The Land of the Banished is a heart-rending tale of a man torn and warped by the hardships of the Korean War period. Born into a landless peasant family, Mahn-seok becomes embroiled in the class struggle that descends upon his village with the onset of the war. From his rise through the ranks of the … [Read More]
Archives: Books (page 125)
Three Days in That Autumn
Three Days in That Autumn is a novella that delves into the grim irony of women’s life-giving capacity. A gynecologist facing retirement must reckon with the legacy of her traumatic past. Herself a victim of a rape during the Korean War who had to undergo an abortion, the doctor devotes her career to freeing women … [Read More]
A Man
No synopsis available. Contains the stories: A Man Bibari The Dog of Crossover Village / Dogs in the Village beyond Hills [Read More]
Divorce
A poet reflects on the lives of the different generations of women around her as she contemplates her own divorce from a socially-engaged photographer; her feelings are complicated by the ethics of public/private, art/life divisions, as well as the country’s contemporary history. The story reveals the raw complexity of gender dynamics in a society still … [Read More]
Demons
Set in a small rural village, seemingly everyday events take on a macabre meaning. We follow Kim Miyoung, a relatively new villager and the local primary school teacher, as she is slowly overcome by anxiety, with her daughter at the vulnerable young age of three, a difficult group of schoolboys under her wing and her … [Read More]
Old Wrestler
A retired wrestler struggles with amnesia and anxiety after he is invited to return to his home town for an event. Back in once-familiar surroundings, he wrestles to make sense of things as he is confronted by faces, scenes and smells recalled from a celebrated past. [Read More]
Five Preludes and a Fugue
A young woman delves into the circumstances of her mother’s death ahead of her own marriage, interrogating a woman who witnessed her mother’s death and would later come to play a crucial role in her life. An exploration of the human (in)capacity for (self-)deception and knowledge, the story offers a nuanced portrait of contemporary (Korean) … [Read More]
Left’s Right, Right’s Left
The story takes place on a stairwell, all in about a minute’s time, while the narrator’s partner seizes her by the hair. The narrator had gotten caught, after running out of the apartment to try to escape assault. While she tries desperately to avoid falling down the stairs, she has a series of flashbacks about … [Read More]
How to Break Up Like a Winner (K-Fiction 024)
Verbatim from Amazon.com: Emotions of Love b Farewell farewell, story of people who can not break apart b February 2019, K-fiction is the twenty-fourth piece, Baek Young-oks ” Baek Young-ok is a novelist, “Cat Shanti,” who won the Literary Neighborhood New Artist Award and started his work. In 2008, he won the 4th World Literature … [Read More]
Run Away (K-Fiction 023)
Good luck in tracking this book down The only English language site that seems to list it at present is Goodreads. But a little more googling highlights a Korean store that sells it: You would have thought, with all the buzz about Kim Ji-young Born 1982, that Asia Publishers would try a bit harder to … [Read More]
Seo-u / Thou (K-Fiction 022)
Synopsis pasted verbatim from Amazon.com <blockquoteclass=”quote”> Thou b The epicenter of ghost stories that began with “rumors of rumors of rumors” – In July 2018, “K-Fiction” Ganghwa road was elected as a “room” in the New Years edition of the Kyunghyang Newspaper in 2012 and started to work. He has been awarded the 8th Young … [Read More]
April Snow (K-Fiction 021)
Synopsis pasted, in all its glorious Konglish, from Amazon.com: Snow of April b The story of people who feel the pain of others through their suffering b In April 2018, K-Fiction is the twenty-first piece, Son Won Pyung studied philosophy in sociology at the university and studied film directing at the Korean Film Academy. He … [Read More]
An Unknown Realm (K-Fiction 020)
Synopsis from the Kyobo book store website, run through the Papago translator: Kwon Yeo-sun’s novel “The Unknown Area.” The main character Myung-deok hits the ball at dawn and exits the club alone and calls Dayoung. Dayoung was in Yeoju because of the ceramic biennale. The crescent-shaped daytime moon floats in the sky, and Myeongdeok, who … [Read More]
The Story of P.C. (K-Fiction 019)
After a writer who has maintained a steady sales index by continuously releasing new books becomes embroiled in a controversy over the content of a new work that reveals his interest in society, the book traces the publishers and writers who deal with the controversy. Mr. P, a novelist, has been publishing novels for six … [Read More]
Halloween (K-Fiction 018)
In February 2017, a new short story by Jeong Han-ah, an artist who has been depicting life with a warm and delicate gaze, was published as the seventeenth edition of the K-Fiction series. “Halloween” follows a mysterious woman who is an astrologer and tarot card master who listens to the voices of the living and … [Read More]
Everything About Chess (K-Fiction 017)
Novelist Kim Geum-hee, who has won the hearts of literary readers with her static yet resonant style, has published Everything About Chess as the sixteenth K-fiction series. “All About Chess” depicts the relationship between “me,” Noah, and Chrysanthemum, who spent their college days together, as they struggle with the misfortunes of life and their own … [Read More]