Vol.

23 Spring 2014

Special Section

Children’s
Picture Books

Interviews
Children’s Book Author Kwon Yoon-duck
Novelist Choi Jae-hoon
Spotlight on Fiction
The Gaze at Broad Daylight by Lee Seung-U
Poetry
“Pale Shadows of Old Love” by Kim Kwang-kyu
Theme Lounge
SNS, the Double-edged Sword

ISSN 2005-2790
K O r e A N
CLASSIC STOrIeS
 Foreword

Dreams Come to Life

Through Picture Books
The world is growing smaller. We can travel to a country on the other side of the world in
just one day. There are plenty of ways to talk to someone anywhere in the world if you set
your mind to it. We can easily access information from all over the world. It seems there is
no place we cannot reach, and nothing we cannot learn in this world.
But is that really true? There are times when we really do not know anything about
something that is closest to us-something we think we know better than anything else.
Something we do not know, but we think we do, is children. It has been said that the
lamentation, “Children these days . . .” was found on a Sumerian clay tablet written 5,000
years ago. Those same words are uttered today.
Adults who were once children themselves lament that they do not understand children
today. Why is it that children are so misunderstood? How can adults so completely forget the
fact that they, too, were children once? Are children not the most important subject for us to
study, understand and communicate with? Is it not important to understand how children
are prone to be lonely, sad, greedy, vulnerable, and fearful–and how we were once the same
way?
We should remember that when we were young, how easily we were pleased with little
things, how willingly we offered to share what was ours with another, how quickly our
psychic wound healed, how fast we made friends, and how we could always discover new
energy and hope. On the other hand, we should also acknowledge how heartless, one-sided
and oppressive adults can be. If we can be faithful protectors and mentors to our children,
should we not be more devoted to these tasks than to anything else? Would the world not
be a better place if adults and children came to understand each other better, forgiving the
negative and embracing the positive? Could misunderstandings and quarrels between tribes
and nations not be resolved in the same way?
Children’s book writers are those who dream such dreams and children’s books reveal the
dreams of writers. In this special issue, we present you with the dreams of Korean children's
book writers. Today, Korean picture books are drawing worldwide attention. More and
more Korean illustrators are receiving the Bologna Ragazzi Award or Biennial of Illustration
Bratislava (BIB) awards. Among them, we would like to introduce six young artists in this
issue. Through unique and experimental works, they show us where we are as a society,
how children and adults can come to understand each other, and how they find the desired
direction for the future. Through their ingenuous illustrations, you can see how children’s
dreams bloom and fade. You can find the beauty of a tranquil city in their illustrations
influenced by Eastern traditional painting. At the same time, you can sense an apocalyptic
warning in incredibly detailed images, depicting a dark future. You can meet a lovable child,
© My Ball, Yoo Jun-jae, Munhakdongne Publishing Corp.

moved to tears after hearing about other children in the world who lead difficult lives. You
can read a touching story about a father who devotes himself to raising his children, and a
son who reminisces about his affectionate father. From time to time, _list has introduced
picture books of Korea in previous issues, but this special issue is special indeed. You won’t
be disappointed.

by Kim Inae Sujung

list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014 1

 Vol.23 Spring 2014
A Quarterly Magazine for Publishers

PUBLISHER Kim Seong-Kon

22
EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Kim Yoon-jin

MANAGING DIRECTOR Jung Jin Kwon

EDITORIAL BOARD Bok Dohoon Literary Critic

Kang Yu-jung Critic
Kim Ji-eun Children's Book Critic
Kim Mansu Professor, Inha University
Pyo Jeonghun Book Columnist

OVERSEAS Choi Kyeonghee University of Chicago

EDITORIAL ADVISORS Bruce Fulton University of British Columbia
Christopher P. Hanscom UCLA
Theodore Hughes Columbia University
Kim Yung-hee University of Hawai'i
David McCann Harvard University
Michael J. Pettid SUNY-Binghamton University
28 38
Janet Poole University of Toronto
Dafna Zur Stanford University

DOMESTIC Brother Anthony Sogang University

EDITORIAL ADVISORS Steven D. Capener Seoul Women's University
Poetry Horace J. Hodges Ewha Womans University
Charles Montgomery Dongguk University
58 “Pale Shadows of Old Love” by Kim Kwang-kyu Emanuel Pastreich Kyung Hee University

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Park Jangyun

New Books
MANAGING EDITORS Park Mill
68 Recommended by Publishers
Alex Jisoo Baek

Steady Sellers EDITORS Kim Stoker

Shannon Doona Heit
73 Lee Mun Ku’s Gwanchon Essays
ART DIRECTOR Choi Woonglim

Overseas Angle DESIGNERS Jang Hyeju

Kim Mijin
74 Conveying Cultural Nuance in the Chinese Translation
of Gwanchon Essays PHOTOGRAPHER Lee Kwa-yong
76 Seoul: First Impressions of a Book-loving City
PRINTED BY NAMSANPNP
78 The Transcultural Bridge Between Korea
and Spanish Speaking Countries
80 The World of the Text
Date of Publication March 21, 2014

Meet the Publishers list_ Books from Korea is a quarterly magazine

published by the Literature Translation
82 Seoul Selection Institute of Korea.

84 Hollym Corporation Publishers All correspondence should be addressed to

the Literature Translation Institute of Korea
112 Gil-32, Yeongdong-daero (Samseong-dong)
Afterword Gangnam-gu, Seoul, 135-873, Korea
Telephone: 82-2-6919-7714
86 The Korea That I Discovered and Grew to Love Fax: 82-2-3448-4247
E-mail: list_korea@klti.or.kr
www.klti.or.kr
87 Contributors www.list.or.kr
88 Featured Authors Copyright © 2014 by Literature
Cover Art © Noh In-kyung
91 Index Mr. Tutti and 100 Water Drops, Translation Institute of Korea
Munhakdongne Publishing Corp., ISSN 2005-2790
2012

list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014 3


Inside the Mind of
Suh Cheonseok
Letters for My Daughter
Han Sung-hee, Woongjin Think Big Co., Ltd.
2013, 284p, ISBN 9788901158594
The author, a psychoanalyst with 33 years of
field experience under her belt, has compiled 31
psychological reflections that she wants to share with
her daughter. She asks her daughter to refrain from
trying to be good at everything and stresses that a
sense of anxiety is merely proof of life.
Inside the Mind of Suh Cheonseok
Suh Cheonseok, Gimm-Young Publishers, Inc.
2013, 435p, ISBN 9788934964421
Suh Cheonseok is a psychiatrist who has gained
great popularity through the television show, “Suh
Cheonseok's Mind Center.” The book endeavors
to go beyond empty messages on healing and
consolation and present a true understanding of the
human mind based on objective research and the
philosophical principle that “real consolation starts
with knowing one's self and understanding others
accurately.”
An Incomplete Life (Vol. 9)
Yoon Tae-ho, Wisdomhouse Publishing Co., Ltd.
2013, 256p, ISBN 9788960866201
The ninth installment of An Incomplete Life
completes the publication project of the popular
serialized webtoon, which holds the record for
earning top reviews from readers over the longest
period of time. The comic artist juxtaposes the fierce
competition of the Korean board game baduk with
the cutthroat struggle of office workers for survival
in a dog-eat-dog world. The series has fondly been
called “a textbook on life” and “a bible for office life.”
These totals are based on sales records from eight major bookstores
and three online bookstores from October to December 2013,
provided by the Korean Publishers Association.
The books are introduced in no particular order.
It's OK
Children's Books
Comic Maplestory 67
Song Do Soo; Illustrator: Seo Jung Eun
Seoul Cultural Publishers, Inc.
2013, 196p, ISBN 9788926395387
Since the first volume came out in 2004, the books
in this comic series have smashed bestseller records.
While reading about the adventures of various
distinctive characters defending Maple Island,
children learn about friendship, courage, and
consideration for others.
The Twenty Questions Detective
and the Magician (Vol.2): Attacks
on Cats on the Street
Heo Kyobum; Illustrator: Ko Sang-mi
BIR Publishing Co., Ltd.
2013, 192p, ISBN 9788949195810
This is the sequel to The Twenty Questions Detective
and the Magician, which won the inaugural Story
King prize. The detective, who solves cases in 20
questions or less, has a hidden past that is revealed.
The plot deals with the plight of abandoned cats and
dogs.
The Birth of Ilsu
Yoo Eun-sil; Illustrator: Seo Hyun
BIR Publishing Co., Ltd.
2013, 124p, ISBN 9788949121543
This children’s book was selected for the IBBY
Honour List. Ilsu’s parents had high expectations of
him when he was born, but he grew up to be very
ordinary. He is already an adult when he finally
comes to terms with his own identity in this book
packed with humor and satire.
The Bath Fairy
It’s OK
Choi Sook-hee, Woongjin ThinkBig Co., Ltd.
2005, 28p, ISBN 9788901052922
Through stories of animals, this picture book
encourages children to be brave and do whatever
they set out to accomplish. Well loved for its bright
colors and strong visual impact, It’s OK has been on
bestseller lists for nine years.
Don’t Be Angry and Talk Politely
An Miyeun; Illustrator: Suh Huijeong
Sangsangschool
2008, 24p, ISBN 9788996023449
This picture book teaches children to express
themselves effectively by helping them to understand
their own feelings and the feelings of others.
The Bath Fairy
Baek Heena, Bear Books
2012, 44p, ISBN 9788993242706
An old woman and a young girl meet and kindle a
friendship against the backdrop of an old bathhouse.
Overcoming their age difference, they come to
understand each other’s loneliness and help each
other in times of trouble in this gentle tale.
Mr. Confucius’ Bakery:
Story in Liberal Arts for Beginners
Kim Seon-hee; Illustrator: Kang Gyeongsu
Gimm-Young Publishers, Inc.
2012, 159p, ISBN 9788934956082
This book presents the virtues outlined in Confucian
philosophy in a way children can easily understand
through dialogue between Confucius and a little boy
called Hwan-hee.
list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014 7
 Skeptical of the government campaign, “Read Many Books,”
Kang Chang-rae responded by writing The Spirit of Books. Kang
questions if people can really come to love reading just because
books cultivate the mind, or if certain books should be prescribed
as a form of mental exercise. Kang, of course, refutes this idea,
saying that reading must be enjoyable. Critical of injunctions
to read the classics for their ancient truths and transcendent
values, he takes Plato and Confucius as his subjects and discloses
unknown facts. It is an interesting work that contains many
unexpected anecdeotes. Although Kang does not state exactly how
reading can be made enjoyable, at the very least, it is a joy to read
his book since it is filled with exciting stories about the classics.
In The Revolt of Books That Were Never Classics, author
and classical scholar Jang Yoo-seung provides commentary on
individual books from the Joseon period. The author vividly
explains the value that these books had before they fell out of
circulation. By sheer luck (or lack thereof), they didn't fall into the
hands of Korean craft paper collectors and were doomed to spend
centuries as inconsequential sheaves of paper. He intersperses
his accounts with examples of how the books were produced,
circulated, and consumed during that era. Of course, a familiarity
with the background of these books does not suddenly make
them valuable treasures. As Jang states, books that were previously
regarded as nothing may now get a slightly warmer reception,
but an effort should be made to welcome both contemporary
publications as well as discarded books of the past.
Kim is an author who knows how to uncover the intrinsic energy
and vitality of adolescence, as well as the hopes and dreams of the
young.
Another up-and-coming writer is Choi Seokyung, born in
1994. Choi, winner of the 3rd Munhakdongne Youth Literature
Prize for her book, Know-it-all, is now a university student. She
says she wrote the first draft of the book during her second year
of high school. The book tells the story of three young people,
and grownups are described as people who do nothing more than
pretend to “know it all.” The poet Ahn Do-hyeon described the
novel in his review as, “providing relief by making a mockery
of the insincere kindness and boastful nature of the older
generation.”
Thanks to prolific young writers who are actively including
the voices of young people in their work, the traditional approach
of trying to instill morals or teach through reading is slowly
loosing its grip on youth fiction.
by Shin Soojin

