Spend an evening with Yun Ko-eun celebrating the release of her novel Art on Fire. Yun Ko-eun was born in Seoul in 1980. In 2004, the year she graduated from university, her short story ‘Piercing’ won the Daesan Literary Award for College Students. In 2008, she received the Hankyorek Literature Award for her novel The Zero G Syndrome. In 2010 she published a collection of short stories entitled Table For One, and in 2011 her short story ‘The Sea Horse Flies’ won the Yi Hyo-seok Literary Award. Her novel The Disaster Tourist was published by Serpent’s Tail in 2020.
About the book
A darkly humorous and compelling satire of the art.
An Yiji’s career had been stalling for some time when a representative of the illustrious Robert Foundation offers her a spot on their all-expenses-paid artist residency in California. The residency has launched many famous artists’ careers, so she knows she can’t waste this opportunity. Still, she feels reluctant to accept, and with good reason: the foundation’s patron is a small dog named Robert, known for both his talent as a photographer, but also his arrogance. Moreover, the offer comes with a condition: on the last day of the residency, one of An’s paintings must be incinerated, and Robert gets to select which one.
When An reaches California, she finds the state ablaze with wildfires, but at the Foundation all is calm. She navigates awkward dinners with Robert, tries to find inspiration while being bombarded with sponsors who all want their business to be the subject of her art, and despairs at the prospect of her work being set on fire. Was coming to California a huge mistake?
(Photo of Yun Ko-eun by Diya Mitra)