us students of literature in translation—even as some of

English. Obviously we didn’t speak the same language, but

us were writers of note, administrators of the college, or

we had a language in common, and the genuine pursuit of

old hands running the workshops—for the international

translating one language into this more common language

summer school program of the British Centre for Literary

was humbling and inspiring and awe-inspiring. And while

Translation (BCLT). Summertime, though it rained daily

it was also painstaking and exhausting, there was the reward

in Norwich, though it blazed in northern Europe, though it

that comes to one from the knowledge that full effort had

chilled in New York, as the world reeled politically from ill

been expended.

will and ill minds. If we looked anywhere but where we were,

Some might think the exercise of literary translation

the moment was weighed down with worry, with a sense of

inconsequential—how can translation bear concrete

siege, of near-physical pain. Yet within the confines of this

results—but the week made clear, in both outward

week in Norwich, despite the cool and wet, there was, among

demonstration and inner awareness, that translation is

the disparate group of us gathered, an almost devotional

something so basic to our needs as humans beings as to be

focus on the work we were embarked upon. We were trying

essential to living together on this planet.

to find the language that expressed the ideas, the heart,

For the basis of translation is respect, and if we have the

the literature of another language. Not a big bang of an

facility, if we can cultivate the capacity to deliver on that

aspiration, not a scientific breakthrough, merely a profound,

respect, as cliché as it may seem, we are so much the better

elusive human one. And unaccountably, unexpectedly, it was

for it.

thrilling.

There were eight workshops at this year’s summer 30

KOREAN LITERATURE NOW

Such seriousness, such rarefied interest, such lofty goals, but what no one expects: such pleasure, such fun!

I was the leader for the Korean-to-English workshop.

unpoliced and unrubbished. I walked directionlessly, as the

I flew in from New York. Nine “students” had come to

sun began to set. It was the first day we had had of warmth,

Norwich from Seoul, Toronto, and North Carolina, to

of sunlight. I encountered others—the more intrepid

be a part of this workshop, bringing with them advanced

running their miles, the lazier sitting and smoking, laughter,

degrees and accomplishments and professions. I knew none

conversation, hellos, children. There was quiet and then, at

of them, but over the course of the week I was amazed to

one point, isolation. As I followed a path that meandered

find in each of them care, thoughtfulness, inquiry, insight,

off, and another from there, mindlessly, before long

passion, ambition, and truly remarkable ability. We worked

I found myself seeing no one—not a soul. Just the quiet of

together on texts that each had translated, going over words,

the woods. Surely, I thought, the path would come round;

ideas, expressions, meanings spoken and unspoken. Nine

it would not lead nowhere, not to a bog or to a fence

texts—including historical soap opera, science-fictional

overgrown and unpassable. I believed this, continuing

satire, feminist disaffection, psychiatrist couch, and, not

onward as my path led nowhere, or nowhere I knew, and

least, a dildo fantasy on Mars—who would have imagined

the thought gradually came to me that I might be lost, that

such range! As we tried to find the appropriate language to

darkness would come, that no one would know where I was,

convey us—that is, to translate us—from one literature to

and that I would miss dinner and the drink before it, with

another, we crossed social and cultural borders, we blurred

colleagues and students now friends. I grew anxious and

national boundaries, we ferried ourselves among several.

picked up my pace, the sense of adventure and well-being

Without intention, without designated purpose, without

diminishing; I took short cuts, then had to reverse myself

statements to such effect, we were diplomats. To claim

when they turned out to be dead ends. I soiled my shoes

something like this teeters on the facile and the pompous,

leaping over muddy streams, legs tangled in vines. I listened

but in a period of history where nations everywhere find

for voices, footsteps, sounds of life, and heard none. I would

themselves, within and without, embroiled in outrage and

have to retrace my steps—taking the long way back—a detail

bombast, in shouts and murmurs, in slings and arrows, in

made more difficult given that I had deliberately chosen

hate and division, we were making our way forward artfully,

less-traveled paths, nothing direct or straight or certain.

considerably, and without a lot of noise. That effort cannot

But the day was longer than I’d thought, and in time—ten

be dismissed, or thought the less of, because it is not hard

minutes, fifteen, twenty, or thirty—I did not have a watch

science or technology or not under the aegis of politics or

or mobile with me—after taking paths sure and unsure,

economics or government. For while the work that we were

I heard the comforting squeal of a child, voices of adults

doing is less measurable or quantifiable, it has, perhaps, more

not speaking English, generalized laughter, footfalls of

depth and more breadth, is more human and, we would

runners, and I began to relax. I found myself before the

like to believe, lasting. We seek to understand and to make

bridge I’d crossed. I was back among others, and resumed

understandable.

my stroll casually. I would not miss my drink before

I seized the opportunity of a free afternoon that week to

dinner.

go for a walk on the wildlife trail that the campus yields into.

It’s a marvelous bit of nature—looked after so that it will Elmer Luke

with a woods as it once might have been. Ponds, woodlands,

Writer, Editor, Publishing Consultant

wetlands, meadows, trees of all kinds, some drooping into water, vines taking over the underbrush, and all, remarkably,

©BCLT

grow wild and afford people contact with a sense of green,

VOL. 38

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SPECIAL SECTION

Korea and Its Literature as a World of Religious Pluralism

Polaris, 2012 ©Yeesookyung

32

KOREAN LITERATURE NOW

OVERVIEW

F

or those who think of the West as the land of

India and China. Throughout the dynasties of the Unified

Catholicism and Christianity, the Arab world as the

Silla, Goryeo, and Joseon kingdoms, shamanism, Buddhism,

Islamic sphere, and East Asia as a region of Buddhism,

and Confucianism continued to compete for dominance

South Korea might seem like a very strange country. In

in Korean society. It was the introduction of the Catholic

South Korea, there is a Catholic church in every diocese in

Church that finally brought about a massive change in this

the country, the cities are filled with countless Protestant

traditional order of religions.

churches, and Buddhist temples dot the mountainsides. In the capital city of Seoul, there is also a central mosque.

From around the time of the Japanese Imjin Invasion of Korea (1592-1598) to when Yi Seung-hun traveled

If you consider how small the Christian population is

to Beijing and was baptized there as a Catholic (1784),

in China, and that Japan is almost completely made up of

a small number of Koreans remained in secret contact

Buddhists and followers of Shinto, the religious pluralism

with the Catholic Church. Around 1800, the number of

of South Korea seems very peculiar. Korean people are

Catholic believers in Joseon Korea increased rapidly and

very receptive to new beliefs and enjoy making different

they faced severe persecution. A new era then began in

belief systems from the outside world their own. In the

1885, when Methodist and Presbyterian priests visited

long process of such religious adaption, a very special social

Korea. Christianity was understood to be a part of Seohak

tendency has come about whereby believers of different

(“Western Learning”) and served as a symbol of the new

religions live side by side without conflict or confrontation.

civilization coming in from the West. The introduction of

This kind of religious pluralism, however, was not achieved

this new Western religion also brought about an awakening

overnight.

for the need for reform in traditional religions, resulting

Located in the northeast of Asia and geographically

in the founding of Donghak (“Eastern Learning”) by

connected to Siberia, the Korean peninsula is considered

Choe Je-u in 1860. Today, Donghak is synonymous with

to have been traditionally under shamanism’s sphere of

Cheondog yo (the Church of the Heavenly Way), a

influence. Shamanism is a religious consciousness that

new amalgamation of Confucian, Buddhist, and Taoist

believes that the living are deeply connected to the dead,

principles. Cheondogyo is an interesting modern religion

especially their ancestors. Even after people end their life in

particular to Korea, which states that people are the

this world, they lead a new life in a spirit form, and continue

embodiment of heaven, that all of creation—mountains,

to influence the world of the living. It is the shaman, or

streams, plants and grass, men and women, the old and

spirit medium, who enables the living and the dead to

young—are all equal and manifestations of the true form of

communicate. It appears that in ancient times shamanism

the universe called “Haneul.”

was the only religion in existence on the Korean peninsula,

In this period, in addition to the traditional religious

and it is said that while Korean people each believe in their

consciousness, Korea became home to modern reformist

own different religion, it is a shamanist way of thinking that

religions and to new religions from the West, and they all

underlies all their religious practices and beliefs even today.

coexisted. This complex mix became even more pronounced

Around 1,600 to 1,700 years ago, during the Three

during the years in which national sovereignty was lost to

Kingdoms Period of Goguryeo, Baekje, and Silla, Buddhism

Japan (1910-1945). Gaining new independence at the end

and Confucianism were introduced to the peninsula from

of the Pacific War, there was a steady growth in Christianity VOL. 38

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SPECIAL SECTION

in South Korea given the unprecedented influence of the

The novels and poetry of modern

Western world, and, in particular, America. However, the

Korea express the religious

influence of shamanism, Buddhism, and Confucianism remained deeply rooted in the Korean people and landscape.

The novels and poetry of modern Korea express the religious experiences of Korean society with great insight and intimacy. Indeed, most Korean poets will have a close relationship with more than one of the many religions

experiences of Korean society with great insight and intimacy. Indeed, most Korean poets will have a close relationship with more than

prevalent in Korea. Even in the works of writers who don’t

one of the many religions prevalent

ostensibly display their religious consciousness, there are

in Korea.

instances where, if you look into what lays behind the story, you can find an undercurrent of profound religious thought.

It can be said then that modern Korean literature expresses

can arrive at genuine self-salvation. This idea has influenced

religious pluralism in all its complexity. On the other hand,

the inner worlds of many modern novelists and poets.

there are also a large number of literary works that depict

In poet and Buddhist monk Cho Oh-hyun’s Zen poem,

soul searching, and express criticism and skepticism of such

“Distant Holy Man,” the speaker expresses the fundamental

religious beliefs. The most problematic works symbolically

meaninglessness of life through the image of “gnats,” tiny

recreate the intense growing pains that Korean society went

beings that live only brief lives. Through paradoxical

through in its journey toward modern and contemporary

language that elevates these tiny beings to the position of

times, brought about by conflict and antagonism between

holy men possessing greatness, this Buddhist monk poet

the traditional religions and the new and exotic.

seeks to convey the world of Buddhist truth to which he has

The short story “The Shaman Painting” is a very apt

dedicated his life. The poet Moon Taejun is representative

example. Written by Kim Tong-ni, who was born and raised

of a relatively younger group of Buddhist poets. In his

in Gyeongju, the capital of the Silla kingdom, the story

poem “Naked Foot,” he likens the image of a butter clam

portrays the clash between shamanism and Christianity.

seen in a fishmonger’s stall to the Buddha. The clam flesh

Woogi, the son of a female shaman named Mohwa, leaves

protruding from the shell harks back to the story of how,

home and comes back having become an evangelical

when the disciple Kaśyapa came from a great distance to

Christian. Mohwa’s family, which includes her mute

see the Buddha who had already passed away and reached

daughter Nangi, serves as a microcosm for the religious

nirvana, the Buddha’s feet stuck out of his coffin to greet

conflict and antagonism that took place in Korean society.

his friend. The poem alludes to the fact that all people have

In this instance, the conflict results in the death of the son,

the potential to arrive at a state of profound self-reflection if

and later, the death of Mohwa as well. Here, Kim indicates

they can perceive the sanctity of the butter clam.

his expectation that the concept of shamanism including its

Kim Seong-Dong’s novel Mandala is a controversial

traditional gut ritual, which came down through the ages,

work which dramatizes the anguish of youth spent

will survive into the modern world. Though Mohwa dies at

struggling alone to reach Buddhist enlightenment. The

the very end of the story, her death carries the meaning of

mandala of the title refers to an image which represents

a sacrificial rite, the victory of the soul.

the stages to be passed before reaching enlightenment

Buddhism is one of the oldest religions in Korea and

in an esoteric sect of Buddhism. The novel depicts the

teaches that by deconstructing the idea of “I,” the ego, one

struggle of a young Buddhist monk named Beobun. Having

34

KOREAN LITERATURE NOW

OVERVIEW

grown up surrounded by darkness after his father’s death

the hands of a kidnapper. The work brings to the forefront

in a massacre during the Korean War, Beobun struggles to

a strong challenge to the rationale of Christian salvation,

free himself from the torment of life. In traditional Seon

and was later made into the film Secret Sunshine by director

(Zen) Buddhism of Korea, practitioners pose paradoxical

Lee Chang-dong. In the excerpt included here, the child’s

or puzzling questions for themselves called hwadu as

mother cannot bear the idea that the kidnapper, Kim Do-

a means of attaining enlightenment. In the excerpt here,

seop, has attained peace in the arms of a forgiving God,

the “bird in a bottle” is exactly that. Beobun seeks the true

and so decides to end her own life. Lee Kiho’s satirical

nature of existence, and hence, enlightenment, through the

short story “Choi Sun-dok, Filled with the Holy Spirit”

question, “How can you extract a bird from a bottle?” The

depicts the limitations of the Christian way of interpreting

question has its origins in a Buddhist fable. In the novel,

Korean society through the naive inner workings of the

while mourning the death of a Buddhist monk named Jisan,

character Choi Sun-dok’s mind when faced with a serial

who died after violating the Buddhist commandments, the

flasher. Borrowing the narrative composition and style

protagonist Beobun achieves a new realization regarding the

of the Bible, this short story captures the irrationality of

hwadu he set for himself.

Korean society with razor-sharp insight.

The influence that Christianity had on modern Koreans

Religion is something which lies at the core of every

was as strong as the religion was new, and in Korean

country, every society, and every cultural tradition. Each

literature, not only did writers embrace it from various

of the city states of ancient Greece had their own gods,

angles, but they also made the nature of Christianity

and the freemen of each city state were able to confirm

an object of deep introspection. In Yun Dong-ju’s “The

their status and membership as citizens to a particular

Cross” and Kim Hyunseung’s “Autumn Prayer,” the way in

state by presiding over worship ceremonies for their gods.

which these poets sought to defend their lives purely and

Instead of the classical sense of a divine “one and only,” or

beautifully through the form of Christian contemplation

of an exclusive religious “purity,” modern Korean society

and reflection is vividly apparent. Yun Dong-ju was a poet

took the path of religious pluralism and syncretism. In

who was killed by a medical experiment carried out on

Korean literature, the complex composition of this social

him while held prisoner in Fukuoka, Japan, having been

environment and mind-set have been addressed, and

branded a nationalist at the end of the Pacific War; Kim

many works continue to deeply explore this phenomena.

Hyunseung was a poet who created a distinctive religious

Korean literature has a tradition of various forms of

literary world, having studied at a traditional Christian

religious literature that express religious awareness and

school. The Christian poems of these two poets can be

introspection, and through literature, constant attempts

seen as the product of the will to conquer the tumultuous

are being made to examine modern life on a more

modern history of Korea by means of the Christian concept

fundamental level.

of salvation.

The reflection on Christianity found in the works of contemporary writers tends to sharply express the contradictions and conflicts created in the space between Christian ideals and the ethics of real lives. Yi Chong-Jun’s things as the authority, value, and limitations of religion through the agony brought about by the death of a child at

©Meenyoung Jung

“The Abject” is a controversial work which questions such

Bang Min-Ho Literary Critic Professor of Korean Literature Seoul National University

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When I Become You (performance), 2015 Stage design and performance directing: Yeesookyung Dance: Lee Junghwa

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FICTION

The Shaman Painting

by Kim Tong-ni

Just as in the past, ancient frogs and other creeping things prowled the entangled weeds in Mohwa’s yard. Now that Woogi was gone the house was back to normal.

But Mohwa was not performing any rites in public now and spent all day every day banging away on her gongs and dancing with her spirits in her decaying, dilapidated house in the weeds, and people were saying she had gone mad.

Her kitchen was now a perpetual ritual site, hung with five-colored streamers and Nangi’s ritual paintings of the Mountain Spirit, Seven Stars Spirit and many others. She had stopped eating, as if she had forgotten how, and her face turned sallower day by day even as the flame in her eyes burned hotter. And every day the spirits that possessed her ranted and raged to the furious beat of her gongs.

Going, Jesus demon, 10,000 li back to the west.

A ball of fire on your tail, A bell on each ear ding-a-ling-a-ling.

Shoo demon, off with you.

And if you don’t go I’ll wrap you and all your descendants in the hide of the White Horse Spirit, throw you into an ash briar patch, into a boiling cauldron, into the blue sea fifty fathoms deep.

Shoo, demon! Shoo-o-o-o!