by Kim Bum-soo

Children's Books
New Trends for
Young Adult Fiction
For most people in Korea, the teenage years are an especially
2
problematic and angst-ridden time. With the dread of looming
university entrance examinations, power struggles between friends
that result in bullying, and the endless uncertainty about the
future, there is a whole host of worries weighing down on the
everyday lives of adolescents. As if singlehandedly attempting to
tackle all of the social pressures faced by Korean youth, many
young adult novels with teenage protagonists deal with loaded 3
topics such as school violence, running away from home, and
suicide; recently, however, young writers in their 20s have been
creating a new wave in young adult literature.
1. Our Egg Tart
The author at the forefront of this new trend is Kim Hyejung.
Kim Hyejung; Illustrator: Choi Hyewon
When she was still a middle school student, she had already Woongjin ThinkBig Co., Ltd.
written The Runaway Diaries, and she has continued to write 2013, 192p, ISBN 9788901161174
refreshing young adult fiction, with five new books published in 2. Know-it-all
2013 alone. Among these Dorothy in My Pocket (Gimm-Young 1 Choi Seokyung
Munhakdongne Publishing Corp.
Publishers, Inc.) and Time-Shift (Prunsoop Publishing Co., Ltd.) 2013, 180p, ISBN 9788954622578
are fantasy books for children. The remaining three are novels for 3. Dorothy in My Pocket
young people: Our Egg Tart (Woongjin ThinkBig Co., Ltd.) is Kim Hyejung; Illustrator: Bae Seul Gi
a tale about the adventures of girls in the fifth grade who figure Gimm-Young Publishers, Inc.
2013, 164p, ISBN 9788934965589
out their dreams for the future and put them into action; Ten-Ten
Movie Club is a portrayal of the efforts of a group of young school
dropouts trying to make a film; and Let’s Love is the story of a group
of unremarkable middle school boys who go to great lengths to
find girlfriends. All these titles have received enthusiastic reviews.

list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014 9

 Trade Report
Dream of China
Cho Young Nam
Minumsa, 2013, 426p
ISBN 9788937488016
Chinese publishers have recently shown
great interest not only in Korean literature,
educational comics, children’s books, and
self-help books, but also in Korean titles
that describe and analyze China through
the eyes of a foreigner.
Bac k i n 2012 , D an cing with the
Dragon, written by Cho Young Nam,
professor in t he Graduate School of
International Studies at Seoul National
Korean Nonfiction Reaches Beyond Asia
There has been a steady stream of reports
about translated Korean fiction being
published abroad. Unlike fiction, there
have been few reports about how Korean
nonfiction titles have made headway in
overseas markets, or about the prospect
of another Korean Wave being built upon
such titles. But as a matter of fact, exports
of Korean nonfiction titles have achieved
meaningful milestones in their own right.
The overseas translation rights for Kim
Rando’s Youth It’s Painful, published in
2010, were sold in eight languages. The
Chinese version, published by Guangxi
Science & Technology Publishing House
Ltd., has sold more than 600,000 copies
in two years. The rights for Kim’s sequels,
You Become an Adult Af ter Wavering
One Thousand Times and Future: My
Job, have also been sold to publishers
in many different countries including
China, Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam, and
Thailand. Kim is solidifying his position
as an internationally recognized author by
offering public lectures in Korea, China,
Thailand, and other markets.
Other Korean nonfiction titles have
also made inroads into overseas markets.
The rights for Kang Se-hyoung’s Being
Slow Is Not Being Late were sold to
Beijing Xiron Books Co., Ltd., a Chinese
publisher. Nam Insook, a high-profile
10 list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014
Seeing China Through Korean Eyes
University, received wide attention from
Chinese publishers. Even though the book
was targeted at a very specific group of
readers, Cho sold the rights to his book
to a publisher in China at a higher-than-
expected fee.
Cho’s next book, Dream of China,
examines China’s preparations to embark
on its next stage, its role in the global
arena, and the driving force for its fast-
growing economy following years of
successful state-led economic growth.
Shor t ly a f ter Dream of China wa s
published in Korea, China’s Xinhua News
Agency requested an interview with Cho,
indicating the keen interest in his view on
China.
Several Chinese publishers expressed
their interest in buying the rights to the
book shortly after Xinhua’s interview
came out. In the end, the publication unit
mentor for Asian women in their 20s and
30s, has already had many of her books
published in foreign markets; her latest
title, Man & Woman Winning Together,
was translated and published in China,
Taiwan, and Malaysia. In addition, upon
publication of their works in Korea, a
growing number of nonfiction writers
have sold their Thai and Chinese rights,
including: Kim Mi-Kyung’s Dream On,
a bestseller in the self-help category in
2013; perspective designer Park Yong-Hu’s
Design Your Perspective; and Draw Your
Own Big Picture by Jeon Og-Pyo, who
emerged as a best-selling author when over
a million copies of his The Winning Habit
were sold.
Recently, more Korean nonfiction
authors have signed deals for simultaneous
publications in foreign markets. This is
a major breakthrough that illustrates the
high quality of Korean nonfiction content,
and will play a key role in expanding
the nonfiction market. Notably, Korean
nonfiction titles are being exported not
only to China, Japan, and Southeast Asia,
but also to English-language markets. For
instance, Venerable Haemin’s The Things
We Can See Only After We Stop is slated to
be published by Penguin U.S.
The Buddhist monk’s bestseller sold
more than 2.5 million copies in Korea,
of Renmin University of China inked
a deal to buy Cho’s book, and it is now
being translated into Chinese. According
to the author’s request, Renmin ha s
commissioned a professional translator
to produce a smooth translation of the
Korean text, suitable for well-educated,
e l it e C h i n e s e r e a d e r s , i n o r d e r t o
appropriately localize the marketing of the
title for the Chinese market.
The success of Cho’s books illustrates
t he heightened attention on Korea n
nonfiction in overseas markets outside
of the self-help category. Hopefully even
more Korean titles by experts in foreign
politics and culture will be published
abroad, offering sharp insights into specific
regions.
by Michelle Nam
and its rights have been sold to publishers
i n f ive c ou nt r ie s i nc lud i n g C h i n a ,
Taiwan, and Japan. Penguin’s decision to
publish this book is widely regarded as
the first major step toward promoting the
excellence of Korea’s nonfiction content
beyond regional and cultural boundaries.
Attention is now being pa id to how
Penguin will present Venerable Haemin’s
clear and heart-warming words of wisdom
to readers in the forthcoming English
edition.
by Sue Yang
1 2
1. The Things We Can See Only After We Stop
Venerable Haemin; Illustrator: Lee Young-cheol
Sam & Parkers. Co., Ltd.
2012, 292p, ISBN 9788965700609
2. Future: My Job
Kim Rando and Lee Jae Hyuk
Munhakdongne Publishing Corp.
2013, 416p, ISBN 9788954621915
 Special Section
Children’s Picture Books
Highlighting
the Best of the New
Korea has quickly become the next big thing in the picture book publishing
industry. With a spate of young authors and illustrators winning awards for their
innovation and style at international children’s book fairs, the future of Korean
illustrated books looks bright.
Korean picture books have been drawing steady attention at
the Bologna Children’s Book Fair, one of the largest stages for
picture book artists. Ever since participating in the book fair as
the guest of honor in 2009, Korea has continued to bring home
awards every year. In fact, picture book experts around the
world seem to regard Korea as an experimental stage on which
to break through the recent stagnation of the global picture
book market.
Iwona Chmielewsk a’s Eyes, published by Cha ngbi
Publishers, Inc., was the winner of the Ragazzi Award for
Fiction at the 2013 Bologna Children’s Book Fair. It was the
author’s second Ragazzi since 2011, when she won the Ragazzi
for A House of the Mind: MAUM. In its 50-year history, no
other author has ever received the Ragazzi twice. Such an
accomplishment is a global acknowledgement of Korea’s
expertise in picture book publishing, since the entire process of
publishing Chmielewska’s work, from planning to publication,
was carried out in Korea.
Impressive news also came from the Biennial of Illustration
Bratislava (BIB), another global picture book fair. Noh In-
kyung’s Mr. Tutti and 100 Water Drops won the Golden Apple
Award and Lee Gihoon’s The Tin Bear won the Children’s Jury
Award. These accomplishments by Korean picture book artists
came right on the heels of Cho Eunyoung’s Run Toto! winning
the Grand Prix and Yoo Juyeon’s One Day winning the Golden
Apple Award at the 2011 BIB.
This special section will focus on young Korean artists who
have been actively engaged on the global stage. First, we feature
Cho Eunyoung and Yoo Juyeon, the two women who received
the Grand Prix and the Golden Apple Award respectively at the
2011 BIB. Their work is noted for multilayered meaning and
symbolism, expressed through traditional East Asian ink and
brush paintings.
12 list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014
© My Ball, Yoo Jun-jae, Munhakdongne Publishing Corp.
Then we profile three male artists who are each gaining
recognition in their own right: Pak Yeoncheol, Kang Gyeongsu,
and Yoo Jun-jae.
Park Yeoncheol, the author of Why Did Pinocchio Steal a
“MacGuffin”?, was selected as Illustrator of the Year at the 2007
Bologna Children’s Book Fair and participated in the book fair
in 2013, holding a special exhibition sponsored by LTI Korea.
Both Kang Gyeongsu, the author of The Stories Shouldn’t Be
True who received the Ragazzi Award in 2011, and Yoo Jun-
jae, the author of My Ball, held a special exhibition at the 2014
book fair with LTI Korea. These authors cross the border
between fiction and nonfiction, using the modern methods of
collage and textile art with sophistication.
Finally, we examine the works of Noh In-kyung and Lee
Gihoon, winners at the 2013 BIB. Noh’s Mr. Tutti and 100
Water Drops, in which everything except Mr. Tutti and his
bicycle is portrayed through pixels of various concentrations
and shapes, was highly praised for its unique lyricism. Lee’s
The Tin Bear is a captivating work in which the reality of Seoul
is recreated in a remarkable way, philosophically combining a
dystopic imagination and an ecological perspective.
It is our hope that the dynamic works by these young
artists will highlight the present and the future of Korean
picture books.
by Kim Ji-eun
Special Section
Children’s Picture Books
Picture Books Are Art!
The new generation of young writers is proving themselves to be different from their
predecessors, no longer concentrating their efforts on spreading traditional culture
and history or writing picture books to teach children life lessons.
In the fall of 2011, it was announced that two picture books
from Korea had received the Grand Prix and the Golden
Apple Award at the Biennial of Illustration Bratislava (BIB).
In the spring of the same year, a picture book from Korea also
received the Ragazzi Nonfiction Award and an Honorable
Mention at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair. Koreans with an
interest in picture books, such as picture book writers, editors,
researchers, and readers, cheered at the news. The two young
female authors that won the awards probably didn’t fully
comprehend how much joy and confidence they had inspired.
Their awards confirmed that previous accomplishments at
Bologna weren't merely due to chance or luck. Rather, it
substantiated that Korean picture books had gained new clout
through its new wave of writers.
For the up-and-coming generations of artists and writers,
creating picture books is about expressing the way children
see the world. It is also more important for these new writers
to find their own methods of expression. In other words,
picture books are a kind of personal expression, not a tool
for education or a medium for conveying serious issues. This
new generation of picture books is worthy of being called art,
and it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that today’s picture
book authors have played an important role in gaining that
recognition.
Cho Eunyoung
The winner of the Grand Prix was Cho Eunyoung’s Run Toto!,
a book depicting humans and horses as seen through the
eyes of a girl who goes to the racetrack with her grandfather.
According to the judges, the book “shows different styles
in a fresh and expressive way. It tells a story that catches the
attention of readers, enriching each page with a surprising
layout indicating a great personality.” Run Toto! is indeed
striking for its free forms, vivid colors, and bold layout. The
faces and gestures of the diverse types of people who flock to
the racetrack are portrayed with great originality. And how
free and dynamic the horses look, standing at the starting
line! They don’t even look like horses. One of them looks
like a hyena, another like a bulldog, and another, like a huge
shield. Take a look at the racing scene, which is twice as large
list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014 13
 Special Section
“If art is something that exposes the dark sides
of society with honesty through expressions of
individuality, inspiration and beauty, it must also
be something that boldly reveals the unfortunate
but true realities that children face.”
Run Toto!
Cho Eunyoung, Borim Press
2011, 40p, ISBN 9788943308179
as the other scenes. The running horses look like exploding
firecrackers.
But it’s not just the artistic illustrations that make this
book memorable. A running theme throughout the book is the
desire for money. About two thirds of the book is full of the
faces of people who exhibit this desire. The narrator, a young
girl, has never seen a horse before. Feeling excited, she tries to
imagine what a horse looks like, but that’s not what everyone
else is doing. Everyone else “looks at something, writes
something down, or thinks about something,” and then “looks
at the electronic scoreboard.” Finally, the race begins and horse
number nine, who the girl names Toto because it looks like
her toy horse, wins. The girl is happy, but her grandfather,
who didn’t win any money, doesn’t look so happy. The
girl’s excitement, curiosity, and feelings of fondness towards
the horse are not well received by her grandfather. All that
exists at the racetrack is a desire for money and the reality of
disappointment. The girl visits the racetrack every week with
her grandfather, but she’s no longer excited or curious about
the horses anymore. “The horses all look the same” to her now.
The story is a satire of Korean society, which is on the
edge of imploding with its desire for money. Korean society
does not teach children other values. Children only learn
that they must study hard in order to have a well-paying job.
In a society like this, ingenuous imagination, basic curiosity,
14 list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014
and affection cannot thrive. The last scene of the book shows
in a glance the gloomy situation faced by children in Korea
today. Explaining that she can no longer recognize Toto, the
horse she once named, because all of the horses now look the
same, the girl stands looking forlorn with her toy horse in her
arms. The story is not one that inspires children's hope and
dreams, nor is it one that brings adults pride. Some readers
have expressed perplexity at the book's message, saying, “The
book gives the reader a lot to think about,” or “It’s a difficult
read,” which is probably the same reason the book was rejected
by every publisher the author visited. This underscores how
significant it is that this book was published and went on to
receive a prestigious international award. If art is something
that exposes the dark sides of society with honesty, through
expressions of individuality, inspiration, and beauty, it must
also be something that boldly reveals the unfortunate but true
realities that children face. In that respect, Run Toto! could well
be called art.
Yoo Juyeon
One Day, the recipient of the Golden Apple Award, can be
considered art in another sense. The book depicts the journey
of a little bird through the ink and brush strokes of traditional
Asian painting. The judges praised the work by saying,
“Limited colors and stylized shapes flow in a poetic space that
recreates a simple narration with almost musical rhythm in
a quiet atmosphere. The illustrator conveys a whole world of
emotion with minimal elements.” The bird sets out in search
of something new and different, but in the end, it does not
experience great adventure or enter a fantastic new world.
Rather, the bird goes from the tree it was sitting on to the
middle of a city and sees the roofs of houses huddled together,
changes that publishers would request.” It’s a good thing that
the book was able to be published true to the author's original
intent. Prompted by her artistic accomplishment, more and
more experimental picture books that have been noted for the
author’s individuality have also been published in Korea.
by Kim Inae Sujung

