Our lives are twofold in that they can be both lonely and not lonely. The whole world is twofold and it consists of men and women. When a man meets a woman, and together they create a oneness, it is called love. The infinite twofoldness of love, however, frustrates lovers who want to become and … [Read More]
Archives: Books (page 138)
Land of Tears
Land of Tears is an anthology of short stories about the Korean experience of poverty and mental and physical anguish. Most of the stories have to do directly or indirectly with the Korean War. The stories depict the lives of a wide range of characters, such as a North Korean People’s Army soldier, a South … [Read More]
The General’s Beard: Two Novellas
Two stories by a leading Korean thinker explore the ambiguities of a rapidly changing culture. In The General’s Beard, a journalist tries to solve the mystery of a young photographer’s death. He explores hints from the dead man’s journal and interviews his former girlfriend but remains far from an explanation. In Phantom Legs, a young … [Read More]
My Very Last Possession and Other Stories
An anthology of ten short stories by one of Korea’s foremost living writers. Pak Wanso is the author of five novels, including The Naked Tree, and of several best-selling volumes of short prose. Her works have sold millions of copies in Korea, where the public and critics alike have applauded Pak as a masterful realist. … [Read More]
The Golden Phoenix
A collection of seven short stories providing a picture of Korean family life in the 1940s to the 1990s. Their themes include family and community ties, respect for tradition, survival in the face of repeated national disasters, and wrenching social upheaval. The collection contains the following stories: Ch’oe Yun: The Flower with Thirteen Fragrances Kim … [Read More]
The Naked Tree
A coming-of-age novel set during the Korean War, by Park Wan-Suh, one of Korea’s leading contemporary writers. The award-winning author of more than twenty novels, and numerous short stories and essays, Park often deals with the themes of Korean War tragedies, middle-class values, and women’s issues. The novel is rich with scenes of cultural clashes, … [Read More]
Playing with Fire
In this work, the smoldering hatred of the Korean War period resurfaces decades later in the form of a ruthless quest for justice. The main character, a successful Seoul businessman, has a secret past: unknown to his wife and son, he once led another life under another name as a ruthless communist partisan. After a … [Read More]
The Cry of the Harp: Selected Works of Choe Chung-Hui
The works of Choe Chung-hui gathered in this book cover a period of 40 years of momentous change in Korea. Ms. Choe was born in 1906 as Korea was evolving from a nation governed and ruled by Confucian precepts to a nation that had recently opened its door to the influence of the West. Traditional … [Read More]
Southerners, Northerners
Shortly after the outbreak of the Korean War, when he was eighteen, Lee Ho-Chul was drafted into the North Korean army. Southerners, Northerners (Namny k saram pungny k saram) is a fictionalized account of his inglorious yet dramatic experiences as a raw recruit and, soon afterward, as a prisoner of war. Beginning with some fascinating … [Read More]
Contradictions
Yang Gui-ja is one of Korea’s major literary figures of the last generation, with a succession of literary prizes and best-sellers to her credit. Her most representative early work, the 1987 Wonmi-dong saramdeul, is available in English as A Distant and Beautiful Place. In the 1990s her writing took an increasingly personal turn with a … [Read More]
Diary of a Vagabond
From the publisher’s website: Song Yong is not one of the more celebrated writers in Korea but more of an outsider looking in on the mainstream writing establishment in Korea. His work has never seen commercial success, nor it is well-known in Korea, although he is respected among prominent literary critics. The lack of interest … [Read More]
The Drizzle and Other Korean Short Stories
Hwang Sun-won’s stories depict various emotional experiences of brief moments of human life in an outstandingly elegant style. The elegance, however, is not the characterizing quality of his style alone. We find it in his description of scenes and momentary feelings of characters as well as in his presentation of themes that range from the … [Read More]
Panmunjom and Other Stories
Here for the first time in English is a selection of short stories representing over forty years of the creative output of one of South Korea’s most prominent contemporary writers. Born in what is now North Korea, Lee Ho-Chul makes use of an astonishing variety of literary styles to offer a panoramic view of the … [Read More]
Strength from Sorrow
Translated from the Korean by Youngju Ryu. Yang Guija’s STRENGTH FROM SORROW is a collection of five stories, “Mountain Flowers,” “The Road to Cheonma Tomb,” “An Opportunist,” “The Hidden Flower,” and “Strength from Sorrow.” The title story features a group of teachers who struggle to uphold their conscience as educators in an era of authoritarian … [Read More]
Mannequin
Ch’oe Yun’s Mannequin is a novel that reflects on the meaning of beauty and its many facets of existence. The beauty of the main character, Jini, is captured through a carefree imagination that describes it as the music of the wind, or something that can t be described in words. Through the beauty that penetrates … [Read More]
My Son’s Girlfriend
At once an ironic portrayal of contemporary Korea and an intimate exploration of heartache, alienation, and nostalgia, this collection of seven short stories has earned the author widespread critical acclaim. [Read More]