Once in a while a neighbor, remembering how much Mohwa used to enjoy drinking, dropped by with a jug of wine. “How you can bear such a loss, that dear boy . . .” To which Mohwa would only mumble, “Taken off by that Jesus demon . . . ,” and put an end to the conversation with a long sigh.

Her neighbors mourned that she had completely lost her mind. “She was so good. Will we ever see her do another

rite?”

Before long, though, word spread throughout the area: Mohwa was going to conduct one more rite, her last. The daughter-in-law of some rich gentry family in the county seat had thrown herself into the river, where the current had carved a deep pocket in its bed. Legend had it that the black fathomless depths of these slowly turning waters that locals called Yegi Pool took for themselves one person every year without fail, and deep in the bowels of this pool quietly stewed the sufferings and secrets of generations. The family wanted to send the tormented soul on to her rest, so they had pressed Mohwa with two silk outfits to use in conjuring up the soul, and she had consented to do just this one last service. At the same time, the rumor went, Mohwa was going to restore her own daughter’s hearing.

“Hmph. Now we’ll see who’s for real—that Jesus demon or the spirits,” she asserted.

The rite was to be held on the sandy beach near the pool where the young woman had drowned herself. The big night finally came, and the people turned up in droves, out of both curiosity and expectation. They came from over the mountains and across the river with a mixed sense of excitement and nostalgia.

The beach swarmed with taffy vendors, rice cake vendors, drinking stalls and food stalls equipped with their awnings and their mats, and in the center of this was the big canopy where Mohwa would summon her spirits to help rescue the young woman’s lost soul. Silk lanterns like green, red, yellow, blue and white flowers had been strung all over the tent, and lined up under these lanterns was an array of offering tables, one for each spirit that would be called upon.

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with its bowl of uncooked rice, spool of thread, plate of tofu, and skewer of dried persimmons. There was a table for the Maitreya Buddha with apples, pears and mandarin oranges, snowy white rice cake, cooked vegetables, vegetable soup, salted fish, and hard honey cakes. There was a table for the Mountain Spirit with twelve kinds of wild herbs, a table for the Dragon Spirit with twelve different seafoods, and a table for the Lanes Spirits with one dish for each of a variety of foods. There were a few more large and small offering tables, and a table for Mohwa, with just one bowl of plain water.

Tonight Mohwa’s face was suffused with a dignified and serene countenance that had not been there before.

People gabbed how, for a woman who was mourning her son as if he had died only the day before and was at the same time bearing every abuse and insult imaginable from these Christian interlopers, she had assumed quite an air of dignity. This was the face they knew from long ago, of that shaman ennobled by a few nights’ vigil under the light of the moon. She did not gad about and fawn over everyone as she used to, nor did she make a big fuss about every detail; she only stood there quietly, waiting. At one time, surveying the sumptuous offering tables with contempt, she sniffed at her assistants, “Lowlifes, thinking a few offering tables is all you need.”

When the women who gathered there saw this new Mohwa they started whispering that a new spirit possessed her.

“It’s the spirit of that young lady,” they grudged.

“Will you just look at that stoic composure, so demure— kind of prissy if you ask me—and when was Mohwa ever that pretty. That young woman’s spirit has got into her all the way.”

Others gossiped among themselves of how tonight Nangi would speak again, and still others debated the rumor that Nangi was with child, whoever the father was. And all of these women were eager to get answers tonight to all these questions buzzing about.

Mohwa’s spirit began by recounting, in a more plaintive voice than anyone ever heard from her, all that had happened to Lady Kim from the day she was born till the day she drowned in Yegi Pool. Then the sorceress moved

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into a frenzied dance accompanied by the fiddle, flute and bamboo oboe, and it was not too long before she lost herself to an ecstatic trance steeped in the anguish of the dead woman’s soul. Her human body metamorphosed into pure rhythm, uninhibited by skin or bone, only a phantom of fluid motion. The blood of the mesmerized spectators pulsated in harmony with the folds of the shaman’s mantle undulating in tempo with her racing blood. The stars turning in the heavens and the water flowing in the river paused in witness.

Yet, as the night wore on, the young woman’s soul was not responding to Mohwa’s invocation. Her male assistants and her apprentices had tied a rice bowl to the spirit line made from pieces of the young woman’s clothes, thrown it into the pool, retrieved it a few times, but in the bowl they could not find the strands of hair that would announce the soul’s recovery.

With an anxious look one of Mohwa’s assistants whispered in Mohwa’s ear, “We can’t fetch her spirit. Now what?”

Mohwa showed no concern at all. As if she had expected this she calmly took up her spirit pole and walked to the edge of the pool. The male shaman with the spirit line maneuvered the rice bowl here and there in the water in the directions indicated by Mohwa’s spirit pole. Mohwa called to the dead soul.

Rise, rise up, thirty-year-old wife of Master Kim from Wolsong.

She stirred the water with the spirit pole and continued in a voice now husky with emotion.

When you were born under that auspicious star, offerings were made to the Seven Stars Spirit.

You came into existence like a flower blossom, and you were cared for like a precious gem.

But then you jumped into these dark waters, deserting your parents, your infant child, so even the Dragon Spirit turned from you.

FICTION

When your skirt ballooned ’round you as you hit the water, what on earth were you thinking?

That you were mounting a lotus blossom?

That you would float on to eternal life?

Oh no, you’re just a water demon, hair let down like a scraggle of hemp.

Mohwa followed the spirit pole a little deeper and then a little deeper into the river. The turning water took one fold of her mantle and twisted it round her, left the other bobbing on the surface. The dark waters covered her waist, covered her breasts, rose higher, and higher . . .

Going, I’m going now, a farewell cup of white dewdrop wine and I’m gone.

Young lady, gone before me, call me to you.

Her voice began to fade and her thoughts seemed to stray.

Nangi my daughter, dressed in your mourning white, when it’s spring on the river’s bank and the peach blossoms bloom come and ask after me.

Ask the first branch how I am, ask the second . . .

a while, then flowed on with the river.

Ten days after Yegi Pool took Mohwa, a small man said to be running a seafood shop in a back lane in a town on the east coast came up to the old goblin house, riding a donkey.

Inside he found Nangi lying in bed, eyes sunken in her ghost-pallid face, still suffering the agonies of the shaman initiate.

The little man made her some rice gruel. It was not until she had eaten a spoonful that she fully recognized him, and uttered, “Fa . . . Father . . . ?” Whether Mohwa had actually given the girl her speech back, as the rumor had prophesied, this was the first time in years that anyone heard the girl speak anything that could be understood.

Ten more days passed. Out in the yard the little man pointed to his donkey. “Up you go now.” Nangi silently did as her father bade her.

After the man and his daughter left the house, no one came there again. And now, at night, in that jungle of weeds, those swarming mosquitoes are the only sign of life. pp. 40-46

Translated by John Holstein Excerpt from A Moment’s Grace: Stories from Korea in Transition .

Copyright © 2009 by John Holstein. Reprinted with the permission of Cornell University East Asia Program, Ithaca, New York.

And that was the last anyone could make out, because the pool took Mohwa, along with her song, to itself.

Her mantle floated on the surface for a while, but soon that was gone too. Only the spirit pole floated there, turned

Kim Tong-ni (1913–1995) was a doyen of Korean literature whose notable works include the short stories “The Shaman Painting” and “Tungsin-bul,” and the novels Ulhwa the Shaman and The Cross of Shaphan . Translations of Ulhwa have been published in the US, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. Ulhwa , “Stroller,” and “The Cry of the Magpies” have been adapted into movies. He received the Freedom Literary Prize, National Academy of Arts Award, Samil Prize, Seoul City Cultural Prize, and the Order of Civil Merit - Moran Medal.

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Distant Holy Man

by Musan Cho Oh-hyun Today, this one day, on this one day called today I saw the whole of the sun rise and saw it all set Nothing more to see— a swarm of gnats laying eggs, dying I am still alive, long past my time to die, But consider—today, I don’t feel as if I’ve lived even this single day He may live a thousand years, but the holy man Is but a distant cloud of gnats

Translated by Heinz Insu Fenkl From For Nirvana: 108 Zen Sijo Poems . Translation copyright © 2016 Heinz Insu Fenkl.

Reprinted with the permission of Columbia University Press, New York.

Cho Oh-hyun, who writes under the Buddhist name Musan, is the lineage holder of the Mount Gaji ©Baekdamsa

school of Korean Nine Mountains Zen, and is in retreat as the Patriarch of Baekdamsa Temple at Mount Seoraksan. He received the Chong Chi-Yong Literature Prize for his poem “Distant Holy Man.” He is a recipient of the Korean Literature Award, Garam Sijo Literary Prize, and the Order of Civil Merit - Dongbaek Medal. His poetry collection For Nirvana: 108 Zen Sijo Poems was published by Columbia University Press in 2016. Translations of his poetry have appeared in World Literature Today , Asymptote ,

Buddhist Poetry Review , and Asia Literary Review.

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Photo: Shin Ohseok

Courtesy of the artist

The Very Best Statue, Liverpool, UK, 2008 ©Yeesookyung

POETRY

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Photo: Shin Ohseok

Courtesy of the artist

Portable Temple 2008 (detail), 2008 ©Yeesookyung

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POETRY

Naked Foot

by Moon Taejun

A butter clam stretches out its naked foot from the hut of its shell in a fish store.

As the Buddha stretched his feet out of his coffin for his sad disciples, it stretches its naked foot.

It’s swollen, it soaked too long in the mud and water.

When I touch it, as if to offer my condolences, it withdraws its foot slowly, as if the touch is its first and last meditation.

Its road, its time, flew by, just like that.

It would go out to meet someone and amble back, just like that; its foot must always have been naked.

As a bird that lost its mate endures nights with its beak tucked under its wing, the clam tucks its naked foot under its wing for the night.

When the shell cries “ah,” it goes into the street to beg for a meal with its swollen foot.

When it returns to its hut and the stench of poverty, after wandering all day on its naked foot, what cried “ah” in the shell must have fed itself, that cry would have stopped in the dark.

Translated by Kim Won-Chung and Christopher Merrill From The Growth of a Shadow . Copyright © 2011 by Autumn Hill Books.

English translation copyright © 2011 by Won-Chung Kim and Christopher Merrill.

Reprinted with the permission of Autumn Hill Books, Bloomington, Indiana.

Moon Taejun is a program director at the Buddhist Broadcasting System. His writings include Crowded Backyard , Naked Foot , Flatfish , The Growth of a Shadow , and A Faraway Place . He is a recipient of the Dongsuh Literary Award, Nojak Literary Prize, Midang Literary Award, and Sowol Poetry Award. His poetry collection The Growth of a Shadow has been published in English and his poems “My Mother’s Prayer Beads” and “A Faraway Place” were published in The Guardian .

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by Kim Seong-Dong

“Idiot!” I shouted, hurling his notebook. The pages fluttered like the wings of a bird, its body sucked into the fire. I could see the transparent tongues of flame glowing through the swirling and dispersing smoke. Red as blood. Pale and pure as soju. Jisan would be lying there, all alone, on the dazzling altar.

“Coward!”

I threw his toothbrush.

I threw his towel.

I threw his tattered underwear.

I threw his photo album.

All into the burning hermitage.

I grabbed the small Buddha image he’d whittled out of wood. I was about to throw that, too, into the fire, but instead I stuffed it inside the travel sack under my butt.

I grabbed Jisan’s empty sack and threw that into the fire.

And now there was nothing left to toss into the flames 44

KOREAN LITERATURE NOW

but the Heart mantra and a prayer for a good rebirth.

Om migimigi yayamigi sabaha Om migimigi yayamigi sabaha Om migimigi yayamigi sabaha . . .

When my death comes to me in this place, May I pass with ease to the Pure Land.

May the Bodhisattva Maitreya find favor with me, And may I know the time and place of my awakening.

The flames spread, crawling up the walls to the ceiling.

Sharp explosions pounded against my ears. Slivers of wood exploded upward, embers flying, clawing at my face, smoke stabbing and burning my eyes. Tears poured down my cheeks. I grabbed my travel sack and got to my feet, putting my hands together in prayer.

Photo: Kwack Gongshin

Mandala

Courtesy of the artist

You Were There, 2015 © Yeesookyung, Fondation d'entreprise Hermès

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FICTION

. . . O Jisan, departed one. Where are you going, setting out from the fiery wrath of these Three Worlds of fire and pain? Are you going to the Fourth Blissful Heaven, or are you going to the Hell of Solitude? It is said there is no single eternal existence—everything comes into being and dissolves into the Four Great Elements, and man enters and exits this world following his karma. But you, O monk, where have you come from and where are you going ?

Living is but a fragment of a dream and dying but another fragment. Mountains and rivers across the vast earth, the sun and the moon and the stars, all shapes, all forms—there is nothing that is not the Buddha. Every hill, every stream is His body; every blade of grass and every flower is His mind.

Now, what do you declare is your original face? Do you understand the reason why the Buddha Shakyamuni thrust his feet out of his coffin in Magadha and held up the flower on that Himalayan peak? Why Bodhidharma sat for nine

years facing a blank wall in the cave in China and why he walked across the Pamir Plateau carrying one of his shoes in his hand? Do you know the reason why? It is said that those who follow the Way of the Buddha will be born in the realm of the Buddha; those who accrue merits through the ten virtues are born in Heaven; those who believe in the karma of cause and effect are born in the human world; those laden with the karma of anger will descend to Hell; those who carry the heavy burden of avarice and greed will fall into the world of hungry ghosts; and those who are thick with ignorance and stupidity will be born as beasts . . . What is your final destination? Where will your body appear next?

Answer, O departed one! In what land will you incarnate?

Speak, O departed!

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looked like a blooming flower, a dazzlingly beautiful mandala of Paradise. Everything was burning—the eyes for light, the ears for sound, the nose for smell, the tongue for taste, the flesh for touch, the heart and mind—all burning.

Earthy lust was burning. Watery sorrow was burning. The wind of longing, burning. Ah, the 84,000 afflictions, all burning.

Somehow snow was pouring down like a rainstorm.

Above the towering flames, the snowflakes shuddered and vanished without a trace. The tears on my cheeks dried from the intense heat of the fire and then they flowed again over the gritty traces of salt. . . . O monk, are you departing toward the Western Paradise? Are you casting off this evil world of five impurities on your way to Nirvana? . . . Surely, you shall be born again. Born again as the son of a man who loves and cherishes the world, a noble and great man of letters. And you shall therefore become the father of a man.

Then I saw something fly out from the mass of flames. It was a small bird. Its body was that of a bird, but strangely, its head was that of a man. The bird with a human head perched atop the highest blossom of flame, its wings bent upward like bows. It stood erect, powerful legs outstretched. I heard it flap its feathery wings. And then, its sharp talons clawing at the flames, it flew upward into the sky like an eagle. A single, long, clear cry tore through the empty air. Flapping its dazzling golden wings, the bird

cut through time and soared high across space. Toward eternity. Ah, I got a taste—my whole body contracting, convulsing, my lips cracking—like the time I had touched electricity with a wet hand. It’s done! I cried. It’s over now! But the words did not come out of my mouth—they swirled around inside. I gulped, swallowing a mouthful of fresh saliva. I felt my limbs contort, and my heart pounded violently. An unbearable emotion swelled in my abdomen.

I clenched my eyes shut. Stars poured down from the sky.

My body floated upward. I felt something sticky on my thighs. Ah. It was that “bird in a bottle” that once choked out its desperate and sorrowful cries, not knowing how to fly, perched in one spot as if it had been nailed there.

Suddenly there was a clap of thunder. I woke up from the illusion, back into reality. The pillars of flame were collapsing.

Ah, was it all just a phantasm? As I ran down the hill, something hot flowed down my cheeks.

Cold drops of water abruptly slapped my face. It was raining. With another peal of thunder, a sharp light slashed across the sky and the rain came down in torrents.

I stopped and turned around. The last flames, thinning in the dying pyre, finally lost their strength and went dark, a single thread of smoke rising upward. pp. 302-307

Translated by Heinz Insu Fenkl SAEUM Publishing Company, 2015, 360 pp.

©NAMGUNG DAM

Kim Seong-Dong’s childhood was spent in the turmoil of the Japanese occupation, independence, and the Korean War. He dropped out of school in 1965 to join a Buddhist monastery, but was excommunicated on charges of defaming his order when his short story “Moktakjo” was published in the Jugan Jonggyo weekly in 1975. His writing career took off when he won the Korean Literature New Writer’s Award in 1978 for the novella Mandala . Mandala was adapted into a movie in 1981, and has since appeared in translation in France, Bulgaria, Germany, and Argentina.