tangled electric wires, cranes on construction sites, concrete

jungles, and elevated highways.
In most picture books, this type of environment would be
portrayed as hostile to little birds. This book is no different.
It seems to be warning children not to be in a rush to imitate
adults, with nature symbolizing childhood and the city
symbolizing adulthood. The book imparts the message that
one should stay in their safe, comfortable childhood, because
the world of adults is scary and dangerous.
However, although that’s what is said in words, the
illustrations say something else. They convey a message that
is different from what is seen on the surface. The illustrations,
“with a touch of modernity on traditional ink and wash
painting,” depict the city in an enchanting way, showing how
fascinating the world of adults looks in the eyes of children.
The roofs look like waves and the cranes seem to be dancing.
The concrete jungle brings to mind secret caves, and the
elevated highways become a rainbow leading up to heaven.
Typically dichotomous thinking, separating nature from
civilization and children from adults, crumbles in this book.
Such power lies in the illustrations that unfold, as the judges
explained, through “poetic space” and “musical rhythm.”
The author says that she didn’t go from publisher to
publisher with the manuscript in hand because she “knew
One Day
that they wouldn’t publish a picture book that wasn’t bright Yoo Juyeon, Borim Press
and cheerful and didn’t think she would be able to make the 2010, 64p, ISBN 9788943308162

list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014 15

 Special Section
Children’s Picture Books
Putting a New Spin
On Stories for Kids
Author-illustators with unique perspectives are creating
provocative visual and narrative content.
During the mid-90s, illustrators and authors of children’s
books in Korea usually represented the aesthetics and traditions
of Korean culture through their work. For instance, in
Sori’s Harvest Moon Day, the renowned children’s writer and
illustrator Lee Eok-bae portrays the charming story of Sori’s
family traveling to their hometown during the Harvest Moon
holiday. The book includes an illustration of people waiting
in long lines to board buses heading to their hometowns. This
picture is a modern interpretation of traditional genre paintings,
reminiscent of a Goguryeo era mural or a classic work of art
depicting a traditional procession. However, recently published
works represent varied, colorful themes and techniques with
cartoon, textile, and animation artists permeating the children’s
book industry and bringing more diverse styles with them.
Kang Gyeongsu and Yoo Jun-jae are two such innovators.
Wit and Substance: Kang Gyeongsu
Kang Gyeongsu earned an award in nonfiction at the 2011
Bologna Children’s Book Fair for his work The Stories Shouldn’t
Be True. The International judging committee noted, “The
illustrations clearly depict a poignant childhood impacted by
historical tragedies, injustices, and violence…the work voices a
unique perspective that has not yet been represented in popular
media.”
When readers open the book, an ordinary boy who loves to
draw pictures appears. While dreaming of becoming an artist,
this ordinary boy lives a peaceful and unremarkable life in
Korea. On the subsequent pages, children from various distant
16 list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014
countries fill the book. Readers are greeted by Hassan from
Kyrgyzstan, Paneer from India, Kizambu from Uganda, Elena
from Romania, and many other children from around the
world. But the facial expressions and attire of these children are
unusual. They seem to be around the same age as the Korean
boy who dreams of being a painter, but their faces convey
sadness. The book proceeds to introduce the plight of these
children: being forced to join a guerilla army as a child soldier,
mining for coal in an underground shaft, dying from malaria
due to the lack of funds to purchase medicine, and living in
a sewer that reeks of human excrement. The boy is silent and
then he asks, “This can't be true, right?”
Through Kang’s work, young readers confront heart-
wrenching realities that shouldn’t be true. The writing is
simple and restrained while the thick, coarse pastel strokes on
craft paper illustrate the horrendous realities as seen through
the eyes of children.
Kang, known for picture books that advocate human
rights, was originally a cartoonist. He drew cartoons for
nearly a decade before joining the world of children’s
literature. For this reason, his picture books are characterized
by his juxtaposition of simplicity and hyperbole, while still
maintaining a humorous undertone. Such talent is best shown
in his work The Big Fart, published in 2014. In The Big Fart,
animal friends such as the elephant, the rhinoceros, the lion,
the anteater, the baboon, the squirrel, and the ant begin their
morning on a vast African plain. On this particular day, the
elephant, suffering from indigestion, lets out a huge fart.
Suddenly all of the animals are thrown into the air. In the
order of their respective proportions, the rhinoceros, the lion,
the anteater, the baboon, and the squirrel are able to stop
themselves from being blown away. However, the tiny ant
cannot stop itself. It is thrown far across the sky into the trunk
of the elephant that created the entire problem. The elephant
cannot stand the tickling in his trunk and sneezes, which
in turn causes the rhinoceros to be thrown up into
the air. There is no end to the domino effect and
resulting commotion caused by the elephant’s big
fart on this African grassland.
Kang grabs his readers’ attention by combining 2
a short and simple writing style with a storyline that
gradually reaches its climax. The facial expressions of
the animals as they are thrown into the air, along with
the relieved expressions of the animals that are barely able
to come to a halt, create a hilarious dynamic. Kang captures
the comical expression of each animal with exceptional skill. 1. The Stories Shouldn't Be True
He worked with pencil sketches to complete the background, Kang Gyeongsu, Sigong Junior
but used paper collages to depict the animals. This method 2011, 36p, ISBN 9788952760661
2. The Big Fart
highlights the texture of each animal against a flat backdrop.
1 Kang Gyeongsu, Sigong Junior
Due to the restrained text, combined with illustrations 2014, 38p, ISBN 9788952780058
that consist of simple shapes and lines, Kang’s stories endure
even after the reader has put down the book. His books are
not just stories of far away countries such as Kyrgyzstan
and Uganda, or of an elephant passing gas on the savannah.
Kang’s book ultimately conveys that just like the chaos theory,
father. Similar to many other fathers of the time, Yoo’s father
where a tiny action such as a butterfly fluttering its wings can
was a reticent and earnest man, a hard-working breadwinner
cause a hurricane, there is nothing too small, unrelated, or
who had little time for fun. The first pages of the book depict
inconsequential in the world.
this.
“My father met my mother through a matchmaker. They
A Heartwarming Protagonist: Yoo Jun-jae
were married after going on three dates at Dongdaemun
Yoo Jun-jae, who studied textile arts, received much acclaim for Baseball Stadium.” The story goes on to explain, “My father
My Ball, published in 2011. He stumbled into illustration when was always busy. Even when I woke up early in the morning, it
he was offered the chance to design the cover of a magazine was difficult to see him.”
while working as a fashion designer. In 2003, he illustrated the Readers are able to sense Yoo’s childhood understanding of
text for My Brother Who Went to Mars, but it would be awhile his father through his portrayal of a man without a mouth or
before he would write and illustrate his own picture books. Yoo a man with a long commute from work. The only time Yoo’s
submitted illustrations of his childhood memories of his father father becomes chatty is when he watches baseball games on
to Pocket Book, a magazine that sporadically publishes the television. Thus, the son comes to love baseball just like his
collected drawings and portfolios of illustrators. This was a father. The son's desire to be like his father dominates most of
turning point for Yoo. An editor noticed his work and urged his childhood.
him to create a picture book based on the illustrations. However, eventually we all grow up. Our fathers no longer
After considerable deliberation, Yoo agreed. look as great as they once did to our childhood eyes and we no
My Ball is an autobiographical story. longer watch baseball with our fathers. Just as our fathers have
An adult narrator looks back on his life their own lives, so do we have our own paths to choose.
and, through the medium of baseball, By incorporating silk screen a nd lit hograph-ba sed
remembers the times he spent with his illustrations, Yoo depicts his childhood memories through

