The year is 1894, Korea’s Tonghak Uprising whose members are primarily poor farmers. In two farming villages, rumors circulate that the Tonghak army is approaching to punish the two local exploitative families. Counselor Kim is distraught over the report that Chang-soe, who left the village several years ago in the wake of a severe flogging … [Read More]
Booklist: Literature Fiction and Poetry (page 57)
Reflections on a Mask: Two Novellas
Reflections on a Mask explores the disillusionment and search for identity of a young man in the post-Korean War era. A war veteran and writer, Min finds his life unfulfilled until he stumbles upon a mysterious organization that offers a procedure to aid in his search for his true nature. In the resultant hypnotic journey … [Read More]
Father and Son
Father and Son focuses on the age-old struggle between the generations within the context of modern industrialization and the battle for democratic freedoms in Korea. In this novel, Chu-ch’ol, a successful poet-publisher, is tormented by his son’s antigovernment activities and lack of filial respect, by the cynical questioning of a cousin-turned-government agent, and, not least, … [Read More]
Meditative Poems by Korean Monks
From the publisher’s website: Introduced and Translated by Jaihiun Kim This work is a chronological anthology of Zen poetry spanning the 6th through the 20th centuries. In his introduction the translator distinguishes Zen from other forms of Buddhism, and places it in its historical context. These intuitive poems chronicle the spiritual search as well as … [Read More]
Priest
In the frontier of the American West, a veil of evil threatens to engulf humanity. Servants of the fallen angel Temozarela are paving the way for their dark lord’s resurrection. One man stands in the way of the Apocalypse — Ivan Isaacs — a fallen priest who sold his soul to the devil Belial for … [Read More]
Deep Blue Night
Better known as a novelist, Choe In-ho has also written strikingly original shorter fictions, of which the stories reprinted here are good examples. “Deep Blue Night” is an autobiographical story that is both contemporary in being structured about a highway journey and yet traditional in its themes of exile, wandering, and retrospection. Of interest to … [Read More]
Between Heaven and Earth
“Between Heaven and Earth”, the winner of the Yi Sang Literature Prize in 1996, is about a man, who, on his way to pay a visit of condolence, comes across a woman whose face is covered with the cold shadow of death. His memory of his own life having been saved by the sacrifice of … [Read More]
Shrapnel and Other Stories: Selected Stories of Dong-ha Lee
Exquisitely translated by Hyun-jae Yee Sallee, these stories by one of Korea’s most revered storytellers reflect poignantly on the lives of ordinary people in the midst of the economic miracle that has been taking place in Korea since the end of the Korean War. Having seen their homeland split in two, they cannot cope with … [Read More]
A Sketch of the Fading Sun
A vast number of Korean literary works have been written dealing with man-woman relationships. Notwithstanding, there has rarely been much written that has grasped, much less challenged, the relationship between man and woman as being one of oppression. As Wan-suh Park notes, it would be safe to say that most writing considered as literature beautifies … [Read More]
Brother Enemy: Poems of the Korean War
From the publisher’s website: Twenty-one poets, male and female, North Korean and South Korean, well-known and long forgotten, appear in this collection, the first of its kind in English. The poems reflect the reality of living in a country torn in half by political ideologies. An introduction by translator Ji-moon Suh places the poems and … [Read More]
Three Poets of Modern Korea: Yi Sang, Hahm Dong-seon, and Choi Young-mi
From the publisher’s website: A superb introduction to the undiscovered treasures of contemporary Korean poetry. American poet James Kimbrell and translator/native speaker Yu Jung-yul have gathered leading representatives of three generations of Korean poets, from the Dada and surrealist influenced work of Yi Sang, to the colloquial, affirming poems of Hahm Dong-seon, and the brilliant … [Read More]
The Book of Korean Shijo
From the publisher’s website: The Korean genre known as shijo is short song lyrics. Originally meant to be sung rather than recited, these short poems are light, personal, and very often conversational. The language is simple, direct, and devoid of elaboration or ornamentation. The shijo poet gives a firsthand account of his personal experience of … [Read More]
The Voice of the Governor General and Other Stories of Modern Korea
From the publisher’s website: From the children of a dwarf whose house is torn down by the government to a young man selling his blood for money, the first-person narrators of the stories collected in The Voice of the Governor-General and Other Stories of Modern Korea take us into the heart of turbulent twentieth-century Korean … [Read More]
Ragnarok
From the publisher’s website: The winds of fate are blowing through the realm of Midgard. Ragnarok, the prophesized fall of the gods, is at hand, and the age of Man is set to begin. But the ancient gods are not about to resign themselves to fate. They have sent their elite warriors, the Valkyries, to … [Read More]
The Wounded
The civil war between the North and South left both physical and psychological wounds and the permanent division of the nation still haunt those families separated by the 38th parallel. Both The Wounded and An Assailant’s face deal with the issues of the national trauma of the Korean War. While The Wounded underscores the trauma … [Read More]
With her oil lamp on, that night
“With Her Oil Lamp On, That Night” is a fine example of Lim’s short stories. Through the death of an innocent lad, it poignantly depicts the nature of the Korean War, putting its arbitrary division of enemy and ally into question. Written in poetic prose that makes the ironic contrast between the peaceful yet awesome … [Read More]