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POETRY

The Cross

by Yun Dong-ju

The sun was following me, but it is now caught on the cross on top of the church.

How can I get up that high on the steeple?

No sound comes from the bell: I might as well whistle and hang around.

If I were permitted my own cross, like the man who suffered, blessed Jesus Christ, I would hang my head and quietly bleed blood that would blossom like a flower under a darkening sky.

Translated by Kyung-nyun Kim Richards and Steffen F. Richards From Sky, Wind and Stars . Copyright © 2003 by Kyung-nyun Kim Richards and Steffen F. Richards.

Reprinted with the permission of Jain Publishing Company, Fremont, California (www.jainpub.com).

Yun Dong-ju (1917–1945) graduated from Yeonhui College, Seoul, and moved to Tokyo for further studies where he was arrested on charges of participating in the anti-Japanese independence movement. He died from torture at Fukuoka Prison in 1945. A collection of his poetry was published posthumously in 1948 as Sky, Wind, and Stars . “Foreword” and “Self-Portrait” are among his most famous poems. Sky, Wind, and Stars has been published in the US, France, Spain, Russia, China, and Japan.

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POETRY

Autumn Prayer

by Kim Hyunseung

In Autumn let me pray . . .

Fill me with the humble mother tongue bestowed on me at the fall of the leaves in time In Autumn let me love . . .

Embrace one only— Plow this fertile hour for the most beautiful fruit— In Autumn let me be solitary . . .

My soul, like a raven who’s come through the sinuous waters and the valley of lilies to alight on a sapless bough

Photo: Shin Ohseok

Courtesy of the artist

Praying Hands Candle, 2011 ©Yeesookyung

Translated by Cho Young-Shil

Kim Hyunseung (1913–1975) made his literary debut in 1934 when his poem, “The Lonesome Winter Evening Comes, and You,” was carried in the Dong-A Ilbo newspaper. He stopped writing toward the end of the colonial period and only started writing again after independence. His notable works include Selected Poems of Kim

Hyunseung , Robust Loneliness , Commentary on Contemporary Poetry , and Survey of World Literary History .

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The Abject

by Yi Chong-Jun

My wife’s breakdown in her fragile state wasn’t over yet.

The deeper frustration lay in her realization that she could no longer go back to carrying out her human decision— revenge. That was not necessarily due to Mrs. Kim’s threats or coercion. At the time, my wife had been prepared to carry out her duty as a believer and grant that man her forgiveness.

She was fully aware of her motive and the merit behind her actions. To abandon that motive was no different from abandoning herself. She could not bring herself to throw it all away. At the same time, she could not abandon the “human” that existed within her by bringing herself to trust solely in the Lord’s “salvation.” The Lord’s purpose was too distant and pointless for her to do such a thing.

My wife’s heart was ruthlessly torn between God’s divine providence and the “human” self that existed within her.

But she didn’t bother to give Mrs. Kim that explanation.

She probably didn’t see the need for it. That explanation on humankind’s insignificance and shabby imperfection— until Mrs. Kim could ache and grieve over such limitations and weaknesses, this mindset my wife had would forever be beyond her. The reason my wife had kept her mouth shut even to me up until then had everything to do with that.

The awful pain and despair within kept her from being able to open her mouth to speak.

But I was finally able to understand my wife’s sadness.

Even if I hadn’t been a father who’d just lost a child, I felt that I could finally join her in her pain and live with our right to exist as insignificant and lowly humans. But even so, how would such a thing be of any help to my dear wife?

Furthermore, what could I have done to lift that weight of unhappiness from her and save her from despair? Despite knowing all this about her, I continued to look after her in what little ways I could. Circling around her constantly, passively, all I did was look at my wife with pity while I suffered 50

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quietly alone. Could it be because I had taken into account Mrs. Kim’s remark that this was just another hurdle for my wife to overcome—the kind that she must overcome in order to win back life and salvation? And could this be regarded as simply my wife’s share of suffering that she needed to overcome on her own? No. Certainly not. But of course, Mrs. Kim still thought this way. And she continued to visit my wife to preach about the “Father’s” promise and perfect love. She continued attempting to restore my wife’s faith, trying to incite her with encouragements as a servant of God. I, on the other hand, was not able to do this, for I had no outside support. I couldn’t even begin to think that my wife would be able to carry out such a thing. That’s because other than feeling sorry for her and saying useless things that would only disturb her unsound state, I had no other course of action or a plan. My wife appeared to have committed her last remaining self to a dark ultimatum. No matter what Mrs. Kim or I said to her, nothing seemed to reach her consciousness. Following that day, she completely shut the world out, closing her mouth for good. She didn’t take a single sip of water.

Ah, but how could I have even measured the depths that her sorrow had reached? My dear wife continued on in that way before finally taking her own life. In order to give up on both the nature of humankind and the providence of God, she simply cut away the root of her despair. It’s possible that the news of Kim Do-seop’s execution being carried out had somehow reached her, which prompted her final action.

As the daylight changed and February rolled through, Kim Do-seop’s execution by hanging finally took place, and the event was broadcast on the radio. Kim Do-seop’s last words to the world stirred such an unfamiliar sense of hatred in me that my whole body shook uncontrollably with rage:

Photo: Shin Ohseok

Courtesy of the artist

“Why should I fear death now that I’m here? My soul has already been saved by God’s love and promise. Not only my spirit but a part of my body will also be reborn here on this earth, gaining new life, because I am leaving behind my eyes and heart to my brothers and sisters remaining on earth.”

His last and final wishes were stated at the execution site: “Should I have any last wishes, it would be that the people who are suffering because of me would find love and salvation through God. Through their sacrifice and pain, I am able, today, to gain new life, a new soul, but that child’s family is probably still suffering from a horrible sadness and torment. I pray both here on this earth and there in the next life for those people. Lord, I ask you to deliver my soul and the child’s soul into the next world, and with your love, please take away his family’s pain and be their crutch . . .”

Her nerves had been frayed the whole time, and it was no different on that day. That could have been it. My wife, who did nothing but stare at the ceiling all day—oblivious to whether the sun was up or down—on that particular day, she just so happened to be listening to that damned radio.

She’d heard everything.

That was on February fifth, right around the time the sun began to set. And just two days later, unable to withstand it any longer, she took some pills, taking her own life. Neither to Mrs. Kim—the woman who’d looked after her all that

Bone Tear, 2011 ©Yeesookyung

FICTION

time—nor to me, did my wife leave behind a single word of her last will and testament. pp. 84-87

Translated by Grace Jung Excerpt from Two Stories from Korea.

Copyright © 2016 by MerwinAsia.

Reprinted with the permission of MerwinAsia, Portland, Maine.

Yi Chong-Jun (1939–2008) produced seventeen novels, 155 short stories, and one play over the course of his career.

His notable works include Your Paradise , Seopyeonje , and “The Wounded.” Nine of his works were cinematized, ©Moonji

including Secret Sunshine , which was based on his story “The Abject.” He received the Dongin Literary Award, Yi Sang Literary Award, Lee San Literature Prize, and the Daesan Literary Award. He was also posthumously awarded the Geumgwan Order of Cultural Merit. His works have been translated into English, French, German, Spanish, Chinese, and Japanese.

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SPECIAL SECTION

Choi Sun-dok, Filled with the Holy Spirit

3

4

5

6

7 8

9

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KOREAN LITERATURE NOW

Photo: Kim Sangtae

2

member peeked out, and scrotum that hung low like a bull’s.

10 When Sun-dok just stood there blinking, mouth agape, and seemingly unflustered, the man dithered for a moment and then opened his coat even wider. At this, the fellow maiden, who had sunk to the ground and was screaming, rose hastily and, linking her arm with Sundok’s, hurried them back the way they had come.

11 Only then did the man close his coat and, after snickering for some time, disappeared into the alley on the other side.

12 Sun-dok and the maiden ran for a stretch and stopped at a street where many people were coming and going.

Both were out of breath, so they could not speak for a while.

13 With one hand on her bosom, Sun-dok caught her breath and said unto her fellow maiden, “Who was that man who showed us his naked self ? Do you know him?

Why did we have to run?”

14 At this, the fellow maiden stared at Sun-dok and said, “Do you really not know him? Was that the first time you saw such a man?” Sun-dok nodded mutely.

15 The fellow maiden spat audibly on the ground and said unto her, “Such men are called ‘perverts.’ He’s the offspring of a snake, a devil of a man. Woe are we to have come across him. When you see his kind, ’tis best to run away without a second glance.

Courtesy of the artist

4

And it came to pass one day that Sun-dok had finished her part-time job at the fast-food restaurant and was walking along a deserted alley with a fellow maiden when suddenly a man blocked their path. This man was dressed curiously.

A gray alpine cap was pressed down on his head and a gray mask covered his mouth, leaving his face and features completely unrecognizable.

And he wore an old trench coat that came below his knees, and since it was hot summer, the vicinity of his armpits was dark with sweat.

On closer look, bare skin showed below his trench coat, and immediately below that were his shoes. Wisps of hair stood on his calves.

Because the man had blocked their path, Sun-dok and the fellow maiden stopped short. There was no one but them in that alley, and only a dog’s raucous barking could be heard in the distance.

The man opened his coat unto them, like a bat spreading its wings, and lo, he did not have a stitch on underneath.

At this, Sun-dok froze like a pillar of salt, and the fellow maiden screamed and sank to the ground. Sun-dok had never seen a man completely naked before.

She stared, open-mouthed, at the man’s naked body: gaunt chest with protruding ribs, navel completely sunken, dark bush from where a thimble-shaped

Flame 2009-3, 2009 ©Yeesookyung

by Lee Kiho

FICTION

©Maumsanchaek

16 “Lest some misfortune befall you.”

17 She added, “Men like him are depraved and are always in the pursuit of pleasure. They are enemies of womankind, enemies of humanity. They are the devil’s reinforcements.

18 “So if you come across Adams like him, never show them kindness.”

19 Sun-dok was startled to hear this and said, “Adam! Do you mean to say his name is Adam?”

20 Her fellow maiden said unto to her, “Yes. Men who strip off their clothes like that are called Adam.” Sun-dok was silent for a while.

21 While they walked to the subway station in silence, Sun-dok looked as though she were thinking about something intently, and so the fellow maiden thought she was in great shock.

22 She patted Sun-dok on the back and said, “Don’t fret yourself over it. The world is full of trash like him. The world has turned into Sodom and Gomorrah because of such wicked people. ’Tis best to close your eyes to it all.”

23 Sun-dok did not say anything and instead suddenly dashed off back to where they had come. The fellow maiden was startled and called out to her, but Sun-dok did not answer.

24 For how could the maiden have known what was going through Sun-dok’s mind? How could she have guessed that Sun-dok had hit upon the solution she had been looking for all this time? Only God Almighty knew.

25 That day, Sun-dok had witnessed the truth she had been wandering in search for. This was the reason God had sent her to this world.

26 I will preach to Adam and turn him to the path of righteousness. This is why I am here. This is my only chance of entering heaven. Sun-dok walked with a firm conviction. pp. 242-245

Translated by Agnel Joseph From the short story collection Choi Sun-dok, Filled with the

Holy Spirit , Moonji Publications, 2004, 334 pp.

Lee Kiho is the author of two novels and five short story collections. His novel At Least We Can Apologize was published by Dalkey Archive Press in 2013. He has received the Lee Hyo-seok Literary Award, KBS Kim Seungok Literary Award, and the Hankook Ilbo Literary Award. He currently serves as a professor of creative writing at Gwangju University. ▶

Visit koreanliteraturenow.com to watch a trailer of this book.

VOL. 38

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IN THE NEWS

LTI Korea Translation Academy

Translation Academy Students & Faculty Sweep Translation Awards

Photo by courtesy of The Korea Times

Students and faculty from LTI Korea’s Translation Academy won the 48th Korea Times Modern Korean Literature Translation Award.

Sarah Lyo, who is currently enrolled in the second year of the Regular Course at the Academy, won the Grand Prize for fiction for her translation of the short story “Then What Do We Sing” by Park Solmoe. She also won the LTI Korea Translation Award for Aspiring Translators earlier this year.

Olan Munson and Oh Eun-kyung, who won the commendation award for their translation of “Xin chao, Xin chao,” are also enrolled in the second year of the Regular Course.

Charse Yun, who teaches the second year of the Regular Course, won the Grand Prize for poetry for his translation of poems by Ham Min-bok.

The Translation Academy was established in 2008 to nurture emerging translators of Korean literature. It offers three courses: Regular, Special, and Translation Atelier. As of 2016, it has produced 967 graduates, most of whom are active literary translators.

From left are the judges Brother Anthony and Min Eun Kyung; KB Financial Group Senior Managing Director Shin Hong-seob; The Korea Times President-Publisher Lee Chang-sup; fiction Grand Prize winner Sarah Lyo; fiction Commendation Award winners Olan Munson and Oh Eun-kyung; judge Jung Ha-yun.

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BOOKMARK

Sweet Escape by Yun Ko Eun _56 Quest for Identity in In Search of Lost G by Kim Seong-Kon _61

Illustration © Amy Shin

In Search of Lost G by Kim Kyung Hyun _62 Selected Poems by Kim Un _68

BOOKMARK

Sweet Escape

by Yun Ko Eun

After the coffeemaker was delivered, he brewed coffee every morning. The aroma would slowly travel from the kitchen to the den and from there to every other room in the house. He had decided to try Ethiopian Yirgacheffe and Indonesian Mandela first. One day, he would drink Yirgacheffe, another day, Mandela. He wasn’t yet able to distinguish the subtle differences between types of coffee, but he soon wanted to taste beans from other countries.

The coffeemaker was the first purchase he’d made with his severance pay. He had lost his job, which he’d had for seven years. He hadn’t started looking for another one immediately, declaring the next six months work-free. He wanted to rest for a little bit From the short story collection

while his unemployment benefits were coming in. His second purchase was a DSLR.

Table for One

He joined a photography club but didn’t regularly attend meetings. Still, he did learn

Moonji Publications, 2010, 397 pp.

how to use the camera from books and the internet. He bought two memory cards, as well as an external hard drive and a netbook. He also bought plane tickets. Two of them. He wanted to leave immediately after his wife, a teacher, began her summer break. They would be heading off on a two-week trip to Europe.

He prepared for those two weeks for two months. After becoming more or less familiar with the camera, he joined a travel club. He bought a guidebook, learned phrases from the languages of the cities they would visit, and read books and watched movies about those cities. Even without work, he had a regular routine. After his wife left for school he would eat breakfast, brew coffee, and carry a mug over to the computer and sit down. When he turned on the computer, a different world opened up in front of him. Thanks to the travel club, he gathered all kinds of information that didn’t show up in the guides. He would jot this information down in his notebook, type it up on the computer, and print it out. He was surprised to realize at one point that bedbugs were mentioned quite often in his printouts.

“Bedbugs, in the twenty-first century? In Europe?” his wife asked. He’d had the same reaction at first. It had been a long time since bedbugs were a part of his daily life. He hadn’t seen a real one even once. When he was in the military, there had been momentary bedbug scares, but even then he hadn’t actually seen a bedbug or been harmed by one in any way.

“Honey, have you maybe been reading too much? You might keep yourself busy enough just looking up the things we need to know.”

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His wife smiled as she spoke. She was worried about her husband being unemployed, but at the same time she was quite excited about going to Europe. After three years of marriage, it was their first international vacation since their honeymoon. She was tired, but because of that she was even more excited about the trip.

A week passed and the information he’d collected had been condensed to articles and notes about just a few topics.

“You could just smoke instead of doing all this,” his wife said. He’d quit smoking a long time ago, but if it could effectively remove bedbugs, he would have gladly started up again.