list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014 17

 Special Section
symbols and imaginatives scenes. On its own, silkscreen gives
off a stiff appearance, so Yoo used various printing plates as his
base and finished off by printing the silkscreen over them. By
keeping the final image in mind, and printing the image over
and over again, Yoo’s illustrations of his memories of his father
appear dim and faded.
The writer who wrote about his love for his father is now a
father himself. Yoo shows the love he has for his own daughter
in Inside Mom's Dreams, published in 2013. A mother scolds
her sleepless child who must attend kindergarten the next day,
“You are in trouble if you don’t fall asleep by the time I count
to ten.” “Don’t open your eyes.” “What kind of child stays up
this late to play?”
Yet, the daughter cannot fall asleep. Wanting to keep
playing in whatever way she can, the young child wants to
explore her mother’s dreams. Instantly, the child is able to
18 list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014
1. Inside Mom’s Dreams
Yoo Jun-jae
Munhakdongne Publishing Corp.
2013, 40p, ISBN 9788954620796
1 2. My Ball
Yoo Jun-jae
Munhakdongne Publishing Corp.
2011, 52p, ISBN 9788954615969
jump into the world of her mother’s dreams. The child eats
sandwiches the mother makes, rides airplanes and chases down
clouds, tries on lipstick, saves her mother from being eaten by
a lion, and visits her father who has traveled all the way to the
stars in order to draw a heart in the sky. The daughter's fierce
love for her family can be detected when, in order to protect
them from falling snowflakes, the girl holds up an umbrella
large enough to cover the family home. Through silkscreen
and collages, Yoo creates a variegated space bursting with color
and possibilities. He is faithful in depicting the unique ability
of every child – the ability to blur the boundaries of reality and
fantasy. Yoo is no doubt an amazing illustrator, but he must
also be an amazing father to be able to understand a child’s
heart in such a vivid way.
by Han Mihwa
Special Section
Children’s Picture Books
Two Vanguards
of Illustration
At the 2013 Biennial of Illustration Bratislava (BIB), the spotlight was on two
young Korean artists: Noh In-kyung and Lee Gihoon. Noh and Lee displayed
the originality and artistic value of Korean picture books at the event, one of
the biggest picture book festivals in the world.
Noh In-kyung
For her debut, Noh In-kyung received the Award of Excellence
at the 2000 International Digital Art Festival. After studying
visual design at Hongik University in Seoul, she went on to
study at Accademia di Belle Arti Milano in Italy. Among
her works, Soso Cancellina was the first to draw attention
internationally. For this book, Noh was selected as Illustrator
of the Year at the 2012 Bologna Children’s Book Fair.
In Soso Cancellina, Soso, who cleans up words in books,
receives a phone call from “Anne of Green Gables.” Anne tells
her that she can’t stand the part in the book where her hair gets
dyed a strange color and requests that it be taken out. Soso uses
her vacuum cleaner to remove the dyed hair. As she does, she
encounters many words, each of which tries to convince her
why it shouldn't be removed, so Soso collects the words and
brings them to her room.
Through her work, Noh shows her affection for small
segmented units: one line, one word, one letter. The author
says she is a relatively slow reader, which adults pointed out to
her when she was young. But when she reads, she enjoys the
feeling of walking along a line of words, so she thought that
she should create a character who “walks on words.” That’s
how “Soso the book cleaner” came to be.
Soso Cancellina is remarkable for its various images using
typography, and the idea of using the Korean script Hangul,
a phonogram, by breaking it up like pixels. Above all, the
character’s desire to remove parts she doesn’t like is quite
lovable.
In Mr. Tutti and 100 Water Drops, which received the BIB
Golden Apple Award, Noh presents an even more developed
pixel art technique. All the illustrations in the book, other than
the bicycle, the elephant, and the water drops, are composed
of pixels. The trees and the clouds are made up of countless
pixels. Children growing up in the digital age are very familiar
with pixels. Mr. Tutti, made up of elegant, witty brushstrokes,
appears against a backdrop of these countless pixels. When a
drought falls and there’s no more water for the children, Mr.
Tutti travels far and wide to find water. He returns riding his
bicycle, carrying 100 water drops. But the return trip is rough
and Mr. Tutti must struggle not to spill a single drop of water.
Noh said that as she created Mr. Tutti, she thought of her
list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014 19
 Special Section

1. Mr. Tutti and 100 Water Drops

Noh In-kyung
Munhakdongne Publishing Corp.
2012, 56p, ISBN 9788954618618
2. Soso Cancellina
Noh In-kyung
Munhakdongne Publishing Corp. 1
2010, 34p, ISBN 9788954613521

father working hard each day for his family, remembering The Tin Bear is a story about humans and nature. Being
his long silence after returning home from work, and tried greedy, humans turn the earth into ruins and leave for the
to imagine what his day was like, something he never talked Golden Planet. Before leaving, animals place acorns in the
about. huge tin bear's body. Left behind on the lifeless earth, the tin
While reading this book, children often count to see if bear realizes that the last seeds of life lie within himself. To
there really are 100 water drops, and to see how many pixels bring the seeds to life, he pours water into his tin body. A noble
there are in the trees and fruits. It’s also interesting to see how beauty is found in this act as he tries to cultivate life, even as
the pixels in each image have different shapes. The clear blue his own body becomes corroded. A boy who’s also been left
of the water drops, amid the black and white of all the other on earth, now a concrete desert, puts his trust in the tin bear
pixels, draws attention to the father’s efforts to safeguard the and eagerly awaits the restoration of life. Various aspects of a
“precious water drops for the family,” which is both precarious megalopolis are superbly recreated in this book. The city that
and moving. appears in this book could be Seoul, New York, London, or
Tokyo.
Lee Gihoon
Lee Gihoon, who received the 2013 BIB Children’s Jury
Award, is noted for his philosophical works with an apocalyptic
feel. The meticulous details and massive scale, making full
use of the physical space in the book, catch children’s eyes
immediately. That this book would win the highest praise from
the fussy children’s jury of Bratislava was not anticipated by the
adult judges. What is it about his picture books that appeal so
strongly to children?
Lee was also selected Illustrator of the Year at the 2010
Bologna Children’s Book Fair. With an affinity for picture
books without words, he has continued to push the boundaries
of his field. His major works, The Tin Bear and Big Fish, are
both picture books without text. Lee felt early on that the
tragedies he seeks to communicate are best conveyed through
pictures without words, and he clearly demonstrates the power
of images accompanied by silence.

20 list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014

 Big Fish, Lee’s latest work, is intriguing in a different way. If
The Tin Bear is a book about the future of civilization, Big Fish
is an allegory about humanity's past. Based on flood narratives
from around the world, this book solemnly depicts the tragic
end of “humans that coveted water.” Big Fish, the main
character of the book, is a fish that produces water. Whenever
there’s a drought, humans scramble to get their hands on Big
Fish. In the end, Big Fish is captured by force. The curse of
Big Fish is to spurt out water endlessly. Through pictures, Lee
deftly conveys without a single sentence, how this gentle beast
comes to express its anger against humans.
Works by these two authors show why Korean picture
books are leading the field's experimental efforts, both
2
technically and philosophically. Keeping an eye on their work
will be the most meaningful way to estimate the future of
picture books around the world.
1

by Kim Ji-eun
1. The Tin Bear
Lee Gihoon, Ligem
2012, 50p, ISBN 9788992826846
2. Big Fish
Lee Gihoon, BIR Publishing Co., Ltd.
2014, 50p, ISBN 9788949101736

list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014 21

 Interview

Keeping It Real
Children's Book Author Kwon Yoon-duck
Kwon Yoon-duck has made her mark on the picture book world with
her bold foray into realistic subject matter once thought too serious
for children. With original illustrations inspired by traditional East
Asian painting techniques, Kwon’s thoughtful artwork complements
her playful expression of how a child sees the world.

Kim Youngwook: It’s been almost 20 years since Man-hee’s House

was published in 1995. You were an activist for community art from
the late 1980s to early 90s. How has that experience informed your
work with children’s books? 1

Kwon Yoon-duck: After graduate school, I chose to focus on

community art rather than fine art painting or the applied arts. That
decision was based on my belief that there should be no boundaries 2

between art and everyday life. I wasn’t very happy at the time about 3
how the industry moves art, how pictures are hung primly in art
galleries. I wanted for anybody to be able to enjoy art in their daily
lives, so I started drawing with the general public in mind. During 4
that time I also grew to believe that children’s books should not
ignore the very real problems that exist in society. Children’s book
authors should be able to pierce through the web of society cast by 6
the state, power, and institutions—and create something new. I
remain confident that children’s books have the power to change 7

society. Flower Grandma stands for that.

Kim: Flower Grandma also became the subject of a documentary

that was shot over the course of the five years you were working on
the book from 2007 to 2012. How did that come about?
5

Kwon: At the time, I was writing to Japanese publishers about
publishing Flower Grandma in Japan when a friend of mine, a
documentary writer from Jeju Island, introduced me to her nephew,
director Kwon Hyo. When I was first approached with the project, I
1. Man-hee's House
had my doubts, but it seemed like a good idea to have a record of the
Kwon Yoon-duck
process, so I agreed. I didn’t think back then that it would become a Gilbut Children Publishing Co., Ltd.
90-minute feature film. 1995, 34 p, ISBN 9788986621105
2. Flower Grandma
Kwon Yoon-duck
Kim: Could you tell me how you came to make the book about Sakyejul Publishing Ltd.
Sim Dal-Yeon? 2010, 35p, ISBN 9788958284826
3. Pikaia
Kwon Yoon-duck
Kwon: I was involved in a collaborative project between Korean, Changbi Publishers, Inc.
Chinese, and Japanese authors called Picture Books for Peace, and 2013, 148p, ISBN 9788936454449
I wanted to do a story about the women who were forced into 4. My Cat Copies Me
sexual slavery during World War II, so I read the transcripts of oral Kwon Yoon-duck
Changbi Publishers, Inc.
testimonies. Sim Dal-Yeon’s testimony was the one that painted the 2005, 30p, ISBN 9788936454104
8
5. Man-hee’s Letter Bugs
Kwon Yoon-duck
Gilbut Children Publishing Co., Ltd.
2011, 108p, ISBN 9788955821659
6. Mommy, I Like These Clothes
Kwon Yoon-duck
Gilbut Children Publishing Co., Ltd.
2010, 56p, ISBN 9788955820997
7. Tools at Work
Kwon Yoon-duck
Gilbut Children Publishing Co., Ltd.
2008, 40p, ISBN 9788955820836
8. There Dangles a Spider
Kwon Yoon-duck
Changbi Publishers, Inc.
2003, 38p, ISBN 9788936454036