One of those topics was bedbugs. Information about bedbugs

“Shall we bring mosquito repellant, too? We could bring

consisted for the most part of personal accounts. He read

the kind with replaceable pads,” his wife suggested. He shook

stories about multiple people. The newlywed couple bitten

his head. Mosquitoes and bedbugs were undeniably different.

on a plane, the traveler bitten on a night train—he also read

You couldn’t put bedbugs in the same category as mosquitoes,

the story of someone who couldn’t tell if it was a bedbug or

lice, or fleas. Bedbugs weren’t just creepy-crawlies. They

a mosquito that had bitten her but was pestered by an itch

belonged to the order of Hemiptera insects.

that wouldn’t go away. There was someone else who, after

“Bedbugs? They’re insects?”

encountering a bedbug at the end of a trip, returned home and

“Well, yeah. There aren’t many blood-sucking insects, but

suffered from scars that persisted for over six months. Most

they’re a special case.”

people saw bedbugs as something unfamiliar, but if you really

Bedbugs were complicated. Little by little, he was learning

thought about it, the chance of encountering bedbugs while

more about them. Unlike most blood-sucking insects,

traveling was very high. Even if you stayed in a clean place, you

bedbugs were not directly parasitic to their hosts. Instead, they

couldn’t be at ease. Sometimes people at five-star hotels were

lived in the vicinity of their hosts and crawled out at night to

bitten, too.

bite them. So if you wanted to get rid of bedbugs, you first

Sleep in a place that gets some sunlight. Look at the corners of the bed and the back of the headboard, the seams of the mattress, underneath the baseboard. Look behind frames or calendars or clocks hanging on the wall. Use antibedbug tools. This was the strategy he’d worked out. He made

had to defend your territory.

“But are those fragrances effective? Are they fragrances that bedbugs like?”

“What do you mean? Bedbugs hate them. We have to cover our bodies with things that bedbugs avoid.”

a file for things related to bedbugs, and as time went on, that

His wife, who had been looking intently at the inside of

file gradually became thicker. A few days later, anti-bedbug

her suitcase, yawned. He was tired, too. He hadn’t stepped

supplies began to arrive at his house, one by one. Lemon,

out all day, but he was overcome with exhaustion just from

eucalyptus, and mint aroma oils and shower products,

packing and looking up travel information. As he started to

cinnamon air freshners, a few sticks of real cinnamon, and

feel sleepy, he realized that he hadn’t brewed any coffee this

even sprays like Tyra-X and Bio Kill.

morning. Recently he’d spent more days like this, without VOL. 38

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coffee. Close to midnight, he brewed some Brazilian Santos.

and sprayed the pillows, bed sheets, blankets and more with a scent of aroma oil that bedbugs hated. He didn’t forget to

One day before the trip, he posted in his club’s online forum.

check the mattress seams, cracks in the wallpaper, and the

Like many of the members, his comments were imbued with

backs of picture frames. Around the midpoint of the vacation,

the excitement and fear of someone leaving the next day for

his wife spoke up.

an unknown world. Despite the fact that he might have to

“The theme of this trip really has been bedbugs!”

face pickpockets, contagious diseases, terrorist threats, and

Her fatigue wasn’t from bedbugs. It was from a husband

bedbugs, he was still excited, he wrote. He also mentioned

who couldn’t break free of them. Once they returned to

that he’d invested 100,000 won toward bedbug prevention.

Korea, she would have to go back to work teaching summer

The aroma oils, salves, and medicines he’d bought really had

school, without much time to rest. He felt sorry that she had

cost almost that much. He didn’t forget to add that this was

to do that.

all thanks to what he’d learned from the other club members.

Thanks to the big fuss he’d made, he didn’t actually

The plane carrying the couple finally left the ground, and

encounter any bedbugs. Of course, like that person had said,

their regular life disappeared beneath a window the size of a

bedbugs were a crapshoot, so he seemed to have gotten lucky

palm. His wife was filled with excitement and ordered glass

too. If not for the article he saw online before boarding his

after glass of wine. He was excited too, but something he’d

return flight, he might have at least felt calm on the plane.

read in the airport lounge that morning weighed on his mind.

But he did see it, an article with pictures and text displaying

There were twelve responses to his post. Most of the members

in no uncertain terms what he so vaguely feared. Korea was

had praised his preparedness, wished him a good trip, or

no longer safe. Since 2006, there had been intermittent cases

warned him to be careful. Just one had been different, and

of people suffering from bedbugs, but now those cases were

that comment alone stayed with him.

becoming more common. A dormitory in September 2006,

“Bedbugs are a crapshoot.”

a North Korean labor camp in November 2006, a sports training facility in December 2006, a hotel room in March

58

With each change in accommodation, he sprayed their two

2007 . . . The most recent outbreak had been recorded just a

soft-shell suitcases with bedbug repellant until they were

few days ago. A woman who’d been living in New York had

dripping wet. He showered with body wash in a scent that

come back to Korea, and shortly after, her whole body had

bedbugs hated, applied lotion in a scent that bedbugs hated,

been bitten by an unknown bug. She’d brought the bug’s

KOREAN LITERATURE NOW

FICTION

When these round, flat vampires drink blood, their whole bodies are dyed crimson and their abdomens distend. They become as plump as this coffee bean.

Bedbugs, coffee, bedbugs, coffee. He spilled the coffee.

The fat, brown beans clattered as they fell to the floor.

body and its larva to the Center for Disease Control and

After the incident, the woman moved. The people who

Prevention, but it wasn’t any ordinary bug. It was an insect,

lived on the same floor as her and her bedbugs emptied out

a blood-sucking insect—a bedbug. What had happened was

too. What if the bedbugs were sniffing out the blood of their

that a few New York super-bedbugs had latched onto her bags

next host? They’d already established themselves by driving

and traveled back with her. The article was speckled with dot-

someone away. Adult bedbugs could live for a year at room

like pictures of the bodies of a few bedbugs, presumably from

temperature, and they could go hungry for sixty days in the

New York.

spring and up to 175 in the winter without dying. He pulled

Once the airplane reached an altitude of a few thousand

out the coffee he’d bought on the trip as he continued to

feet, his heart began to race again. He told his wife that tens

read. The sound of the bag tearing seemed particularly heavy.

of thousands of bedbugs were crossing borders unchecked at

The inside was filled to the brim with shiny, brown coffee

this very moment. She glared at him in response, so he kept

beans. He grabbed a handful of them and thought for the first

his mouth shut after that. Crossing between the stars, stuck

time about how coffee beans resembled bedbugs. Of course,

in the sky like bedbugs, they returned to Korea. A few weeks

a round, flat bedbug would have to drink a lot of blood to

later, his wife returned to school to teach summer classes.

become as plump as these beans. A hungry bedbug is the

After checking that he was still receiving his unemployment

size of a grain of rice. Fully grown at five to eight millimeters

benefits, he returned to his pre-trip life. Thankfully, there

long, with short forewings and rudimentary hind wings, they

weren’t any bedbugs stuck to their suitcases. The floor was

almost have no wings at all.

always clean because he vacuumed every morning, and the

Short bristles stick out from the coffee bean, held between

aroma of coffee wafted pleasantly through the den. If only

thumb and index finger, and it begins to shed its outer layer.

his wife, who didn’t even spend that much time at home,

Bedbug nymphs must shed their skin five times to become

would stop shedding hair all over the house, his life would be

adult bedbugs. The coffee bean sheds five times. The females

peaceful.

lay five eggs, one millimeter in diameter, per day, and they

He opened up the local newspaper. There, he encountered

hatch about ten days later. A week after that, they can drink

them again. Bedbugs. He read that the studio apartment of

blood, and after six to eight more weeks, they are fully

the woman who’d returned from New York was in Sinchon.

grown. When these round, flat vampires drink blood, their

His house was in Sinchon, too. A few days later, he learned

whole bodies are dyed crimson and their abdomens distend.

that her apartment was not far from his own.

They become as plump as this coffee bean. Bedbugs, coffee, VOL. 38

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bedbugs, coffee. He spilled the coffee. The fat, brown beans

even ride on trains and planes. They go to five-star hotels, and

clattered as they fell to the floor. He knelt down and began to

dorms, too. And now, they’d come here.

pick them up.

The twenty-four-inch soft-shell suitcase made an

He grabbed his mug and went to the computer, but the

appearance once again. He took out the travel supplies he’d

amount of coffee in the cup didn’t decrease even a drop. For

placed inside, the bedbug repellants like Tyra-X and Bio Kill

the first time, the scent filling the house seemed rancid. He

and the lemon and eucalyptus aroma oils. As he busily moved

opened the window and poured the cold coffee down the

around in front of the suitcase laid out on the floor, he didn’t

drain. He felt like bedbugs were taking over his mind. He

look much different from when he’d been preparing for travel.

opened up the local newspaper once again. After a short

But this time, there was no trip. This time was real life.

while, he began to search online for other local newspaper

pp. 45-56

articles. The world was being contaminated by bedbugs. A few years earlier, New York had declared war on them, at a time

Translated by Lizzie Buehler

when bedbug numbers were the highest they’d been since World War II. New York wasn’t the only city to declare a war on bedbugs, or at least take note of them. There had been citywide extermination campaigns, and even whole towns shut down by bedbugs. Every continent was crawling with them.

It only takes one week before a newborn bedbug can drink human blood. As the human birth rate decreases more and more, the number of bedbugs is increasing exponentially each year. Their fecundity makes our own low birth rate all the more unsettling. Bedbugs are no longer just in the barracks of war zones or the shabby accommodations of some unfamiliar travel destination. Clothing, socks, beds, sofas—they’ll latch on and take a ride anywhere. Stuck to bits of clothing, they

Yun Ko Eun has written three novels and three short story collections. She has received the Daesan Literary Award, Hankyoreh Literary Award, and Lee Hyo-seok Literary Award. Her novels The Zero G

Syndrome and Travelers of the Night have been published in China.

▶

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Visit koreanliteraturenow.com to read the rest of the story and watch a trailer of this book.

INTRODUCTION

Quest for Identity in

In Search of Lost G

The protagonist of Kim Kyung Hyun’s In Search of Lost

being a junkie and prostitute. Kyung realizes that G and

G is a middle-aged Korean American professor, Kyung

Aryn’s lives are what his own life would have been like if, like

Hoon, also known as “Kyun,” who ultimately rediscovers

them, he had chosen a wrong path.

his own lost identity while searching for his nephew Gee

The reader of In Search of Lost G finds generational

Hoon, aka G, who has gone missing from a private high

conflicts in the novel. Young-mi initially wants Paige to have

school on the East Coast of the United States that Kyun

an abortion but later changes her mind. While studying at

also attended a long time ago.

Syracuse, Young-mi herself had fallen in love with a married

While pursuing his missing nephew, Kyung looks back

American professor. When she became pregnant, she

on his first day at school in the States when he was asked to

decided to have an abortion, give up her career and return

write his name on the board. He was so nervous and timid

to South Korea. Young-mi now realizes that she cannot

that he got only as far as “Kyun” before the bell rang and

let her son make the same mistake. Thomas, too, initially

was unable to add “g” at the end. And so he was known as

wants Paige to have an abortion but gives up the idea later.

Kyun ever after. Suddenly, he realizes that his search for his

Both Young-mi and Thomas come to realize that things

nephew G is closely intertwined with his search for his own

have changed. They now live in an age of transnationalism

lost name and identity.

and hybrid cultures that embrace interracial marriage and

The mesmerizing story unfolds as Kyung, like the

biracial children.

protagonist in Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher,”

In Search of Lost G is a serious novel, and yet it is a page-

receives an urgent message from his cousin Young-mi in

turner, full of hilarious humor, superb parody, and poignant

Seoul, asking for his help to find her missing son, G. Kyung

satire. In it the reader can find not only the American spirit

flies back to his alma mater and learns that G has eloped

of travel and adventure, but also the Korean sentiment of

with Paige, his pregnant girlfriend. Together with Young-mi

family ties and values. It is in this sense that In Search of Lost

and Paige’s grandfather, Thomas, Kyung sets out on a cross-

G reminds the reader of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and

country journey searching for G and Paige.

Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. It also brings to mind

In Korean, “G” (jwi) means “a mouse.” Interestingly, a

the road movie Rain Man, in which the protagonist Charlie

mouse (as in Mickey Mouse) is also a popular symbol of

Babbitt, just like Kyung, finds during his cross-country

America. Perhaps, then, it may not be too far-fetched to

journey what he has lost while pursuing money and success.

say that while looking for G, Kyung seems to search not

In Search of Lost G is indeed a tour-de-force, a splendid

only for his Korean identity but also his American identity.

accomplishment embodying transnationalism. At the end,

The mouse is also a vital device with which we control our

Kyung realizes that like the Blue Bird in Maeterlinck’s play

computers. Searching for lost G, then, is searching for his

of the same name, “G” has been there in plain sight all these

ability to control his life in a new and unfamiliar, if not

years. All he had to do was to find it. And find it he does.

hostile, environment called America.

While searching for G, Kyung encounters Aryn who, Aryung, in order to make it sound more American. Aryn comes to the States but takes the wrong path and ends up

by Kim Seong-Kon ©Seo Heun-Kang

unlike him, voluntarily dropped the “g” from her name,

Prize-winning literary critic Professor Emeritus, Seoul National University

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In Search of Lost G

by Kim Kyung Hyun

In Vice Principal Newsome’s office on the second floor of Stone Hall, Northfield Academy, there are large windows overlooking the campus. Though the office boasts a spectacular view, its windows are always covered with dark brown curtains that block out all natural light. The ambience inside is somewhat reminiscent of Gangnam Cine City’s smallest theatre, Screen 11. However, unlike Screen 11, a tiny 50-seat theatre normally reserved for depressing art films, the vice principal’s office features a spacious study and a huge poster hanging above the couch, which are immediately visible upon entering. The poster is a blown-up image of the cover of Who Ate My Cheese? Underneath the image, G notices a phrase in small print: “This book offers Seoul Selection, 2014, 500 pp.

better divorce solutions than the best family law attorney!” Noting that the author is Spencer Newsome, G mutters to himself, “So Mr. Newsome has published a book like this.” The photograph next to the poster shows Mr. Newsome, who coordinates the weekly chapel service every Wednesday, in the company of Oprah Winfrey. He stands tall next to Oprah and, despite the smile on his face, the two look rather awkward.

Perhaps it’s fair to say the photograph resembles that of the South Korean president posing with the G20 delegation.

In an effort to drive away his apprehension, G lapses into thought. Mr. Newsome must have had his heyday as a divorce consultant before he joined Northfield. Would my parents have stayed together if they’d had a chance to consult with Mr. Newsome?

Nope. The language barrier would have hindered proper communication. Mom speaks good English and Dad doesn’t. Maybe that would’ve aggravated Dad’s inferiority complex and made things a whole lot worse. What does cheese mean to America’s married couples anyway?

“Over here, G.” The voice of a middle-aged white male calls out from somewhere.

Mr. Newsome’s desk is quite far from the study, a penalty kick distance away from a goal post. Behind the desk, the vice principal flicks through a world atlas the size of a 46-inch television as he waits for G to come over and sit. Is he planning a trip to Australia? The pages in front of him show the vast expanse of the Australian continent.

“Sorry I’ve kept you waiting, G. I don’t believe we’ve met before, have we?”

His voice sounds different today. During the weekly chapel service when they sing the school song, “O Jerusalem,” he invariably brings his mouth close to the mic and sings at the top of his voice, so much so that he’s been nicknamed “One-man Choir” by

62

KOREAN LITERATURE NOW

FICTION

the kids. Here inside his office, his voice is far from the usual

me in the middle, wearing sunglasses, and the two on either

choir tone.

side are famous musicians. Recognize them?”

“No, sir.”

In a voice that’s hardly audible, G barely squeezes out an

Simon and Garfunkel maybe? G thinks as he shakes his head in response.

answer from his throat. Last year, they did shake hands at

“That’s Neil Young on the right, and David Crosby

the welcome party for the freshmen, but this is the first time

on the left. They were members of Crosby, Nash, Stills &

they’ve come face to face in private.

Young. I worked as one of the band’s roadies during their

“Please take a seat over here. Would you like anything to drink? Coffee?”

1974 tour.”

So they weren’t some dancing pop stars but must have

“. . .”

been a group of talented idols producing serious music like

“Yes?”

SG Wannabe. The photograph of the vice principal in his

G wants to say, “No, thank you,” but can’t muster the

youth puts G’s mind somewhat at ease, prompting him to

energy to blurt out the sound of an n and an o put together.

ask a question.

The vice principal’s kindness is only making him even more

“How old are you here, sir?”

nervous. He can’t wait to get this meeting over with. Every

Amazingly, the ash at the tip of the long cigarette sticking

moment inside the office feels so tortuous that he doesn’t even have the peace of mind to enjoy a cup of coffee.

Mr. Newsome, in a bow tie and suspenders, waits for G to sit down before taking a cigarette for himself out of a drawer.

out from Mr. Newsome’s mouth manages to remain intact.