22 list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014

 Interview
Kim Youngwook and children's book author Kwon Yoon-duck
most specific picture for me. Afterwards, I met the transcriber,
and later Sim Dal-Yeon herself. I found that even though Sim was
not formally educated, she was a born storyteller, but Sim says
that when she first came forward as a "comfort woman," she was
confused and could not express herself properly. She had become
withdrawn from blaming herself for the tragedy and avoided
contact with other people. While she has not gotten the apology
or restitution she deserves, she has regained her positive energy
by working in pressed flower crafts, as suggested by a nonprofit
organization, which was also featured in the book.
Kim: I understand that many mock-up books of Flower
Grandma were made for Japanese publishers. There must have
been some negotiation there. Was there a scene or detail you felt
you absolutely could not compromise?
Kwon: I think that children have the right to know what’s
going on in the world where they live. That is the only way they
can be prepared to face the inequality of society. By learning
about the wrongs of history, they will learn how to cope with
the injustices of the world and still hold onto their dreams. With
Flower Grandma, the scene I defended to the end was the floor
plan of the “comfort station,” where the sex slaves were raped by
Japanese soldiers. Ultimately, my purpose was not just to expose
the issue of sexual slavery, but also to emphasize the fact that this
kind of tragedy can repeat itself at any time, in any part of the
world.
Kim: In the book, the victims’ faces are drawn, but the
Japanese soldiers’ faces are blurred. What was your intention with
this?
Kwon: I think that the soldiers were also victims, in a way, to
the ideology or system of military totalitarianism. I do not think
they enlisted and committed evil deeds because they personally
wanted to. So that’s the reason that I drew the uniforms, but left
the faces as a tan-colored blur. I wanted to call attention to how
anonymity acts as a shield for the mindless spread of evil. This
kind of thing should never happen again, but there will be people
who are capable of such atrocities when they are clad in uniform,
when they are at war. We need to know the true faces of those
who commit these crimes. It is only then that those who repent
24 list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014
"During that time I also grew
to believe that children’s books
should not ignore the very real
problems that exist in society."
can hope for our forgiveness.
Kim: Let me ask you something a bit different. Working on
children’s books must remind you of forgotten memories from
your own childhood. What sort of memories have resurfaced for
you?
Kwon: Memories of the past make up who I am now whether
I like it or not, consciously or unconsciously. I draw upon that
past in one way or another when I’m working on a children’s
book. For me, it’s things like flowers, lace, feathers, marbles,
bits of glass, jewels. These are the things I admired as a child,
and I liked to draw the beautiful princess dresses that girls wore
in comic books when I was growing up. I love Angela Barrett’s
work because of her attention to the smallest detail in clothing or
interior decorations.
Kim: Your first work, Man-hee’s House, shows the interior of a
hanok, a traditional Korean house, laid out in a single horizontal
line when you open the book. The old furniture and household
objects are drawn similarly to how they appear in traditional
Korean folk paintings, with great attention to detail. I felt this
perspective was quite unusual. Could you elaborate on that?
Kwon: I always wanted to show what a hanok looks like in a
children’s book. But it didn’t seem like there was much point in
showing it as is. I gave it a great deal of thought and decided to
show how tradition lives on in our culture today. I was living with
my in-laws at the time and they had that kind of house, with a
mixture of old and contemporary objects. In the book I wanted
to give the impression that the objects were telling their own
stories and I wanted to show how time affects the relationship of
the family by changing the position of objects in subtle ways. So
I made full use of the very subjective, multiple point perspective.
Our eyes are not like a camera; they are attached to our faces. The
typical perspective is not the right way to express something as
we see it with our eyes. When we’re looking at something we turn
and twist and sometimes even hop up and down to get a better
look. I thought that composing the frame so that the objects were
scattered here and there from a multiple point perspective, as if
the onlookers were turning their head this way and that, would
give the reader a more playful sense of space.
 Kim: My Cat Copies Me has already been published in the
U.S., France, and Spain. The little girl and the cat’s identical
poses are presented side by side of an invisible vertical line, and
the color scheme feels very restful. You’ve studied gong bi hua,
Chinese landscape painting, and even Buddhist painting; have
any of these techniques found their way into this book?
Kwon: The little girl in this book stays home by herself all day
and imitates her cat, but tells everybody else that the cat copies
her. When I was illustrating this book, I did not use shading,
which makes things appear as they do in reality. Instead, I drew
upon the coloring methods of Buddhist painting, using delicate
motifs and bright colors.
of their skin. Pikaia takes a close-up look at cockroaches’ feelers
and wrinkles and asks if humans have the right to exterminate
them. At the same time, the question is just how honorable we
humans are. Just as nations, systems, and social norms made by
man all work to fit us into the type of human being that adapts
successfully to a capitalist regime, we are wielding the same kind
of violence upon nature, as the scene of the fallen trees shows. I
wanted to convey the familiar in an unfamiliar way, to say that
ironically, Pikaia survived so long because it was not a superior
life form.
Kim: To wrap up, what kind of books do you want to write
in the future?

Kim: Working on the Picture Books for Peace project, you
must have had many encounters with Chinese and Japanese
authors. How do you think Korean children’s books are different
from Chinese and Japanese children’s books, from an artist’s
point of view?
Kwon: It’s a matter of taste, but I feel like Chinese painting
emphasizes elaborate technique and a very tight structure and
Japanese painting feels very intricate. Korean painting, on the
other hand, is more relaxed. Or to put it another way, it feels
comparatively free from rules and is relaxed in a way that suggests
intentionally avoiding perfection.
Kwon: I am interested in structural injustice and the power
relationship between countries, and I believe that children’s books
should contribute to building new values by calling attention to
that injustice and absurdity. With this in mind, I am working on
a book that deals with the historical Jeju 4.3 massacre. I would
also like to do a book on the Vietnam War. I went on a month-
long research trip to Vietnam, but I have set it aside until I am
able to fully process the material. It is only then that I think I will
have fully told the story of Flower Grandma.
by Kim Youngwook

Kim: In There Dangles a Spider, it feels like different colored

spaces of many sizes are being pulled in different directions. I
felt there was an abstract conciseness to the way the screen was
divided, so to speak. What was your main point of focus there?

Kwon: Those are lyrics from the “Tail Song” from Jeju Island;
the song lyrics are full of wordplay, so I wanted the pictures to
reflect the abstractness of the poetry. And the lyrics gave me many
colors to work with: the black crow, the white rabbit, the blue sky,
and so on. I was most concerned with how to express those things
abstractly, while ensuring that the colored spaces would convey a
sense of rhythm that complemented the lyrics.

Kim: Man-hee’s Letter Bugs also deals with wordplay and

playfulness. Where did these wonderful ideas come from?

Kwon: I got most of my ideas when my son, Man-hee, was

young. Once, on the first day of sunshine after lots of rain, he
said that he couldn’t bear the grating sound an umbrella makes
when it drags on concrete. His reaction to such a specific sound
gave me an idea, so we made up a game using bright vowels and
dark vowels, onomatopoeia, and mimetic words.
Overseas publications
by Kwon Yoon-duck
Kim: Honestly, Pikaia was shocking. It made me wonder if
you wanted this book to tell the stories you held back in Flower
Grandma. It felt like you were addressing the human condition.

Kwon: In this book, the reader, who may very well be an
adult, is asked to look at something familiar in an unfamiliar
way. I wanted to create an unsettling feeling by asking whether
it is normal and right to spray cockroaches, or step on them to
kill them. Cockroaches may not have bones in their bodies, but
they have evolved so that their bones are actually on the outside
Kwon Yoon-duck (b.1960) is a leading first generation children’s
writer and illustrator who pursues her own worldview. She studied landscape
painting and fine brush painting in Beijing during the late 1990s, and
investigated Buddhist and colored paintings during the late-2000s. Kwon
wrote and illustrated Man-hee’s House, There Dangles a Spider, My Cat Copies
Me, Flower Grandma, and Pikaia.

list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014 25

 Excerpt

Flower Grandma
by Kwon Yoon-duck

26 list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014

 Flower Grandma
Kwon Yoon-duck
Sakyejul Publishing Ltd.
2010, 35p, ISBN 9788958284826

A few days later, a line of soldiers formed outside the door.

One of them came inside...and then he left. Then another came in, and left again.
She couldn't count how many of them came and went in one day.
What happened inside that little room?

Thirteen-year-old Flower Grandma's undergarments were stained with blood.

How did Flower Grandma survive through those days?

list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014 27

 Interview

The Man Who Loved Moebius

Novelist Choi Jae-hoon
Truth and falsity, fiction and reality, stories inside stories, and stories
outside stories all meet and are reconstructed in Choi Jae-hoon’s work. It 4
is both “stranger than fiction” and a smorgasbord of “too strange to be
false”-reality, storytelling, and imagination that goes beyond even the
wildest fiction.
Suh Heewon, “To sleep is to die, and to dream”

∞ Prologue
All types of love exist in the world. There are even people that are in
love with shoes, stockings, corpses, and baseball bats. Love operates
in mysterious ways, so it’s not surprising to meet a man in love with
Moebius. Or more accurately, a man in love with the Moebius strip.
Enthralled by the curious ribbon that is both many and one, one and
many (try cutting the strip laterally), Choi Jae-hoon’s writing resembles
the object of his love. That is to say, it is twisted. 1

Suh Heewon: You didn’t become a novelist right away. You majored
in business administration, but went on to study creative writing after
graduation, rather than work at a company. Then afterwards, you worked
3
at your alma mater on the administrative staff. Fast forward a few years,
you quit your job to devote more time to writing and then got your first
book published a year later. How did you come back to literature from the
brink of worldly success?

Choi Jae-hoon: I wasn’t very interested in fulfilling my own desires.

I thought, isn’t it enough to let life take its natural course? I could’ve just
been someone who liked reading, but my military service changed me. 2
I became more realistic about what I wanted to do, so to speak. Living a
highly controlled and disciplined lifestyle made me look back at my life
and desires. When I went back to school, I started reading more than
ever, mostly classics. I would make lists of books to read and kept my own 1. Baron Quirval’s Castle
Choi Jae-hoon
notes on them. Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd.
2010, 304p, ISBN 9788932020525

Suh: There’s a saying in Korea, “One becomes a man when he goes 2. From the Sleep of Babes
Choi Jae-hoon
to the army.” Going to the army is thought of as the first step to entering Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd.
the real world. You’ve said that you first experienced society in the army 2013, 372p, ISBN 9788932024578

and spent the time there reflecting on yourself. This must be the kind of 3. Seven Cat Eyes
Choi Jae-hoon
perspective that differentiates an artist. As someone who got his start in Jaeum & Moeum Publishing Co.
art through voracious reading, what books made an impression on you in 2011, 378p, ISBN 9788957075418
your youth? 4. Sept yeux de chats
Choi Jae-hoon
Editions Philippe Picquier
Choi: Like most people, I was strictly a reader at first. I thought 2014, 326p, ISBN 9782809709810

28 list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014

 Interview
writer Choi Jae-hoon and critic Suh Heewon
that writing was for people with a special gift. The book that
first made me think that I too could write was J.D. Salinger’s
Catcher in the Rye. I think there’s a kind of trigger in that book
that brings something out in the reader. I later learned that the
book is a favorite among assassins. I thought that was a striking
coincidence. You could say that that book assassinated my other
self, the me that was living peacefully, and the person I am now
survived to write books.
Suh: How did you begin your life as a writer?
Choi: I began learning about fiction and started writing in
earnest when I entered the creative writing department. But I had
very different ideas about writing from what we were taught. I
was an oddball. Remember, that was the era of Shin Kyung-sook,
Jo Kyung-ran, Ha Seong-nan. It was all about the descriptive
novel, and that was how we were told to write. I was more
interested in the fiction of writers like Baek Min-seok. When I
quit my job, I looked at my bank account and decided I could
do nothing but write and still live off my savings for two years.
So for one year, I just wrote. The next year, I began writing to
submit. “Baron Quirval’s Castle,” the first story I ever published,
was the first one I wrote after quitting my job. That was when I
wrote stories like “The Hidden Cases of Sherlock Holmes,” “Her
Knot,” and “Maria, You Know What, Maria.”
Suh: Since becoming an author, you’ve published a collection
of short stories and two novels. The reception you’ve received
from readers and critics has afforded you such prolificacy. You
don’t describe the psychological or situational in your writing,
but rely on the narrative at all costs, and this narrative has a
geometrical structure, or as you’ve call it, “odd.” How do you
plan your novels and work out your thought process?
Choi: I don’t have any special method, nothing very
different. When I have an idea I don’t write it up immediately. I
keep it in mind and turn it around in my head as much as I can.
I twist the narrative in different ways, do research, and focus
my thoughts. Sometimes I’ll cut everything up according to
30 list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014
"When I quit my job, I
looked at my bank account
and decided I could do
nothing but write and still live
off my savings for two years.
So for one year, I just wrote."
character and narrative thread. I line up everything in my head
and then put it all together again in a completely different way.
I only write after I’ve exhausted those possibilities.
Suh: You say it takes genius to immediately hash out
a story from an idea and that you’re hopelessly lazy and
talentless. But is there only one kind of genius? If there is such
a thing as genius by inspiration, then there must be such a
thing as genius by planning. Inspiration appears and vanishes
like a muse, but planning must look like a person who is dead
set on working through everything without fail. What kind of
blueprint do you use in your planning, then?
Choi: If I had to name a blueprint I would have to say, I
saw the etchings of Maurits Cornelis Escher when I was very
young. Then in university, I learned his name and was able to
properly view his works. What I saw was the static space that
was constantly in movement, the way life moves endlessly only
to come full circle, both perpetual motion and motion that
converges to nothingness. I’ve read that Escher worked in a
mathematical way to achieve this kind of space. So do I. The
critic Nam Jin-woo once wrote about me, “He paradoxically
creates chaos through the play of pushing the intellect.” That’s
the kind of world I want to depict. Chaos in differential
calculus, chaos in equilibrium, the infinite flickering of nature.
All of my characters stand in an Escherian space, so to speak.
Suh: Escherian space. The progress of a novel depends on
the narrative. Can there be a narrative of chaos, a labyrinth
without an exit? One of the greatest mazes known to man, the
labyrinth of Daedalus, was designed to imprison the half-man,
half-bull Minotaur. Ariadne ties a string to her lover, Theseus,
however, and helps him escape safely. Ariadne’s thread is
an excellent metaphor for narrative. Without narrative, the
sentences of a novel turn into a labyrinth. The reader is lost
and forgets what they have been reading. In that sense, there
can be fiction that is like a maze, but not fiction that is a maze
in itself. What is it that you want to achieve with fiction?
 Choi: I don’t think about conveying meaning through fiction. to offer it as a kind of salvation, so I had the main character get
When I was a child, I wanted to be an artist. I gave up that dream hit by a car and crucified, formulaic as that is. My goal was to
when I realized that dreams and talent aren’t the same thing. create a kind of portrait of the modern person. People are beings
What I’m doing is painting a kind of picture out of the narrative that deviate from the balance of nature. Man made God to
and the sentences. I want to show the reader a picture of the chaos compensate for the freedom and loneliness that comes with that
that’s the result of my thoughts. deviation. Religion is a gym for the soul, comfort for humans who
don’t have anything else to turn to. From the Sleep of Babes is the
Suh: A Moebius band-like narrative, multi-layered plot, culmination of my thoughts on these ideas written in narrative
multiple personalities, and closed circuit-like mazes are all form. Did you enjoy reading it?
elements that characterize your fiction and also ref lect your
experience as a Korean writer. Korea is the soil that nourished the ∞ Epilogue
boy that was impressed by Escher and turned him into the writer
Did I enjoy it? Before answering, I should elaborate on “Death
Choi Jae-hoon. What are your thoughts about being labeled a
and the Compass” by Borges. In the story, Detective Erik Lönnrot
Korean writer who writes from a Korean perspective?
chases Red Scharlach, a criminal who has sworn to kill him. The
brilliant Lönnrot interprets signs left by the killer, following crime
Choi: Korea moved towards a modern, democratic, capitalistic
scenes to get closer to the man committing the murders. Lönnrot
society in a very compressed time frame. The subsequent
figures out that the three murders were committed in times and
societal changes have been dramatic and cutthroat competition
places that correspond to a perfect triangle, and rushes to the
has become the norm. If things like our strength in IT or the
scene of the last crime. There he meets a waiting Scharlach and
Korean Wave are the positive manifestations of that energy, then
realizes that he has fallen into a trap. Sensing that the end is near,
the negative manifestations of that energy are how barren our
Lönnrot asks Scharlach to build him a different kind of labyrinth,
inner emotional lives are, our mindless pursuit of trends, our
should he ever hunt him again. The last sentence of the story is
humanitarian crisis. We didn’t have the time to acclimate to such
worth quoting:
change, to assign meaning to it. I think we should keep an eye
"The next time I kill you," said Scharlach "I promise you the
on how this will play out in the future. Korea could be the poster
labyrinth made of the single straight line which is invisible and
child for a future society where speed is everything.
everlasting."
Choi Jae-hoon is a Scharlach of our times. As the criminal
Suh: You count Seven Cat Eyes as your favorite work. It’s a
genius promised, his labyrinth is made with a straight line: an
novel composed of four connected stories, the writing is equally
invisible, everlasting labyrinth. The man’s love affair with the
eclectic. Can you tell me about it?
Moebius strip, that simplest yet most philosophical of complex
mazes, appears to be here to stay. The pain of his struggles,
Choi: When I wrote Seven Cat Eyes, my intent was to express
however, is no doubt a blessing for his readers.
everything that I had in my writing. To put my whole self into
the blender, turn it on, and see what happens. The result is 100 by Suh Heewon
percent Choi Jae-hoon juice, so to speak. (Laughs) People don’t
believe it when I say so, but I didn’t have a particular message
when writing this novel. I was more concerned with the feeling.
I’ve gotten a lot of questions about the title as well. I think, or
rather, what I feel, is that the number three means balance.
Three cats, six eyes. What’s the other eye, then? That eye is the
eye of balance, an outside perspective, or the perspective of the
unconscious. I looked at myself and my thoughts through that
perspective. Now I’d like to write about something that gets
under my skin from the outside, not something that comes out of
me.

Suh: I was intrigued by the last scene of your latest work,

From the Sleep of Babes. The narrative is divided into dreams
and reality; the character driving both narratives embarks on a
journey to solve a mystery, but the end waiting for him is his own
sudden death rather than a solution. Like Detective Erik Lönnrot
in the Borges story “Death and the Compass,” the protagonist
of From the Sleep of Babes rushes to the scene to solve a murder
mystery only to become the victim of a premeditated crime. What Choi Jae-hoon (b.1973) made his literary debut when he won the new
was it that you wanted to say with this ending? writer’s award from Literature and Society in 2007. His works include Baron
Quirval’s Castle, Seven Cat Eyes, and From the Sleep of Babes.
Choi: For me, the death itself was not important. I wanted