“I’d always aspired to become a musician, so I jumped right into the business without finishing high school. I think I must’ve been about seventeen.”

G has never seen any of the other teachers smoke in the

G takes another look at the photograph. Mr. Newsome

presence of a student at Northfield. He thought all buildings

used to dream of becoming a singer. Is that why he sings

were non-smoking but maybe he was wrong. Thankfully Mr.

the school song in such a loud voice? Mr. Newsome at age

Newsome doesn’t offer him a cigarette in place of coffee. Nor

seventeen doesn’t look significantly younger than the other

does he resort to the pathetic excuse that smokers usually

two, though there must be an age gap of at least ten years. Be

come up with: “I quit last year but somehow took it up again.

that as it may, there isn’t much of his younger self left in him

I’ve given up alcohol but this is one vice I can’t let go of.” He

now. G is curious as to where Stills and Nash, the other two

takes a long drag on the cigarette and then flips the ash into

members, were when this photograph was snapped but checks

the waste bin. Soon G’s eyes catch a framed photograph on

himself from asking another question.

the desk. The photograph shows three shirtless hippies with overgrown hair. Who are they? The first, a corpulent hippie,

“I needed to make a phone call first, and it took much longer than I’d expected.”

sports a thin moustache that hangs below his chin. The

Mr. Newsome stubs out the barely half-smoked cigarette

second is in a cowboy hat, and the third, a tall hippie wearing

in the waste bin. Who was he talking to on the phone? G was

red round-framed glasses, has hair the color of autumn leaves

able to relax for a little while but now he can feel tension

that just about touches his shoulders. Is that Mr. Newsome’s

creeping back into his body. Was it Mom?

son? He looks very much like the vice principal. Seemingly gazing at something curious, the three men have a certain air

“I just got off the phone with David George and Sam Elliot’s parents.”

of melancholy about them. At any rate, they don’t appear as

G’s feet begin to shake and click-clack against the floor.

unnatural as the sight of Oprah forcing a smile.

“You can face criminal charges for what you did yesterday.

“That photograph was taken thirty-five years ago. That’s

It’s definitely beyond the school’s authority. I have the report VOL. 38

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BOOKMARK

right here. Let me read it to you.

“At about 6:15 p.m. on Tuesday, near the tray return

close friends. The only class they take together this term is

conveyor connected to the kitchen in West Hall, Gee Sung

American Literature. There are more than ten eyewitnesses to

assaulted two of his fellow eleventh graders, David George and

the incident, including Mr. Hutchins. The statements they’ve

Sam Elliott. They were on their way to return their trays when

given more or less match up. Greta Chow, the head chef at

Gee suddenly attacked them. Gee kneed David George in

West Hall, claims that the two victims did or said absolutely

the abdomen. Open bracket. It says ‘open bracket’ here. Only

nothing to provoke Gee in any way. Other eyewitnesses

narrowly missing the pressure point. Close bracket. David

concur that they noted nothing out of the ordinary prior to

George momentarily complained of difficulty breathing.

the assault. Following the assault, Mr. Hutchins went to great

At around 7:30 p.m., he was taken to the ER at Greenfield

lengths to calm Mr. George and Mr. Elliot, who accused Gee

Hospital. His chest X-ray showed no bone fractures, or any

of behaving like the North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. It

other injuries.

took Gee nearly two hours to compose himself. During the

“As for Sam Elliot, G grabbed his face and pressed it down

self-study session later that evening, Gee’s dorm head Billy

on the conveyor, which could have caused serious injury.

Spears visited his room and probed the reasons as to why he

Luckily, G let go before Sam Elliot got dragged into the

had used violence. However, Gee offered no response.”

dishwasher. However, Sam’s face and shirt became smeared with leftover food and liquids. Sam is a member of the school’s football varsity but the ER physician, Nils Rudd, forbade him from training for one full week. However, Sam should be able to participate in the game against Deerfield this Saturday, provided that he makes a speedy recovery.

64

Elliott, and Gee are all in the same grade, the three are not

After finishing the report, Mr. Newsome looks up and stares at G. “How are you feeling ? How are your knees and shoulders?”

They are still throbbing with pain. Yet, the wounds don’t bother G right now since his liver has pretty much shriveled

“Meanwhile, Gee received bruises on his back and knees

up out of fear, like a burnt piece of paper. In fact, the only

after Mr. Green Hutchins, the math teacher, and a few

parts of his body that hurt are his ears. The pain is so intense

students tried to stop him. Although David George, Sam

that he feels as if his eardrums are about to rupture and he

KOREAN LITERATURE NOW

FICTION

fears he’s losing his hearing. But he doesn’t breathe a word about any of it.

“I’ll start with the good news. I’m not sure how they’d handle your case in Korea but here in the States, this is

getting a suspension.”

Caught between the two words, “expulsion” and “suspension,” G tries to pull himself together. He thought he’d be grounded at most.

considered a serious criminal offense. But I’ve spoken with

“Suspension? For how long?”

David and Sam’s parents and they all turn out to be pretty

“A week. But I understand how important this semester

generous folks. They don’t want to press charges against one

is for eleventh graders preparing for college applications. So

of their children’s classmates.”

I’ll be flexible with the disciplinary period and allow you to

All of a sudden, G finds himself on the verge of bursting

return to classes next Monday.”

into tears, hardly able to take in what Mr. Newsome is

“Where will I stay until then? Where can I possibly go?”

saying. He means to say, “Thank you,” but instead blurts out

“Kids from the local area would actually return home in

something unintelligible like Kafka’s Gregor Samsa—a

a situation like this, but it’d cost a hefty sum for international

sound closer to an animal’s groan than human language. Mr.

students like you to travel back to your home countries only

Newsome hesitates for a moment. But he doesn’t even check

to return in a few days. Given the circumstances, I’ll arrange

what G means by that sound, as if he too suffers from hearing

for you to stay with a teacher who lives just outside the school

impairment.

grounds. When I decide that you’ve learned your lesson, you’ll

“Of course, that’s not the end of it. I have bad news, too.

be allowed back on campus. I’m sure it won’t be the case but

I had a chat this morning with your dorm head Billy Spears

do bear in mind that if I find you unfit to return to school by

and some of your teachers. And when I came into the office

this weekend, then you’ll be expelled right away.”

earlier, I found emails from Kendrick and Willy who claim to

“Who am I going to stay with?”

be your best friends.”

“Luckily, Casey, the farm director, has agreed to take you

“Kendrick?”

in. Only his daughter is back home for a while so there’s no

“He says he’s your best friend . . . don’t you know him?

room for you tonight. I guess you can move in tomorrow.”

Kendrick. Let me just check his surname. Here we go.

“So, during the suspension period I can’t go to classes?”

Kendrick Kuwalski.”

“That’s what suspension means, I’m afraid. You can’t

“Oh, you mean Kube.”

participate in any of the after-school activities, either. As of

“Guess that’s his nickname then. Anyway, the teachers

this moment, you’re banned from talking to other students,

say you’re a sensitive and delicate soul who normally gets

and that includes communication via emails, text messages,

along well with others. I understand that you occasionally got

and phone calls. After dinner tomorrow, Casey will collect

carried away with your pranks before, but you’ve consistently

you from your dormitory and take you to his place. Until

achieved top grades. Given this, I wouldn’t hesitate to call you

then, you’re not allowed to set foot outside your room unless

an asset to Northfield that we can be proud of. Your dorm

you’re going to the bathroom. The student hall and the

head Billy, Ms. Jane Miyoshi, and Coach Irving all believe that

computer lab, not to mention the cafeteria, are all off limits

you’ll get into a prestigious college next year. Taking all this

to you now. Your dorm head, Mr. Spears, will bring you your

into account, I’ve reached a decision.”

meals.”

Mr. Newsome takes out another cigarette. Americans

Through a crack in the curtains, G catches a glimpse of the

really enjoy drawing out the suspense in a dramatic moment

campus. A young girl from Lake Cottage is making her way

like this.

up the hill in a great hurry; she has probably forgotten her

“Expulsion seems a bit too harsh. Instead, you will be

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day now appears gloomy and unfamiliar. The entire place even

when she visited Northfield with G last autumn. The vice

feels rather eerie as if cast under a spell. Suddenly, G longs to

principal picks up the telephone next to his computer and

see skyscrapers made of concrete and asphalt, and hear the

motions G to call home.

noise of heavy traffic. Why is his body temperature plunging

“You talk to her first and put me on the phone.”

so precipitously right now? His body begins to tremble

The phone rings more than ten times.

violently. As if he were riding on a bus to Mujin on an

“The number you’ve dialed is busy. Please leave a message

unpaved gravel road, G’s chin shakes uncontrollably, causing his teeth to chatter like castanets left in the hands of a threeyear-old.

Mr. Newsome shows virtually no interest in G’s physical condition. The next moment, a beeping noise is heard from his computer.

“Oh my, the ruble is dropping quite a bit again. This is not good.”

“What do you mean by the ruble, sir?” asks G, barely holding his chin steady. Having lost the castanets, the threeyear-old starts crying like a newborn baby.

“Well, the Russian stock market has just closed.”

G has never been happier to hear the pre-recorded voice of a Korea Telecom operator.

“She’s not answering the phone.”

“Is that so? Well, I’ll try ringing her myself later. I’ve sent her an email too, so I should expect to hear back from her soon. Are there any close relatives that we must inform? Your guardian in the US is written down as Kyung Kim from California . . .”

“He is my mom’s cousin but I don’t really know him. I’ll just wait until the afternoon and speak to my mom on the phone. I’ll try calling her again, too.”

It suddenly occurs to G that the ruble is the Russian

“Oh, but your suspension goes into effect this very

currency. That’s right. The ruble. They don’t use the euro over

moment. I’ll look after your phone for the time being and

there.

pass it on to Billy later. You can get it back from him after the

“By the way, what’s the time difference between Moscow and Seoul?”

suspension.”

G lets his mind wander and imagines what it’d be like to

“I’m not sure, sir.”

have his father here right now instead of his mom. Does Mr.

G doesn’t even know the time difference between Seoul

Newsome like to play golf? They’d get on like a house on fire if

and Beijing, let alone between Seoul and Moscow.

they played golf together. If I could get Dad to complain that my

“Let me check. It’s 5:30 in the evening in Moscow and

punishment is too severe, would Mr. Newsome accept it without

in Seoul it’s . . . let me see . . . okay, it’s 10:30 p.m. It’s only one

further argument? Although Sam did get covered in food, he

hour behind Sydney.”

suffered no injury. David George slipped on his own and let his

G wonders if he’ll be able to get hold of his mom. She doesn’t normally answer the phone after ten.

66

after the tone.”

own stomach come into contact with my knee. How am I gonna explain all this to Paige?

“Why don’t you give her a call? If she can fly over and

The map of Australia spread across the desk catches G’s

spend some time with you, it’ll do you good. Let me just look

attention. The vast continent shaped like the head of a horse

up your information in the school database. Your father is

lying on its side is mostly colored in yellow. According to

not around, and you mother’s name is Young-mi So. She has

Anton Hwang, a Chinese kid from Hillside Hall, despite

a master’s degree from Syracuse University. Her English must

the seemingly endless stretches of land on the Australian

be very good then, right?”

continent, there are very few habitable regions. The whole area

Mr. Newsome must have clean forgotten that he and G’s

is no different from the deserts in Arizona. G was planning

mother shared a long conversation in English about Syracuse

to run away from school anyway. Now that things have

KOREAN LITERATURE NOW

FICTION

“I did my master’s at Syracuse too. I was a Russian literature major, but I hung around with kids from the English department a lot. I don’t think I met a Korean girl back then. Maybe she came to Syracuse after I left.” “. . .”

G says nothing. How come Mr. Newsome has so utterly and completely forgotten the conversation he had with G’s mom only a year ago?

“I didn’t major in counseling at university, actually.

The title of my dissertation was ‘Russian Literature on the Eve of the Revolution: Anton Chekhov and Fyodor Dostoyevsky.’”

“Yes, sir . . .” turned out this way, does it matter whether he finishes the fall

G has no interest in Russian literature.

semester? What if he just springs into action now? Having

“It seems ridiculous now but I was completely

thought thus far, G finds that nothing frightens him anymore.

obsessed with all those dull, boring characters back then.

“Anything else, sir?” asks G boldly.

Russian literature is like a contest among peculiar and

“That’s it. Billy will be here to escort you to your room.

incomprehensible characters. People say the dissolution of

Let’s wait a bit.”

the Soviet Union caused the sudden drop in the popularity of

At last, G realizes that he’s become a prisoner. He

Russian literature. I have a different theory though. As far as

carefully considers what that means. The body of a prisoner.

I can see, there’s only one reason. Page after page in Russian

Coincidentally, the Korean words for “English” and “prisoner”

literature, you’ll find disagreeable characters who are all

are homophones. How does one write the word for “prisoner”

seeking revenge. Spiteful and unlikeable!”

in Chinese characters? As if to mark the end of his official

Once Mr. Newsome starts talking there’s no stopping him.

duty, Mr. Newsome performs a quick dolphin show, tossing

G hasn’t come all the way here to listen to a lecture on Russian

a cigarette up in the air and then catching it in his mouth.

literature. He wonders what time the dorm head is supposed

“What did your mother study at Syracuse?”

to turn up. As if copying a George Clooney character in a

“English literature, sir.”

Coen brothers comedy, an unfazed Mr. Newsome continues

“Really?”

to spew a stream of quick-fire questions and answers.

The vice principal stops battering the keyboard.

pp. 385-396

“Do you know her thesis topic?”

“I don’t have a clue, sir.”

Translated by Helen Cho

Kim Kyung Hyun is a novelist, scholar, and film producer. He studied at Oberlin College and earned his doctorate from the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California. He serves as a professor in the Department of East Asian Languages & Literature at UC Irvine. His publications include

Virtual Hallyu and Korean Popular Culture Reader . He has also coproduced feature films Never Forever and The Housemaid . ▶

Visit koreanliteraturenow.com to watch a trailer of this book.

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Selected Poems

by Kim Un Let’s Write a Novel Don’t write a novel that’s too long. Nor one too short. End it where it gets boring. It’s not about how many pages it is but how long it feels. Be absorbing enough to be read anywhere, the twist just enough to perplex. Its narrative should betray every question. Its interiority impervious to any answer. Find a protagonist like that. Cast from the streets, audition indoors, stop right at the red carpet at awards ceremonies. If you need more words, make a different film. If you need more awards, don’t film at all. Return to write poetry. Write a novel devoid of poetry. Put in important sentences that can but don’t have to be there. Rally more words or make them lonelier. Periods should shed fat tears all alone. Other punctuation should be contemptuous and drunk enough to sleep with each other. Was it good for you? It was! Scout out a good dating spot for couples tired of that kind of conversation. If not on the bed, then where? Unless it’s in the bathroom, don’t worry about where to lower the pants or lift the skirt or put on the underwear again. It’s the people who make the places. Places stand in for people. Spaces should enter people and eventually dry out. Be understanding of the romantic guy who’s homesick for his driedout homeland, but keep him at a distance. Ensnare with one word the interiority of a man with oft-changing emotions. His hair should be ordinary, like that of people in hospitals or nursing homes or prisons. They don’t need a lot of advice. Give this advice a good stir and refuse it. For a traveling salesperson, create a flaw befitting a traveling salesperson, and then bandage it. If the flaw keeps flowing, bandage the anus. If there’s a severe cough, mix up the coughs and change scenes. To drier weather. Messier is the face of the character who in the conclusion washes his hands, revealing my squeamishness by his completion, and then neglect him more. Work out the novel that comes after the one being written. Go back to your first inspiration and lose your way. Or find it in an alley. Or an icy road where a speeding bicycle is described like a train, or full of longing like a train station, or something obvious like a breakup should all be avoided

68

KOREAN LITERATURE NOW

POETRY

as inspirations. Before that, publish. Make the invitations cards baffling so people won’t know they’re going to a publication party. Start writing the novel in the instant they’re mailed out.

The movie should begin there, and end there, too. Be like the friend’s father who despises and misunderstands bad plotting. Reach out an olive branch to the friend of that friend. Include scenes of natural misunderstanding. Fisticuffs are unnecessary but keep them short. It’s too dramatic, so think about the length. In the next novel.

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70

KOREAN LITERATURE NOW

POETRY

The People in the Mouth I raise the hackles of everything. The tick-tock of moral battles splay out in my mouth.

If someone died, it’s from my tongue mispronouncing. He mistakenly twisted my tongue.

One person’s mispronunciation paralyzed a flooded city. There’s too much rain, a cadaver floats by. I’m here to be part of a riot.

From the poetry collection Let’s Write a Novel , Minumsa Publishing Group, 2009, 196 pp.

Every pronunciation and hate evaporate in the noise. I could close my mouth on behalf of all the people. Snap, and they close their mouths. Or even die. Else I’d be speaking the people who are not of this city.

He returned from inside the rumor. The mouth closes, full of persons and people soon to become events. I’m here to be part of the masses. I may be thinking or listening, being part of an event. Like saliva pooling in the ear.

I plant my flag on many streets. Some houses have already opened their doors. Hereby proclaiming, My land is mine.

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On the Snake We don’t think we will say anything.

We seem to have a universal fantasy. On the tongue. On the road polished by the tongue. On the snake that’s pure shine, too, we must conclude the same. The moment the tongue moves, speech passes. Toward the air we perk up our ears and the music passes. I fell into the air and floundered, but we speak the facial expression of my realizing, after several listens, that it was music.

We lonesomely speak each second. About the tongue.

Speak with a forked tongue of music and screaming. We wake from sleep and pull over our heads the many siblings of the snake that have piled up by our beds. A habit, of throwing on a hat when it gets too scary. Hairs slough off the skin to escape. The snake passes, pushing out a tongue forked in two or three. To take off the hat.

The music passes. I fell into the snake and floundered, but you make the expressions of someone struggling to lift up the hat. We don’t think we will say anything. On snakes.

For a moment, I’ve described the tongue.

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KOREAN LITERATURE NOW

POETRY

True Story We think we walked more than we really did. So we walked more. We think we did more good deeds than we really did. So there was more need for good deeds. In each kind place, there must be more of me living there. There’s plenty of time.

We shared a lot of words, and think we shared more than we really did. I think I stopped breastfeeding earlier and began walking earlier and memorized my multiplication tables earlier than I really did. You think you learned to speak earlier than you really did. This word Mom, how could you have heard this word spoken by your mouth?

They say it was when you were two. You said Mama for the first time when you were two, and when you grew up went on more travels than you really did. You went on more travels than just your class trip, honeymoon, vacations, and weekend trips alone, and so you spent more money.

When the money I’ve spent on the road brings up countless memories, I’m certain there will be more me’s walking the roads that I’ve walked. These more me’s along with more you’s are wearing more shoes as they walk about. We’ve never met but we’ve parted more times than we have.

For publication inquiries, contact us at koreanlitnow@klti.or.kr

In a place of no compromise we achieved more summits and were joyous.

Our endurance was so tenacious we could better realize the sanctity of life in our solitude. In someone’s group photo we pose with more colleagues. I ate more dinner to remember more utterly forgotten facts or actually to excrete a little more and returned home.

Translated by Anton Hur

©LEE BYUNGRYUL

Kim Un has published the poetry collections Breathing Tomb , Giant , Let’s Write a Novel , Everybody Moves , and a self-labeled “one-line diary” titled, Everybody Has a Sentence in Their Heart . He has received the Bongsaeng Literary Award, Midang Literary Award, and Park In-Hwan Literary Award. ▶

Visit koreanliteraturenow.com to read more poems by Kim Un.

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REVIEWS | ENGLISH |

An Explosion of Language

the darkened station and the tension

is trying to keep sight of all these particles

between the couple are perfectly aligned.

in the meantime. This is a dizzying and

The initial pace—at once, tense and

unnerving experience. But then again,

tranquil—allows us to expect a rational

I suspect this is Bae Suah’s intention.

and linear narrative. Before we know it,

There are re curring themes—

however, the story is whisked away from

characters wander through cities that may

under our noses.

be real or may be imagined. Many of the

It is as though we have only begun to

characters live in more than one place at

look into a great big kaleidoscope, and

the same time—again, we are not always

just as the first pieces are about to settle,

certain if the place actually exists or

down comes a lump hammer smashing it

if it is a figment of the imagination,

into smithereens. Nothing for the reader

a stray or even borrowed memory or even

to do then but watch the tiny specks of

an old scrap from a dream. And there are

coloured glass fly off in all directions.

obsessions. Obsessions with death and

All of these stories are so inclined:

dreams and writers.

from the opening “First Snow, First

The mood throughout varies from

Sight” right through to the closing story,

melancholy to downright despair—

Translated by Deborah Smith

“How Can One Day Be Different from

except for the final story, “How Can

Open Letter Books, 2017, 320 pp.

the Rest?” The stories begin. We are lured

One Day Be Different from the Rest?”

.

in and then an explosion of language and

Here, the redoubtable Mrs. Kim,

ideas occurs and the prose is scattershot

perhaps the most convincing of all the

through memory, time, and space.

characters in this collection, brings an

North Station Bae Suah

The story “Mouson” begins with

occasional light to the otherwise dark

For an Irish writer, or indeed reader,

a taxi ride through a city at night that

proceedings. For there is little, if any,

coming from the tradition of the Irish

is almost like watching a film noir in

humor in these stories. And I expected

short story, Bae Suah’s collection North

close-up. The reader can be forgiven for

humor. I expected humor and lean

Station may come as something of a shock.

thinking that this is one story that will

prose and stories that were darkly comic

For nowhere here will we find the

have to stay on the ground, that no more is

and tightly controlled simply because

“scrupulous meanness” Joyce applied so

required than this menacing atmosphere,

these are the qualities I have found in

astutely to his collection Dubliners, nor

the beautifully controlled prose. But we

the South Korean writing I have read

indeed is there any sign of the patient

are no sooner on the journey when it turns

to date. But then again, it is probably

crafting that one can expect to find

into something else.

testament to the rise of South Korean

in a Frank O’Connor story. Oh, Bae

And so it continues, story after story.

Suah’s stories start out in a traditional

Plotlines fall away before they get started,

manner—in the title story, “North

literary allusions too often elbow the

Bae Suah’s stories are like nothing

Station,” we meet a couple waiting to

characters out of the way, and even the

you have read before and one cannot

part at a midnight train station where

digressions begin to digress. But hang on

help but admire Deborah Smith for

they share an awkward half-kiss. The

in there and rest assured, the story will

her adroit handling of what surely must

exquisite writing , the loneliness of

come back to us. Eventually. The problem

have been a most challenging task. Smith

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KOREAN LITERATURE NOW

literature on the world stage that it has now surpassed critical generalization.

REVIEWS

has form, of course—she has translated other works by Bae Suah and has also brought to English the masterful work of the Korean author Han Kang with her translation of The Vegetarian and Human Acts.

It could be said that these stories

| ENGLISH |

A Shape-Shifting Collection of Conundrums and Emotion

home to brood over the unfortunate family. Which member of the family does he write about?”

And so the central conceits of this story and the collection are introduced.

There are individual desires and familial obligations, rules that maintain order

with their strange and compelling

and yet chafe at the hearts of those who

poetic language are more like long prose

follow them—the tragedy that follows

poems. Nevertheless, for all the hide-

giving in to desire, and the tragedy that

and-seek trickery, for all the running

follows when you numbly conform

amok with plot and character and

to the rules. There’s the betrayal of

time, for the occasional irritations and

family versus the betrayal of self. There’s

didactic asides, the pieces or stories

self-determination and fate, and an

or poems—call them what you will—

occasional glimpse of the author’s

in North Station defy categorization.

shadow, compelling each narrator to

The only thing we can be certain about

speak. “In every family,” the narrator of

is that Bae Suah is an extraordinary

“An Obviously Immoral Love,” declares,

writer, fearless and imaginative and consummately gifted.

Nobody Checks the Time When They’re Happy Eun Heekyung

by Christine Dwyer Hickey Author of nine books,

Translated by Amber Kim White Pine Press, 2017, 190 pp.

including The Lives of Women

“the members have their teeth sunk into each other’s backs. If they loosen their bite, everyone will scatter and the family will break apart. But if they bite down too hard, they’ll rip each other apart.

That’s love.”

The narrator has fallen in love with a married man who declares he will leave

Eun Heekyung opens her wonderful

his wife to be with her. On the same

and layered collection of short stories,

night, her mother reveals that her father

Nobody Checks the Time When They’re

has left to be with a younger woman.

Happy, with a tale within a tale that

What follows is a brilliant series of

also poses a riddle. She begins with

reversals as the narrator says to her lover

a summary of a short story about the

“the things my mom wanted to hear,”

calamity that follows when a man

while she tells her mother “the things he

announces to his family that he’s been

[her lover] wanted to hear.” A blurring

having an affair and wants a divorce.

of positions bleeds into a blurring

Everyone is implicated in the ensuing

of identities: when she speaks to her

tragedy, and then the narrative abruptly

mother, she argues on behalf of her

pans out to deliver this puzzle: “The

father for his freedom, his right to live in

story ends with the author returning

accordance with his desires, and against

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submitting to a life of concessions and

nameless woman’s red pocketknife (from

disappointments. When she speaks to

what, into what, we are never told).

her lover, she argues from the point of

Still, despite their unconventional styles,

view of the faithful and jilted spouse.

the stories pack fewer surprises, and for

“How am I different from your wife?”

that reason feel less satisfying and more

she asks. This conflation escalates until

predictable in substance.

later when she wonders, “Does that

In this collection, Eun is at her

mean Mom should let the other woman

most striking when upending the

have Dad? Does that mean I should steal

narratives she has painstakingly set

from my mom’s share of happiness?”

up. Misunderstandings abound, as

| FRENCH |

Words and Gestures

This uneasiness is echoed again

do contradictory understandings of

in the title story, “Nobody Checks

events and of character, both between

the Time When The y ’re Happy,”

different people, and between past and

when another character ruminates,

present selves. The closely entangled

“I wondered whether I’d stolen my

relationships she describes ultimately

mom’s share of luck . . . , as if there’s

underscore a deep and unquenchable

a limit to the amount of luck one family

solitude. What is most satisf ying

is allotted and I’ve maxed out ours.”

about the stories here is the way the

Other themes are repeated throughout

mundane accretes into the profound,

Jacques Batilliot

the collection—the unreliability of

and Eun’s virtuosity lies in her ability

Le Serpent à Plumes, 2017, 192 pp.

narrative, of identity, of morality ;

to orchestrate a series of subtle and

the dang erous, even catastrophic,

dazzling shifts, like turning the knob

nature of love; the way we are made

of a kaleidoscope, so that one pattern

to pay for the sins of others; and the

transforms seamlessly into the next,

“If snow is a silence that descends from

unknowability of the other as a mirror

and from moment to moment we are

the sky, then perhaps rain consists of

for the unknowability of the self. “I was

filled—like her characters—with both

endless phrases that fall from it.” Your

confused,” says a wife to her husband

bewilderment and understanding ,

eyes discover this sentence for the first

in “Bruise.” “There must be more me’s

resignation and yearning.

time; it is so harmoniously composed

inside of me than the woman I know.

Leçons de Grec (Greek Lessons) Han Kang Translated by Jeong Eun-Jin and

that you read it again, out loud this

Sometimes, I don’t even know who

by Catherine Chung

time. Spoken aloud, the words take on

I am.”

Author, Forgotten Country

greater depth, but do not yet surrender

The title story and “The Other

Fiction Editor, Guernica Magazine

their full riches. You must read them

Side of the World” are more offbeat.

again, allowing the language to radiate

“Nobody Checks the Time When

and resonate within you before you

They’re Happy” directly addresses the

grasp their full significance.

narrator’s deceased lover, and the story

Leçons de Grec opens with a

is a mystery that is unpacked backwards

quotation carved on the gravestone of

in time. “The Other Side of the World”

Jorge Luis Borges: “He takes the sword

presents a character who is dug out by a

and lays it naked between them.” The

76

KOREAN LITERATURE NOW

REVIEWS

novel’s central themes are thus established from the outset. This is a world of

The boundary is clear.

realm. The imag es of magma and

These two damaged souls limp

exploding sunspots, and her desire to find

their way through a kaleidoscopic

a single word that can encompass all of

The story centers on two unnamed

world. Memories surface sporadically,

humanity’s languages, imply a quest for

characters: a woman and a man. She

fragments are slowly pieced together,

an original language. While seemingly

is mute, the mother of a child who

and recollection paves the way for the

l e s s a m b i t i o u s , t h e b l i n d m a n’s

has been taken from her care, and has

process of rebuilding.

expectations are still demanding. His

separations, rifts, and wounds.

recently begun taking evening classes.

The man and the woman lead

She wants to learn ancient Greek. He is

parallel lives until they are brought

around forty, single, a teacher of Greek

together by a bird. Having accidentally

and Latin. In a few months, he will be

flown into a building , it causes the

The rain carried on falling

blind, his eyes afflicted with a hereditary

teacher, even more vulnerable than

Something broke within us

degenerative disease. They both have

this tiny feathered creature, to fall over,

In the place where there was no light or

a stoop, their frail shoulders straining

breaking his glasses and injuring himself.

under the weight of the world. The man

The woman appears in a door way,

wants to fade into the background, to

helps him, listens to him. They begin

no longer suffer the oppressive looks

a dialogue consisting not of signs but of

he received in Germany where, for

physical contact: words traced on the

sixteen years, he was the Other: a “weird

palm of the hand.

Asian student” with a talent for dead

The exploration of language, of the

languages. The woman wants to no

unspeakable, and of incommunicability,

longer occupy any space at all, whether

is a theme dear to Han Kang . Its

with her voice or her body; she wants

presence is discernible in all her works

to hold her breath and dissolve away

translated into French (Les Chiens au

in water. “You came so close to not

soleil couchant; Pars, le vent se lève; La

being born,” her aunts told her over

Végétarienne; and Celui qui revient). In

and over—a comment that, through

Leçons de Grec, this reflection is taken

repeated hearing, has come to feel like

even further by a protagonist who

a prohibition: she has no right to exist.

deliberately refuses to express herself.

She seems to be deprived of a hold on

The mute woman’s viewpoint enables us

any event, watching the spectacle of

to perceive the physical forms of words:

life pass her by without emotion. Her

some of them fall from the clouds,

son was her connection to reality. His

others are erased from the blackboard;

absence has removed all desire from her.

some become metal skewers, others

Her refusal to speak another word turns

are foul-smelling or noisy. She may

her outline into a solid, heavy, hermetic

be trying to eject language from her

mass: “Nothing comes out, nothing gets

body, but her intention is not to see it

in.” No communication or exchange is

disappear entirely. Instead, she wants to

to take place with the outside world.

reappropriate it for herself in another

study of ancient languages represents an attempt to achieve “literary ecstasy.”

voice.