list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014 31

 Excerpt
Seven Cat Eyes
by Choi Jae-hoon
Recipe for Revenge
1
Schubert: String Quartet No.14 in D Minor, D.810, “Death
and the Maiden.” The Munch painting of the same name graces
the cover of the CD. The naked maiden and the skeleton man
kissing as they embrace each other. The maiden’s flesh glows
pink. Red tresses cascade down the supple curves of her back and
shoulders. Her demurely closed eyes seem to be fluttering. The
wan skeleton man looks pitifully frail next to the buxom maiden.
His bony claws can barely contain her sturdy waist. He tries to
retreat, pushing his hips awkwardly backward. The maiden has
thrown her sleek arms around his neck, however, and shows no
sign of letting go. Her plump breasts press firmly against his
bony ribcage.
The man flips the CD over to examine the back. He adds
up the time of all the movements, checking each carefully with
a latex-gloved fingertip. 38 minutes 28 seconds. He glances at
his watch and turns to look out the window. The clouds have
just parted to show the pale face of the crescent moon. That’s a
bit long…The man turns around, fanning himself with the CD.
Another man is lying down on the single bed pushed against the
wall. His posture is as unnatural as that of a corpse on a slab,
lying straight on his back facing the ceiling. A briefcase lies ajar
next to the pillow, showing the portable respiratory equipment
crammed inside. The tube connected to the aluminum oxygen
tank coils over the man’s chest and disappears inside his open
mouth. The f luorescent light glints in his pupils, drooping
eyelids giving them the appearance of being sliced in half.
“You like Schubert?”
The man slides the disk inside the portable CD player on
the desk without bothering to wait for an answer. He presses
play and the air fills with the sound of faint static. Majestic cello
strains signal the beginning of the first movement. The man
stands with his hands behind his back, listening to the string
quartet. He taps his left finger smartly in time with the music.
“There was also a movie called Death and the Maiden,
perhaps you’ve heard of it? A Roman Polanski movie starring
Sigourney Weaver. I think they called it The Truth in Korea.
Supposedly it was better for the box office that way. What kind
of title is that, though? …Stupid, really. No death, no maiden,
just the truth.”
The man comes over and plops down on the bed next to the
prone figure. The movement sends a tremor through the other
man’s body like a raft rocked by the waves.
“The movie is set in some South American country that just
became a democracy after years under a fascist regime. The main
character used to be a student activist and she has post traumatic
stress disorder now from all the torture she suffered. While
blindfolded, she was raped and subjected to electric shocks over
and over again by this torturer. He always put on Schubert’s
32 list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014
“Death and the Maiden” while he was doing it. They really did
that in South America, you know. The victims could never bear
that music afterwards, all their lives. Pavlovian reaction.”
The man fixes his eyes on the dark mildew stains in the
corner where two of the walls and the ceiling met.
“The regime was finally overthrown and she gets married to
another activist, a lawyer. Except she’s not over what happened
to her. She’s afraid to go anywhere and lives like a recluse in this
lonely house by the sea. I guess it would be surprising if she was
okay after all that. Anyway. There’s this terrible storm one day,
and her husband gets a ride home from this doctor because his
car broke down. The husband invites him in for a drink and she’s
in the bedroom, listening to them talking. You see where this is
going? Yes, she’s positive this doctor is the same guy who tortured
her. She never saw his face, but she recognizes his voice, the way
he talks, the sound of his laugh. What really cinches it is a tape
of “Death and the Maiden” in his car. Time for revenge. I never
miss a movie about revenge if I can help it.”
The speakers play on, the melody of the two violins zipping
across the small room as nimbly as a pond skater on water.
“She waits until he falls asleep to tie him up, and now it’s
her turn to interrogate him. Holding a gun to his head. She just
wants one thing: his confession. So poetic. But the doctor refuses
to acknowledge he did anything. He insists that he had nothing
to do with the military regime, that he was living abroad at the
time. The husband doesn’t know who to believe either, because
he knows his wife has a history of hysteria. So who’s telling the
truth? The “trial” goes on all night, but the doctor won’t admit
doing anything. She finally tells him he’s getting the death
penalty anyway and drags him to this cliff on the seaside. The
doctor is staring down at the waves crashing on the rocks at
the bottom of the cliff. The sun is coming up when he finally
confesses the truth. All of the atrocious things he did, the sweet
taste of power in the torture chamber, how much he missed it all.
Now we’re just waiting to see if she carries out the sentence. She
doesn’t say anything, just…lets him go.
“I don’t like this ending at all. The truth, what does that
change? I’m not saying it’s useless. I’m just saying it’s like a
painting in the museum. Like the "Mona Lisa," "Starry Night,"
"The Kiss"…It’s a beautiful thing, for sure. You go to see it and
experience the aura. Experience a little uplifting of the soul. Of
course it’s going to be plunged in the gutter as soon as you exit
the museum, but still. But scars are different. Scars are just for
you. They’re there to remind you to never forget how you got
this scar. She should have pushed the doctor off that cliff. It’s the
only thing to do. The only decent thing you can do for an old
friend like a scar.”
The man twists his head to look down at the other man lying
in a frozen position. A reflection of his face appears in the dry
pupils under half-open eyelids.
“You can’t move a muscle, can you? Or close your eyes. Don’t
worry. You’ve just had an injection of a muscle relaxant. It’s
used in surgery with anesthesia to cut the muscles off from the
nervous system. Much easier to cut and slice and dig around the
human body when the muscles are relaxed. You’re still conscious,
though, aren’t you? You can hear well, too. Why don’t you just
relax and enjoy the Schubert? I’m going to push you off the cliff
anyway when this masterpiece is over.”
 After a short pause, the second movement starts. A doleful
tune oozes over the f loor and wraps itself around the man’s
ankles.
“Andante con moto. Slowly, but with motion. 26 minutes,
58 seconds to go. In the meantime, let me tell you about myself.
I assume you want to know something about the person who’s
going to kill you, am I right? Don’t worry; I shan’t waste your
time with all the boring details.”
The man rolls up his left sleeve and shoves his arm in front of
the captive’s face. A long, jagged scar runs across it.
“See this? I’m just going to tell you about this scar.”
He rolls his sleeve back down and buttons the cuff.
“I was nine when I had my first seizure. I was thumbing
through The Brothers Karamazov at the bookstore. Dostoyevsky.
I was always a precocious child. Now that I think back, that
precociousness was my body setting up a defense mechanism
of sorts. I had to learn how the world works earlier than others.
Anyway, I was holding that book in my hand when I lost
consciousness, and when I woke up I was in the emergency
room. They said the ambulance crew brought me there because I
suddenly collapsed and was having a seizure. I had nine stitches
above my right eyebrow where I fell and banged my head on the
corner of the bookcase. I was still in a daze. The confusing part
was my mother’s reaction. She didn’t say a word, not when we
were listening to the doctor’s explanation, not on the way home
while she held me by the hand. I remember I was touching the
bandage on my forehead, and I looked up and saw the sad lines
around her mouth.
“I learned the reason that evening. Mother sat me and
my younger sister down and explained what had happened to
Father. He choked to death on his own vomit because he had an
epileptic attack when he was home alone. Not because of carbon
monoxide poisoning from a coal heating briquette, like she had
told us before. We just nodded. It didn’t change the fact that he
was dead, anyway. But we kept quiet because Mother was being
so serious. There were no funny questions when she started
giving first-aid instructions. Lay him on his side so the spittle
doesn’t go down his throat, clear the area of any dangerous
objects, loosen any buttons or belts or tight clothing, stay by
his side until the seizures stop, etc., etc. And she made my sister
promise to never leave my side when she wasn’t home to watch
me. My sister just pouted. Mother was away almost every day
because she cleaned houses.
“Actually it’s quite rare to die of an epileptic attack. That’s
exactly what happened to Mother with Father, though, so it’s
understandable that she was so vigilant about it. The sight of me
must have been a living reminder of her husband left alone in his
room, choking to death, and all the guilt she carried afterwards
for that. Which became my sister’s to carry from then on. Once
she came home from work early and found me alone in the
house. It was bad luck that my sister had chosen that day to go
play with her friends. Mother used the bamboo duster on her
calves until they were black and blue and kicked her out of the
house. On a snowy day, without any proper clothes. I lay on my
stomach reading Notes from Underground and I heard her crying
from outside the window. Mommy, I’m sorry, Mommy, I’m
sorry, Mommy…
“My sister and I are fraternal twins, born on the same day to
the hour. But we were different from each other. A lot different.
She was always laughing, good with people—she and Mother
could be fighting one minute and she could have her laughing
the next—she was passionate about the normal teenage things,
like boy bands, and she would always try out new things even
if she didn’t have the patience to finish them…She was born
to light up a room wherever she went. It helped that she was
a beauty, unlike me. Grandmother Samshin must have had a
cataract in one eye when she was blessing us. She gave all the
good stuff to my sister, and all the crappy stuff to me. Stuff like
epilepsy.”
The man taps his foot in time with the rhythm of the music,
checks the digital screen of the player for the time elapsed.
“Mother’s first-aid lesson turned out to be handy. For some
reason, I was always having seizures when it was just the two of
us at home. It made her quite protective of me. I could be eating
dinner, watching TV, having a bath…and I’d go out like a light,
just like that. Like a fuse blowing out. And when I came to my
senses there she would be, looking down at me with her clear
eyes. She’d smile and say, "Hi there." Those words were like a
message of rebirth to me. That I had a new fuse, that it wasn’t
my time yet. She looked like a saint to me, with the halo of the
fluorescent lamp hanging on the ceiling above her head. She
was so dazzling it hurt my eyes to look at her. I would be lying
there on the ground, twitching like a bug somebody stepped on,
and she would be sitting there quietly, watching her other half
foaming at the mouth, eyes rolling back into his head, limbs
flailing, shitting his pants when he lost control of his sphincter. I
wonder what she thought of it all?
“I’m sure she must have had her share of complaints. She
was just a kid who should’ve been hanging out with her friends,
and she was stuck at home all day because of me. My guardian
angel from the day we were born. I was thankful for her, and I
felt sorry for her. But there was always something dark and sticky
lurking under the surface of my human feelings. Spreading like
some cancerous growth, taking over my entire body…Oh, I
knew him well.”
The man gazes at the cover of the CD. The maiden’s arm
seems to tighten around the skeleton man’s neck, choking him. A
glimpse of fear wells up in his dark, empty sockets. [……]
translated by Cho Yoonna
Seven Cat Eyes
Choi Jae-hoon
Jaeum & Moeum Publishing Co.
2011, 378p, ISBN 9788957075418
list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014 33
Reviews Fiction

Prodigal Son Returns

The Man at the Tip of the Tongue
Baek Min-seok
Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd.
2013, 256 p, ISBN 9788932024684

Author

“I saw God on the tip of my tongue.
God was walking in silence with his
hair on fire.
God did not look like any man that I
knew. Nobody I knew had flaming hair
like his. Nobody walked on the tip of
tongues bearing fire on their head.
Never had I met anyone who walked
in such absolute silence as God. No one
had hair that burned so perfectly.”
(“The Man on the Tip of the
Tongue”)
Baek Min-seok ’s collection of short
stories, The Man on the Tip of the Tongue,
feels like the mature confession of a
prodigal son who has put his wild, young
ways behind him. Out of the nine stories
in the collection, this is particularly true
of the title story. "The Man on the Tip
of the Tongue" tells the story of god and
man. It is not the story of an almighty
indebted to Baek, but most of them
have merely served to point out how
irreplaceable of an author Baek Min-
seok is. For this reason, his most recent
collection has been hailed by many as
his “release.”
At first glance, “The Man on the Tip
of the Tongue” reads like a travelogue
of India, but the scope of exploration
represented transcends the boundaries
of earthly countries. Pursuing the dry
record of grotesque landscapes, the
reader soon realizes that this world,
seething with silent desires, is none
other than purgatory. The story is an
exploration of that old sanctum of
anthropology, the desire towards deities.
A lso included in the collection
is a story called “The Emoticons of
Love and Hate.” Call it an apology
for disappearing and not writing for
10 years, but Baek's use of emoticons
expressed emotions as evolved as (^(oo)^)
or (∼.^).
Perhaps it would be too much to
call this the literary sublimation of the
despair and hatred he experienced as
an author during the time of his self-
imposed retirement, compounded by
illness and death in his family, as well
as a long battle with depression, but it is
definitely a jocose example of how a once
frighteningly serious author has begun
to include humor and wit in his arsenal.
Ot her storie s in t he col lec t ion
include the familiar landscape of slums
from the author’s childhood in “The
Birth of Violence,” as well as unusual
situations inserted into ordinary life to
surreal effect in “Nineteen-Eighties-Style
Barricade” and “A Just, Eternal, and All-
encompassing Peace.”
by Uh Soo-woong

god rescuing helpless men, however, but
of a fake god created by men and the
men that are rescued by that fake god.
This collection marks the return of
the prodigal son of the Korean literary
world, Baek Min-seok, after 10 years of
silence. During those years, enormous
changes have come to pass in the world
and countless stories have been written,
but the general consensus is that few
have succeeded in replacing Baek Min-
seok’s singular brand of subversion. Since
the 1990s, many novelists have written
works that are directly or indirectly
(read horizontally, as is Korean practice)
may well hold up as an example of 21st
century writing. The author certainly
makes use of digital parlance f luently
in this story. It is revealed that he was
once incapable of expressing emotions
other than those of joy, anger, sadness,
and pleasure as expressed by the most
basic emoticons: >.< -.,- ㅜ.ㅜ ^.^.
But then he experienced a numbing of
emotions that made it difficult for him
to make faces other than the most basic
expression of: •.•. It caused him much
despair that readers around him freely

list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014 39

Author
Author
 Reviews Fiction

Award-winning Stories Collected

The Taste of Summer
Ha Seong-nan
Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd.
2013, 368p, ISBN 9788932024493
Three out of the 10 stories included in Ha
Seong-nan’s collection of short stories, The
Taste of Summer, are major literary award-
winning pieces. Ha Seong-nan is a leading
Korean writer, representative of Korean
aesthetics in literary short fiction.
Including the award-winning pieces,
the stories that appear in this collection
share several motifs. The first noticeable
motif is the existence of an economically
incapable head of household. “The Time of
Alpha,” “Rhetorical Expressions from that
Summer,” and “April Fools’ Day in 1968”
are good examples of this first motif,
along with “Needless to Mention a Pig.”
In “The Time of Alpha,” a father quits his
teaching job and idly wanders the entire
country, supposedly to run a new business,
and in “Rhetorical Expressions from that
Summer,” a father leaves his family for a
small town in the country and opens a
store there. After his family experiences an
emergency, they go to see him at his store
in the small town and observe their father
alone while he boils summer potatoes on a
small stove.
Another motif is the doppelgänger.
This motif is used effectively in “The
Story of Two Women” to depict the main
character’s compassion and guilt about the
May 1980 uprising in the southern city of
Gwangju, as well as in “Why Did She Go
to Suncheon?” in order to bring attention
to social problems such as kidnapping and
human trafficking.
The final motif is food: peaches in the
title story; curry in “Curry on the Border”;
and pork belly in “Needless to Mention
a Pig.” Food is also a reference point for
subtle but clever wit hiding throughout
this collection of stories.
by Choi Jae-bong