We must read Han Kang for what she is: a virtuoso of the written word.

by Aurélie Julia Editorial Coordinator,

Revue des Deux Mondes

VOL. 38

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77

| ITALIAN |

The Magic of Poetry and the Poetry of Magic

Il poeta e il negromante (Poet and Necromancer)

beliefs.

devises a complex plan for bringing him

Central to his book is the figure of

back without again unleashing malicious

the “poet necromancer” who, through

rumors. To everyone’s amazement, the

the magic of his poetic art, accomplishes

child, who has miraculously survived death

extraordinary feats such as bringing the

at sea, knows how to read perfectly and

dead back to life. If this assumption stems

refuses to return home. That the child is

from the accurate account of poetry’s

extraordinary is confirmed by the descent

intrinsic value which significantly

of celestial figures who appear in succession

elevated the poet’s status, and if for his

to teach him their superior knowledge. As

abilities the poet in the Greek and Latin

a result, using his extraordinary abilities,

traditions was believed to bridge two

he solves the mysterious riddle posed by

worlds (consider Homer and Virgil,

the Chinese Emperor to the sovereign of

to name the most obvious examples),

Silla and composes a poem about it. He

then in East Asia the figure of the poet

then reaches China where he confronts

is enriched through a distinctly magical

innumerable dangers with courage,

dimension which renders him a powerful

overcoming them with the guidance of

creator of spells with a positive impact on

the immortals. When he arrives in the

his country.

capital, Choe ironically states: “Fancy

The second part of the book consists

that! I can enter without difficulty

by Maurizio Riotto

of two short novels translated in Italian

through the gates of a small country but

Libreria Editrice Cafoscarina, 2017, 320 pp.

and suitably chosen to illustrate Riotto’s

now my hat smashes into the gates of

subject matter. The first, the seventeenth-

this great power.” He refuses to proceed

century Choe Munheon-jeon (The tale

any farther. It is easy to understand why

Maurizio Riotto’s recent work Il poeta

of Choe Chi-won), was written by an

China is represented as an arrogant enemy

e il negromante translates and analyzes

anonymous author in Chinese. It recounts

which, because of its immense size, claims

texts from the Korean literary tradition,

the story of a well-known character in

the right to swallow up the small kingdom

tackling the fascinating subject of the

the Korean tradition, Choe Chi-won,

of Silla, and also why Choe is a Korean

fantastic tale. The first part of the work

who lived between the ninth and tenth

nationalist hero of sorts.

comprises an excursus on the Korean

centuries. The novel presents historical

The second novel, the nineteenth-

peninsula and its history of external

events within a fantastic frame: Choe’s

century Jeon Uchi-jeon (Story of Jeon

relations with the Chinese Empire as

mother is kidnapped by a golden pig and

Uchi), is translated from Korean. Written

well as with Japan. Riotto demonstrates

taken to a parallel world reminiscent of

by an unknown author, it recounts the

a profound knowledge of Chinese and

“The Peach Blossom Spring” by the great

deeds of a sixteenth-century historical

Korean cultures while also comparing

Chinese poet Tao Qian (365-427). She

figure, a minor official adept at sorcery

them to aspects of the Classical Greek

is soon freed and gives birth to a child

and necromancy. His familiarity with the

and Latin traditions in order not only

everyone suspects is the son of the magical

spirit world leads him into various clashes

to bring Italian readers closer to the

creature. Her husband, a high-ranking

with the established order until he is

text, but also to reflect on the surprising

official, decides to throw the newborn

finally arrested and dies in prison—or at

similarities between particular figures or

into the sea, but then he repents and

least, that is what he has people believe

Translated and introduced

78

KOREAN LITERATURE NOW

REVIEWS

since his corpse is never recovered. The literary text highlights the magical abilities of the protagonist who comes into the possession of some mysterious writings stolen from a fox with nine tails (an evil spirit found in the Chinese tradition). He

| JAPANESE |

The Darkness of School, The Darkness of Society

her younger sister’s death.

The first culprit is Hwayeon. When Cheonji transferred to a new elementary school, Hwayeon approached Cheonji and acted like her friend. But she also spread false rumors and bullied

then masters these spells and uses them for

Cheonji, all the while acting like it was

himself or for those in need.

just a joke. When Cheonji tried to make

Fantastic tales do not serve merely as

other friends, Hwayeon would get in

entertainment: they often deliver a moral

the way. Why? If she hadn’t, the other

message as well. It is no accident that the

kids wouldn’t have paid attention to her.

novel dates back to the 1800s, a period in

Hwayeon, too, was starved for affection.

which Korea was afflicted by uprisings,

Her parents ran a Chinese restaurant.

epidemics, and foreign invasions. As

They were poor. But none of her friends

Riotto notes, “By now it must be obvious

cared when she was scolded or abused.

that only magic could have changed if

She had bad grades, and not even her

not the country’s destiny, then at least

friends respected her. Then Cheonji

that of the individual.”

The book is of indisputable cultural value for both the general and scholarly public, but what is more, Riotto succeeds

優しい嘘 (Sublime Lies)

appeared. Hwayeon clung to her. She

Kim Ryeoryeong

tried to fill the hole left by a lack of

Translated by Kim Nahyun Shoshi Kankanbou Publishing, 2017, 261 pp.

parental love with Cheonji’s feelings.

Feelings she pulled out of Cheonji by

in the arduous task of producing

alternately bullying her and being kind

a particularly fluent and enjoyable

to her.

translation which is also philologically

But it was her classmates who

accurate and accompanied by ample

encouraged Hwayeon’s bullying. They

notes. The volume supplies the original

A girl chose death. Why? She had friends.

laughed when Hwayeon kept changing

texts of both novels, texts indispensable

She still wanted that MP3 player so

the rules of tag to make sure Cheonji

for the specialized reader and extremely

badly. In Sublime Lies, Kim Ryeoryeong

stayed “It”; they were overjoyed when

important for the teaching purposes

closes in on the darkness that haunts

Cheonji showed up late to Hwayeon’s

of the author who is a long -time

adolescence. Manji lives with her mother

birthday (Hwayeon had purposefully

university professor. The book is replete

and younger sister, Cheonji. Their father,

told her the wrong time) and all the

with a rich bibliography, a large number

a sculptor, died in an accident. Now their

food was gone. But they never took

of illustrations, and a useful analytical

mother tries to make ends meet working

responsibility for the psychological

index.

in the tofu corner of a supermarket, but

violence. They were convinced they

she always comes up just short of rent.

didn’t do anything wrong. To them it

by Donatella Guida

Without warning, Cheonji hangs herself

was just like watching a variety show

Professor, Chinese History

with a rope of red thread she braided.

where all the celebrities who show up

Why? Unable to shake this question,

have something horrible happen to

Manji begins searching for the cause of

them. But they were the ones who made

University of Naples “L’Orientale” Editor, Ming Qing yanjiu

VOL. 38

|

WINTER 2017

79

Hwayeon act the way she did.

the library who talked to Cheonji about

So are the children the real culprits?

her problems. But none of them could

You can’t blame them, either. The school

save Cheonji. Her mother ignored the

they were confined in was little better

warning from her teacher. Mira couldn’t

than a storage facility. All the teachers

stop the whole class by herself. A jobless

did was either beat them or ignore them.

man couldn’t actually do anything; he

Cheonji’s homeroom teacher was new,

couldn’t even exterminate a few rats.

| SWEDISH |

The Stubbornness of the Search

but she too was one of those teachers.

After tracking down the cause of her

She didn’t care how her students felt,

sister’s death, Manji corners Hwayeon.

and she never even noticed Hwayeon’s

“You make real convenient excuses,

bullying. So why did the parents even

don’t you? . . . What really happened?

send their kids to school? After the

Did you really treat her so bad she had

Asian Monetary Crisis, business owners

to die?” But Manji won’t let Hwayeon

and employees alike just got poorer and

choose death. No. She tells her to

poorer. “Why is it so hard just to live?”

live and make up for her sins against

Hwayeon’s parents ask. Parents just

Cheonji. As long as there’s a possibility

didn’t have the time or energy to face

we can change, even those of us filled

their children’s feelings. They just gave

with sin should go on living . The

them money, sent them to school and

message of this book comes through

Translated by Choi Sun-Kyoung

then cram school. They tried to lighten

strong. Kim Ryeoryeong lived through

Atlantis, 2017, 201 pp.

their own load as much as they could.

being bullied as a child. She portrays in

Vit fjäril (White Butterfly) Ko Un

People flock to bullies. Schools don’t

detail the workings of children’s minds,

fix anything. Parents are too busy to

and her analysis puts a finger on the

notice. If there had been even one person

ills of society as well. This brave work

In his 1951 autobiography, Speak,

who could have listened to Cheonji,

has a powerful message to offer.

Memory, Vladimir Nabokov declared

maybe things would have been different.

the search for a certain insect his

But Cheonji found herself at the

by Koji Toko

“single passion” since the age of seven.

bottom of a valley of indifference, and

Translator and Professor

“I have hunted butterflies in various

she couldn’t make the climb back out.

Waseda University

climes and disguises: as a pretty boy in

For three years her depression worsened

knickerbockers and sailor cap; as a lanky

and no one knew. In the end, her only

cosmopolitan expatriate in flannel bags

way out was death. So was there no way

and beret; as a fat hatless old man in

to save her? There were traces of hope.

shorts.”

The teacher at her cram school noticed

The quote shows how the constancy

she was being bullied years before and

of his fascination for the wing ed

told her mother that she needed to be

creature contrasts with a life marked by

taken care of. Her classmate Mira tried

movement: from Saint Petersburg to

to stop Hwayeon’s horrible behavior.

Cambridge, via Berlin and New York

And there was the long-haired man at

to his final home by Lake Geneva in

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KOREAN LITERATURE NOW

REVIEWS

Switzerland.

his name is burdened with, and to present

abstract poetry, which makes for the

I a m r e m i n d e d o f Na b o ko v ’s

him as a poet of the world. Perhaps this is

main bulk of this selection, to an

obsession as I set eyes on the jagged

thought to make his work more relatable

audience unfamiliar with Zen concepts.

illustration of a pale Lepidoptera in

to Swedish readers, most of whom have

flight on the cover of Vit fjäril, released

not seen war for centuries.

T h i s d o e s n o t s t o p Vi t f j ä r il from showing the diversity of Ko’s

in Sweden this summer and elegantly

My speculation may be wrong. But

temperament, with topics like belonging,

translated by Choi Sun-Kyoung. For few

in any case, as soon as I reach poems

oppression, grief, and redemption all

bodies of poetic work are more shifting

like “Arirang ,” Ko Un’s remix of the

touched upon with Ko’s gentle hand.

and “unpindownable,” yet stubbornly

familiar hymn, I realize what it is that has

Which brings us back to the title poem:

persistent, as Ko’s.

made his poetry speak to me across the

His eventful life and varied

continents: detailed events that on the

Behold.

production has led his native South

surface seem the furthest away from my

One white butterfly,

Koreans to refer to him in the plural.

own experience. Here is how it starts:

ghost of wisdom, is flying

And as I flip open the first page, I wonder

over the foolish sea.

which of the Ko’s I am about to meet. The

One day in 1937 Korean men of Yonheju

labor rights activist who saw the struggle

were dumped onto a cattle train

as a flight of arrows (“Now, let’s quit the

on a Siberian railroad.2

string, / throwing away like useless rags 1

All the books of this world are shut.3

Here, Ko Un expresses a central

/ all we have had over the years” )? The

This is, perhaps, peculiar scenery

theme in the book, which is also a

Buddhist beatnik who was first born in

even for South Koreans. Ko transports us

paradox of poetry itself: articulating that

1125 as a mare by the Caspian Sea? Or

from the mountain pass on the Korean

which resists articulation. Luckily, there

the nationalist bard whose testimony

peninsula of the original song, to the

are a few bug hunters out there stubborn

sings forth the Korean spirit?

craggy terrain surrounding Lake Baikal,

enough to try.

Advanced Swedish readers will

and to eleven-year-old Ilyich Park, who

have heard of Ko Un, but most are not

plays a Korean folk song on his balalaika.

by Leonidas Aretakis Culture Journalist

familiar with his life and work, let alone the hardships of the Korean people.

Is this song blood or what?

Therefore, the choice not to include

Arirang arirang arariyo.

a foreword surprised me.

Instead, the reader is swiftly led to

Looking for Korean identity in the

a series of poems of an abstract natural

snow-clad Russian periphery not only

setting: with flowers rather than azaleas,

expresses the bohemianism of Ko Un’s

forests rather than birch tree groves, and

nationalism, but also reaches out across

birds instead of, as in a poem further on, “a

the continents to my own life: a migrant,

flock of black-necked cranes.”

both in ethnicity and class, I could

Both choices—the initial lack of specificity, and the omitting of a foreword

be that frozen little boy—only with a bouzouki.

to provide context—suggest a wish to

Such sudden outbursts of specificity

relieve Ko Un of the historical luggage

are a clever way of introducing Ko’s

1. The Sound of My Waves , Trans. Brother Anthony of Taizé and Kim Young-Moo, (New York: Cornell East Asia Series, 1993), 39.

2. T he Three Way Tavern , Trans. Clare You and Richard Silberg, (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2006), 9.

3. F irst Person Sorrowful , Trans. Brother Anthony of Taizé and Lee Sang-Wha, (Northumberland: Bloodaxe Books, 2013), 73.

VOL. 38

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81

2017 LTI KOREA AWARDS Marching on to Translate

by Jung Yewon

and introduced myself as “the translator you emailed yesterday.” So began our acquaintance, and my avid consumption of his works.

Upon finishing the said collection, which he sent me in the mail after our chance meeting, I went on to devour the rest of his works.

In March 2011, I received an email from Jung Young Moon, the

I spent that spring and summer reading them and translating some

author of Vaseline Buddha. He was looking for someone to work

of the stories. That fall, I applied for and won the Korea Times

with him on translating his short story collection, An Afternoon

Modern Korean Literature Translation Award with my translation

of the Faun. Attached in the email was an English translation of

of the story “A Way of Remembrance,” which had a peculiarly

the title story. I read it promptly and was immediately drawn in

mesmerizing quality, and which I enjoyed both reading and

by its strange but fascinating voice and tone. I thought, how is it

translating immensely.

that I’ve never come across any of this author’s works before?

I knew I wanted to go on to translate more of this extraordinary

I looked up the author on a search engine and found that he

author’s works, and foremost among them was Vaseline Buddha.

had quite a number of published works, which seemed to me

It was unlike any other Korean book I had read before, although

a treasure trove waiting to be discovered. I wrote Jung back saying

I had made an effort to expand my reading horizons in Korean

that yes, I would like to translate the collection.

literature since I became a translator. I felt this book merited wider

The next day I was over at my friend’s, and we ended up going to a Chinese restaurant in Yeonnam-dong for dinner. We

recognition and applied for and received a translation grant from LTI Korea.

entered the restaurant and I was about to sit down when I noticed

Fast forward to March 2017, I received an email from

a strangely familiar face across the room. Then it dawned on me

LTI Korea, asking me to choose between two of the books I’d

that it was the face from the search engine. I walked over to Jung

translated, which were published last year, to be evaluated for the

82

KOREAN LITERATURE NOW

The LTI Korea Translation Award is presented to translators who have enriched the quality of Korean literature in translation. Four titles were chosen for the award this year from among ninety-seven books published in eighteen languages in 2016. Here, the award winners share their thoughts.

2017 LTI Korea Translation Award. Although I had tremendous

life; and my dear husband who gave me his

affection for both, I had no hesitation in choosing Vaseline Buddha.

full support and enabled me to finish

Something had told me from the moment I read the book that if

translating this book when I was

I were ever to receive this award, it would be through this book.

unwell. Translating requires strenuous

I am grateful to the author for creating this exceptional piece

physical effort, and ten years of it left

of work; LTI Korea for providing translators the freedom with

me somewhat depleted. On top of

which to choose the works to be translated, as well as support in

that, I was diagnosed with cancer a year

the form of translation grants; Deep Vellum for publishing this

ago, and after surgery and chemotherapy,

book in English; all the dedicated individuals who have worked to

have been taking it easy this year. Coming at such a time

that end; friends who have given me their time and encouragement

as this, the award has renewed in me the desire to go on translating,

through the years; my parents who have always trusted me in

and I am very much honored and grateful.

whatever endeavor or non-endeavor I’ve chosen to pursue in my VOL. 38

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83

The Author’s Shadow, Life as a Literary Translator

by Han Yumi and Hervé Péjaudier

had been looking for a translator to translate the book into French for some time. But for th is work to b e introduced at the Paris Book Fair taking place

In early July an unexpected email arrived from Seoul. It was the

in spring 2016, translation

very welcome and flattering news that we were being awarded

of the over 300-page novel would

the 2017 LTI Korea Translation Award for our translation of

have to be completed within six months, with editing and

Kim Hoon’s Le Chant des Cordes (Song of strings), published

proofreading and all the other stages finished at lightning

in France last year. Looking back, it has already been twenty

speed, too. So we put all of our other projects aside for a while

years since we started working together as co-translators of

and returned to the breath and rhythm of Kim Hoon’s work,

Korean texts into French. In that time, we have had a total of

so reminiscent of the grammar of pansori, and went through

fifteen translations published, mostly plays and pansori. As

all the joys and sorrows of each of his sharp and intricate

for novels, our most recent translation was the pre-modern

sentences. While working on this book we often felt that our

hangeul novel Histoire de Sukhyang Dame Vertueuse (The tale

experience working for years across so many literary genres—

of Sukhyang and Sugyeong), and as for contemporary fiction,

from plays to madangguk, sijo, pansori and the like—really

we have translated Song Sokze’s full-length novel À Qui Mieux

enabled us to convey the simultaneous elegance and brutality

Mieux (Majestic), Kim Hoon’s short story collection En Beauté

of Kim’s work, to bring out the comedy of the dialogue, and

(Cremation), and his novel Le Chant des Cordes. Aside from

to recreate the rhythmic and poetic quality of his prose. We

published works, most of the translation work we do is making

spent the spring and summer of 2015 surrounded by the sound

subtitles for performances. We have translated countless works

of Ureuk’s gayageum, Asura’s battlefield, the lives of ordinary

of Korean performing arts into French, such as plays, mask

people sacrificed without knowing why, and the fate of the

dances, traditional songs, sijo recitals, pansori, and changgeuk,

Gaya Kingdom gradually collapsing. Then by early autumn, we

and they have been introduced to audiences mainly in France

sent off our translation, and without major incident it made it

and Belgium.

to the display shelves of the Paris Book Fair the following year.

Kim Hoon’s works have been so highly regarded that already

We would like to take this opportunity to express our sincere

in 2006 his work Le Chant du Sabre (Song of the sword) was

gratitude to LTI Korea for their support at every stage of the

the first work by a Korean author published by Gallimard and

process of the French translation and publication of Le Chant

exactly ten years later they went on to publish Le Chant des

des Cordes.

Cordes. Around the time of the 2015 Paris Book Fair, we sent

From around the year 2000, the status of Korean literature

a copy of our translation of a collection of short stories by Kim

in France has been steadily rising, and now French publishers,

Hoon to Gallimard publishers with hopes of publication. They

large and small alike, are introducing a sustained offering of

said that while our translation was outstanding and succeeded

various genres of Korean literature, including poetry, drama

in conveying the beautiful prose particular to Kim Hoon, they

and novels, to readers of French. This is the precious outcome

wanted to first publish Kim’s novel Le Chant des Cordes as

of the proactive and lasting activities of LTI Korea to support

part of their “Du monde entier” world literature collection,

translation, publication, and international exchange, and to

and asked if we would translate it for them. With South Korea

nurture new translators with the Translation Academy.

invited as the guest of honor at the 2016 Paris Book Fair, they

84

KOREAN LITERATURE NOW

Finally, although it may be a translation lacking in many

LTI KOREA AWARDS

ways, we sincerely hope that through our frank French translation, where at every moment we chose the best option

now on.

In my case, what made

we could, the beauty of the Korean cadence—or to put it

me take up translation

more precisely the literary greatness of “Kim Hoon-style”

was a simple wish to have

prose—was conveyed well to French readers. A translator

a translation or a book

exists a bit like the author’s shadow. Just like the gosu

with my name on it. The

drummer in pansori, their role is crucial, giving energy to

first translation Aleksandra

the storyteller and accentuating the rhythm, but they cannot

Goudeleva and I worked on

just suddenly go off on a beat of their own. It takes a master

was Gong Ji-Young’s Моя Бонсун,

storyteller to make a master drummer, and we would like to

and on the day when we delivered the thick envelope containing

believe that a master drummer can help nurture an erudite

our translation sample and countless documents to LTI Korea,

audience (gwi-myeongchang ). For us, this translation prize

it was pouring with rain. Having just managed to submit our

has an even greater meaning because it gives us great courage

documents by the translation grant application deadline, we

and hope for our translation work, which we have undertaken

dragged our exhausted bodies off to the nearby gimbap eatery to

with the philosophy of “the most Korean thing is the most

fill up our hungry stomachs (or maybe it was our hungry hearts).

global thing.” In this way Korean literature is slowly but surely

Many years have gone by since that day, and now we have been

permeating into world literature and earning its rightful place.

given the translation award for Kim Young-ha’s Никто не узнает . . . (What took place no one . . .), but if I were to try to list all of the many challenges we faced in the process of translation, even

The Lonely Fight between Readability and Equivalence

by Seung Jooyeoun

the 365 days of a year wouldn’t be enough time. I think that the translator should be like the Invisible Man, hiding himself and conveying the voice of the writer to the reader with as little distortion as possible. This means that we are not creating Seung Jooyeoun and Goudeleva’s translation of Kim Young-ha, but rather trying to translate so that only Kim Young-ha is visible, intact. However, while maintaining all the expressions particular to the writer, it is crucial not to overlook the readability of the

Last year, our translation of Gong Ji-Young’s Моя Бонсун (My

work.

Sister Bongsoon) made the shortlist for this award, but was not

Winning the translation award doesn’t really change

chosen as a winner. To be honest, when it was selected for the

anything. I will keep thinking over the same things as I always

honor of being labeled “an outstanding translation,” I gave up

have, and I have no intention of hurriedly replacing the desk

any hope of winning. With countless translators far better than

I have always used. Tomorrow, and all the days after, I will sit

us across all the different languages, it looked very unlikely that

in front of my old desk and laptop in the morning with a mug

we would ever receive such an award, having not majored in

of black coffee, munching on a bagel and going over the same

translation at university or even translated that many books.

deliberations. Aleksandra Goudeleva and I will carry on,

So perhaps that was why, when I heard one day in July from

bringing Korean literature to Russian readers just as we always

LTI Korea that we had been selected, the news felt completely

have. Finally, I would like to thank Aleksandra Goudeleva, my

surreal. I was overjoyed, of course, but I also felt a huge weight of

dear friend of over twenty years, and everyone at LTI Korea, in

responsibility fall on my shoulders, knowing that the modifier of

particular President Kim Seong-Kon.

“translation award winner” would be following our work from

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85

All We Do is Assist Russian Readers’ Understanding of and Love for Korea

by Aleksandra Goudeleva

I also found myself really sad, or else extremely angry, and a few times I had to ask myself, ‘Did I really just read that?’ as I tried to understand the situation going on within the story. Honestly, I experienced such

I am so happy to have received this, the first literary prize of my

a broad spectrum of emotions while

life, following the awarding of such high marks by the judges to

reading these works.”

Seung Jooyeoun and me.

Russian readers were strongly drawn to the freedom felt in the

We have been co-translating for a long time now, and

description of human emotions and hopes, the absence of personal

I think the art of co-translation is very important. This is because,

complexes and hypocrisy, and the appropriate harmony between

through co-translation, both parties can achieve a much greater

reality and fiction in the text. Russian readers are now waiting

understanding of things like the personalities of the characters,

for more translations from this talented writer. Of course, as

the prose style of the writer, the peculiarities of the language

translators, we will do our best to ensure that his works receive the

used by different characters, as well as slang and idiom. This is

kind of reception in Russia that they deserve.

extremely important to precisely convey the intention of the author to the reader.

The collection of short stories for which we have been

respected our manuscripts and having made them into such

Korean Literature, a Medium for Getting Closer to Korea

beautiful books, creating covers that display the artistic nature of

by S. Göksel Türközü

awarded the 2017 LTI Korea Translation Award was our fourth co-translation. We now have five translations included in the “Contemporary Korean Fiction” series published by Natalis.

We would like to express our gratitude to Natalis for having so

the works and which appeal to readers.

Kim Young-ha, the author of Никто не узнает . . . (What

I am deeply grateful to be selected as a recipient of the 2017 LTI

took place no one . . .), is not only famous in South Korea but is

Korea Translation Award. My happiness is made even greater by

renowned worldwide, and his work has been translated into many

the fact that I have been awarded such a precious honor in this

different languages. Now, finally, Russian readers are able to read

meaningful year which marks the sixtieth anniversary of diplomatic

his work, too. Although this collection of short stories did not

relations between South Korea and Turkey.

receive such a roaring reception within South Korean literary

I came to South Korea in 1996 to study teaching Korean

circles, the response of Russian readers to this book has been

as a foreign language. I realized then that in order to bolster my

incredible. Within its pages, there are a whole range of works, from

knowledge of the Korean language, the most important thing a

the comic to the everyday, the realistic to the highly mysterious.

student of Korean language could do was to read a wide range

With regard to this, one reader posted the following review online:

of excellent Korean literary works (although mass media like

“After reading this collection of short stories I was taken up by the

television could also help).

most complex mix of emotions. While reading, I often found

Literature has the characteristic of being steeped within its

myself smiling about familiar situations I could easily come across

own culture. At the same time, literature is a way of experiencing

in everyday life; at other times not only did I laugh out loud, but

our universal existence, shared by all humanity. The universal

86

KOREAN LITERATURE NOW

experience of literature connects different peoples from other countries, and can convey to readers a similar experience of life. This means that the various elements at play in the acceptance

2017 LTI Korea

Translation Award W I N N E R S

Vaseline Buddha

of Korean literature can be overcome through the universalities that exist

ENGLISH

between the Korean and Turkish people. I think that if you wish

Jung Young Moon

to go beyond the bounds of a single nation and really find out

Translated by Jung Yewon

about a people, it is hugely effective to delve into their outstanding

Deep Vellum Publishing,

literary works. Therefore, the more of an interest readers take in

2016, 226 pp.

Korean literature, the closer they can get to its depth and history and sentiment.

In terms of emotional sentiment, Turkish people and Korean

Le Chant des Cordes (Song of strings)

people have much in common. Turkish readers are highly receptive to Korean literature and can understand it deeply. As of yet,

FRENCH

however, few works of Korean literature have been translated into

Kim Hoon

Turkish. If you compare this with the number of Turkish literary

Translated by

works translated into Korean, it is a very unfortunate situation that leaves much to be desired. Still, as the level of interest in Korean

Han Yumi and Hervé Péjaudier Gallimard, 2016, 304 pp.

literature on the part of Turkish readers and publishers grows day by day, I firmly believe that going forward, many more works will

Никто не узнает . . .

be translated. These days it is possible to find Korean works of

(What took place no one . . .)

literature translated into Turkish in bookstores in Turkey without much difficulty, and it seems that the readership for such books

RUSSIAN

is expanding, which makes me feel like all of my work has been

Kim Young-ha

worthwhile.

Translated by

Ahn Do-hyun’s Gümüş Somon’un Büyük Yolculuğu (The Salmon Who Dared to Leap Higher) has also been of great interest to Turkish readers. When it was selected as the target text for the

Seung Jooyeoun and Aleksandra Goudeleva Natalis, 2016, 253 pp.

2016 Korean Literature Essay Contest, administered by Erciyes

Gümüş Somon’un Büyük Yolculuğu

University with support from LTI Korea, there was so much

(The Salmon Who Dared to Leap Higher)

enthusiasm on the part of the participants that some of them even contacted the author directly.

TURKISH

As yet, the number of Turkish researchers or translators of

Ahn Do-hyun

Korean literature is incredibly small, but we will not stop in our

Translated by

continual efforts.

I’d like to express again my sincere gratitude for being given

S. Göksel Türközü Doğan ve Egmont Yayıncılık, 2016, 208 pp.

this award despite my shortcomings.

VOL. 38

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87

Translators Kalau Almony is a translator and researcher of Japanese literature. His translations include the works of Nao-cola Yamazaki and Fuminori Nakamura. He is pursuing a master’s in Japanese literature at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. pp. 79-80 Sophie Bowman is completing an MA in Korean literature at Ewha Womans University and was the recipient of the ICF Literature Translation Fellowship. She won the Korea Times Translation Award Grand Prize for Poetry in 2015 and has received LTI Korea translation grants to translate Lee Ho-cheol and Jon Kyongnin. pp. 18-22, 33-35, 84-87 Lizzie Buehler is a freelance Korean translator and editor at Asymptote based in New York City. She grew up in Texas and studied comparative literature at Princeton University.

Her translations are published or forthcoming in Ploughshares , The Massachusetts Review , and Litro . pp. 6-10, 56-60 Helen Cho is a freelance translator/interpreter and radio broadcaster based in Seoul. She received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in English Literature from University College London, UK. A recipient of an LTI Korea translation grant, she won the 2015 Korea Times Translation Commendation Award in Fiction. pp. 62-67 Young-Shil Cho is the translator of One Day, Then Another by Kim Kwang-Kyu, A Warm Family by Kim Hu-Ran, A Lion at Three in the Morning by Nam Jin Woo as well as several titles of Korean folk tales and children's picture books. Her forthcoming publications are Chong Hyon-jong’s Whisper of Splendor and Shin Dalja’s Paper . p. 49 Heinz Insu Fenkl is associate professor of English and Asian studies at SUNY New Paltz.

He is the author of the novel Memories of My Ghost Brother and the translator of Cho Ohhyun's For Nirvana: 108 Zen Sijo Poems and Yi Mun-yol’s Meeting with My Brother . His most recent fiction was published in the New Yorker . pp. 40, 44-46 John Holstein taught at the English Department at Sungkyunkwan University from 1982 to 2009. His publications include A Moment's Grace (translations of modern Korean short stories) and A Yang for Every Yin (stage plays based on Korean classical stories). pp. 37-39

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KOREAN LITERATURE NOW

Janet Hong’s fiction and translations have appeared in Brick: A Literary Journal , Lit Hub , Words Without Borders , Asia Literary Review , and others. She received a PEN American Center’s PEN/Heim Translation Fund for her translation of Han Yujoo’s The Impossible Fairy Tale . Her translation of Ancco’s graphic novel Bad Friends is forthcoming from Drawn & Quarterly in 2018. pp. 23-27 Anton Hur is the winner of a PEN Translates award, a Daesan Foundation grant, and multiple LTI Korea grants. His translations include Shin Kyung-sook's The Court Dancer and Kang Kyeong-ae's The Underground Village , as well as stories in Words Without Borders and Asymptote Journal . He teaches at Ewha University's Graduate School of Translation and Interpretation. pp. 68-73 Agnel Joseph won the 2017 GKL Translation Award, the 2013 LTI Korea Award for Aspiring Translators, and the 2013 Korea Times Translation Award. He was selected for the 2016 Emerging Translator Mentoring Program administered by the Writers’ Centre Norwich.

His translations include Double by Park Mingyu. He can be reached at angelmisspelled@ gmail.com. pp. 52-53 Grace Jung is a writer and filmmaker from New York. She is author of Deli Ideology and producer of A-Town Boyz . She is a PhD candidate in Cinema and Media Studies at UCLA. She is a former Fulbright scholar. pp. 50-51 Yewon Jung is a freelance interpreter and translator. Her translations include Vaseline Buddha (Deep Vellum, 2016), One Hundred Shadows (Tilted Axis, 2016), Mannequin (Dalkey Archive, 2016) and No One Writes Back (Dalkey Archive, 2013). pp. 11-15 Won-Chung Kim, professor of English literature at Sungkyunkwan University, has translated twelve books of Korean poems into English, including Kim Chiha's Heart's Agony . He has also translated John Muir's My First Summer in the Sierra and H. D. Thoreau's Natural History Essays into Korean. He published his first book of poetry, I Thought It Was a Door , in 2014. p. 43

Jesse Kirkwood studied modern languages at Oxford before spending a year in Japan on a Tsuzuki Scholarship. He works full time as a literary and commercial translator, and is a member of the Unitrad network of independent translators. pp. 76-77 Christopher Merrill is the director of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. He has published six collections of poetry, including Watch Fire , for which he received the Lavan Younger Poets Award from the Academy of American Poets; many edited volumes and translations; and six books of nonfiction. His honors include a Chevalier from the French government in the Order of Arts and Letters. p. 43 Stiliana Milkova is assistant professor of comparative literature at Oberlin College.

She writes about literature and the visual arts with a focus on Russian and Italian literatures.

Her translations from Italian include works

by Antonio Tabucchi, Dario Voltolini, Andrea Raos, and Anita Raja. Stiliana holds a PhD in comparative literature from the University of California, Berkeley and an AB from Brown University. pp. 78-79 Kyung-Nyun Kim Richards is a poet, essayist, and translator. Her poems and essays have been published widely in Paterson Literary Review , The Seventh Quarry , Bridging the Waters among others. Her co-translations include Sky, Wind , and Stars by Yun Dong-ju, I Want to Hijack an Airplane by Kim Seunghee, and The Love of Dunhuang by Yun Hu-myong. She has published the poetry collections Snail Draws Thin Lines and Vision Test . p. 47 Steffen Francis Richards is a poet, essayist, and translator. His co-translations include Sky, Wind , and Stars ; I Want to Hijack an Airplane ; and The Love of Dunhuang . His poems were published in Light, Dark Wind , Moon and The Seventh Quarry ; essays in The New Oxford Review ; and translations in Literature East & West and Journal of Concerned Asian Scholars . p. 47 Jooyeoun Seung is the Russian translator of What Took Place No One . . . by Kim Youngha, The River of Fire by Oh Junghee, Modern Family by Cheon Myeong-kwan, The Mouth Waters by Kim Ae-ran, My Sister Bongsoon by Gong Ji-Young, and My Sweet Seoul by Jeong Yi Hyun. p. 86

Copyright © 2017 by the Literature Translation Institute of Korea

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