Author
Author

Struggling with Faith and Love

Blue, High Ladder
Gong Ji-young
Hankyoreh Publishing Company
2013, 376p, ISBN 9788984317475
Blue, High Ladder is the newly released
novel by popular Korean writer, Gong
Ji-young, published four years after she
released The Crucible (2009). The Crucible
deals with the horrible sexual assault
of menta lly disabled young students
committed by their teachers, and the
conspiracy and solidarity of a self-serving
group to conceal their crime. The Crucible
was made into a film and caused quite a
stir in Korean society.
The main character in Blue, High
Ladder is Jung Yohan, a young Catholic
monk who has finished theological school
and lives in a monastery. Jung begins
questioning and experiencing internal
conflicts when his soul is stirred by the
appearance of an attractive woman, Sohee.
His fellow monk, who espouses and applies
religion in social situations, inf luences
him wit h numerous idea s about t he
fundamental goal of religion in relation to
current Korean society.
Through Yohan’s struggle between
religion and earthly love, the author deals
with weighty topics, including religion and
reality, death and redemption. As Yohan
repeatedly experiences death and loss,
which are difficult for him to understand,
he often raises the question “Why, Lord?”
In the story, the suggested answer to this
question is, “Love means to love even that
which does not reciprocate!” This nihilistic
answer is Gong Ji-young’s own voice, a
result of her long-standing humanistic and
religious conflicts from having returned to
her Catholic roots.
by Choi Jae-bong

list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014 41

 Reviews Fiction
Unlived Memories
Then What Shall We Sing?
Bak Solmay, Jaeum & Moeum Publishing Co.
2014, 260p, ISBN 9788957077931
Author
Dystopia after Death
Incense
Paik Gahuim, Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd.
2013, 255p, ISBN 9788932024554
In author Paik Gahuim’s fantasy novel,
Incense, death does not end suffering. Life
goes on in a forest called Nemus, and
people continue to be selfish and cruel,
unaware that they are dead. An intense
exploration of sin, death, and redemption,
Incense is an illuminating account of some
of the darkest of human experiences: rape,
murder, and revenge.
Highly flawed and troubled characters
fill the narrative, including an exploited
prostitute from Amsterdam, a corrupt
Korean politician, a Korean pedophile,
and an Englishman who constantly suffers
from traumatic childhood memories.
They form a rather dysfunctional, and
later, almost vicious community, where
the cruel continue to torment and the
tormented continue to suffer. For those
who are not aware that they are dead,
there is no motivation to change. It is like
42 list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014
None of us have memories of the time mother is Korean and father is American.
before we are born. Yet emerging Korean The other is a Japanese man in his 60s
author Bak Solmay’s first collection of who runs a bar in Kyoto.
short stories, Then What Shall We Sing?, is Then What Shall We Sing? is one of
a unique effort to remember those times, the most unique literary approaches to
including a traumatic event which involves the Gwangju Massacre to date, as well as
a massacre. a compelling tale of self-discovery and
T he collection is comprised of a identity. Though she writes about her
total of seven stories, but its title story is own hometown, Bak manages to explore
arguably the most important. Bak was a rather universal theme: the meaning of
born in Gwangju in 1985, five years after learning about the time before we were
the Gwangju Massacre took place in May born–our history–however tragic and
1980. The protagonist is essentially Bak’s foreign it may be.
stand-in; the young woman was born and
raised in Gwangju, but didn’t witness by Claire Lee
the massacre of the approximately 200
pro-democracy demonstrators by former
President Chun Doo-hwan’s militar y
regime.
The stor y revolves a round her
encounters with non-Koreans in Berkeley,
California and Kyoto, Japan, who are
somehow aware of what happened in
Gwangju in 1980. One of the people she
meets is a woman named Hannah, whose
Author
the endless Samsara, except there is no
Nirvana. Life after death-you are just
who you are and the same problems and
agonies continue, with no end.
In its haunting meditation on salvation
a nd s acr i f ic e, In ce n se a l so i nc lude s
references to the Bible, especially the
Messiah. Paik’s characters–some cruel,
some foolish, some beautiful, and all blind
to their fate–bring to mind the dying
words of Jesus in his hour of suffering on
the cross: “Father, forgive them for they
know not what they do.”
The novel’s original Korean title,
Hyang, is a homonym for “incense” and
“direction.” Both meanings complement
the riveting, complex narrative, which
re volves a rou nd repeated deat h a nd
m i s t a k e s , obl i v ion, a nd c h a r a c t e r s
lost in d irect ion, bot h litera l ly a nd
metaphorically.
by Claire Lee
 Reviews Fiction

Violence Carries On
The Barbaric Miss Alice Someone walks precariously across the
Hwang Jeong-eun flat ground, as if they were climbing up
Munhakdongne Publishing Corp. a steep hill. Meet “Alicia,” a homeless
2013, 164p, ISBN 9788954622745
transwoman. The stench of her body
odor clings unattractively to our nasal
membranes. Alicia, however, does not care
for anything as trifling as our well-being.
The character of A licia was born
after the author caught a glimpse of a
transwoman in Osaka, Japan. The mere
image of her back was so powerful that the
author was inspired to create a compelling
character that tries and fails to escape from
“the focus of violence.”
The village of Gomori is A licia’s
childhood home. The greatest concern
of the villagers, including Alicia’s father,
is to make sure they are compensated for
the redevelopment projects set in their
neighborhood. It is a place where ginkgo
trees grow thick in soil enriched by the
entrails and bones of dogs butchered for
meat.
It is in t his biz a rre a nd desolate
environment that Alicia and her beloved
younger brother are raised by violence.
The siblings are exposed every day to
the violence of their own mother, which
is “ like heated steel, hot a nd strong
enough to change the temperature of its
surroundings.” Then there is the secondary
violence of their father and neighbors who
turn a blind eye to their mother’s abuse.
Alicia’s brother’s attempt to escape violence
results in the discovery of the boy’s corpse.
Later, an adult Alicia sees her mother’s
face reflected in her own. Like the bedtime
stories she once told her brother of a young
boy named Alice who had fallen down a
bottomless rabbit hole, the siblings cannot
escape from the circle of violence.
“How far have you come?” the narrator
repeatedly asks throughout the story. The
question is all the more chilling as we try
to recall whether we too have turned away
from the inconvenient stench of violence,
enabling violence by our tacit withdrawal.
by Jung Seo Rin

Author
Author

Who Dares to Condemn Her?

Punch
Lee Jaechan, Minumsa
2013, 256p, ISBN 9788937488238
“I’m a 5.”
Thus begins the f irst sentence of
L e e Ja e c h a n’s nove l, P u n c h, ne at ly
encapsulating the protagonist’s coolly
succinct grasp of reality. In Punch, the
rating of 5 is the lowest on a scale of 1 to 5
when it comes to assessing a person.
The 18 -yea r-old na rrator, a high
school girl facing university entrance
exams, is all too aware that one’s place
in society is determined by the painfully
shallow standards of going to elite schools,
having money, and being pretty. So she
nonchalantly tells herself she is “forever
cursed to bear the shame of being a 5,
from brains to looks.”
To the protagonist, her home, school,
a nd societ y a re places f low ing w it h
invisible blood, best summed up in words
like violence, oppression, hypocrisy, and
absurdity. Somehow, we silently applaud the “punch”
Her lawyer father lines his pockets in she throws toward the indifference of
exchange for covering up the corruption of society that we have long since learned to
the elite. Her mother tries hard to fix her accept.
so-called defective daughter, who is neither
a good student nor a beauty. Her parents’ by Jung Seo Rin
religion has long forsaken the command
to love thy neighbor, being too occupied
with satisfying their own greed. Utterly
torn to pieces by the standards of society,
the protagonist decides to leave her parents
in shreds as well; she hires a hit man to kill
them.
Pa r r ic ide , mu rder for h i re — t he
theme is a heavy invitation into an abyss.
Nevertheless, Lee consistently steers the
narrative toward the cheerful, with vivid
images and rhythmic sentences, befitting a
novelist whose first foray into writing was
as a scriptwriter.
While the teen’s methods are shocking,
she feels no guilt, anxiety, or confusion.
Still, the reader cannot possibly condemn
her in the name of ethics or mora ls.

list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014 43

 Reviews Fiction
Truth Is Subjective
Stranger than Paradise
Lee Jangwook, Minumsa, 2013, 276p
ISBN 9788937473043
Author
Our Neighbors, Ourselves
The Well-being of My Neighbor
Pyo Myoung-hee, Kang Publishing Ltd.
2014, 251p, ISBN 9788982181887
The Well - being of My Neighbor i s a
collection of seven short stories that
ref lects how one is mirrored by one’s
neig hbors. Aut hor P yo Myoung-
hee suggests that in a contemporar y
society where everyone has resorted to
individualism, one can eventually discover
his or her true self based on the nature
of their tenuous connection to their
neighbors. The protagonists in each of
the stories endure their hardships while
living mostly in solitude. In a sense, they
live absolutely isolated lives. However,
they begin to examine themselves through
their encounters with their neighbors and
subsequently contemplate what it means
to be a neighbor. It is moving to read the
passages where a character, accustomed to
isolated city living, makes a connection,
albeit weak and fragile, with a neighbor.
In the title story, “The Well-being of
44 list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014
a clear-cut picture. Author Lee Jangwook
constructed the narrative by telling it
from the perspective of each character:
first Kim, then Choi, and finally Jeong.
The strange questions that arise from each
The novel Stranger than Paradise offers
person’s viewpoint overlap as their stories
a unique narrative structure with each
unravel. Readers will have a hard time
character’s point of view accessible to the
figuring out whose recollection comes
reader. The book reads like a road trip
closest to the truth. In actuality, it does not
movie telling the story of two men and a
matter whether or not each individual’s
woman traveling in a car.
story is correct since every recollection and
K im a nd Choi a re t he t wo ma le
testimony has, in its own way, a kernel of
characters and Jeong is Kim’s wife. They
truth.
all attended the same university and are
There is a t wist at the end of the
on their way to attend the funeral of their
novel, which overrides all the testimonies:
mutual female friend, “A,” who was a
there was a camera observing them the
fellow member of the film club during
whole time. Like the viewf inder of a
their college days. While they are traveling
camera suspended overhead by a crane,
to the small, provincial town for her
it completely alters the perspective of the
funeral, each of them reminisces about A,
three characters.
ref lecting on things that had happened
between them. All three had once loved by Kim Young-burn
A, but each has a bitter memory of their
love not coming to fruition. They all think
they know A, yet when they share their
stories about her, their recollections vary.
In fact, even their views on the events that
take place during their trip are completely
different.
Stranger than Paradise does not provide
Author
My Neighbor,” Bin, the protagonist, is a a kind of family and evaluate my own life
college lecturer who is barely able to eke accordingly.”
out a living. He lives alone on the second
by Kim Young-burn
floor of a multiplex apartment building.
Bin is ver y sensitive to air pollution
because he has a weak respiratory system.
In the end, it is none other than cigarette
smoke that eventually connects him with
his neighbor. One day Bin finds himself
subject to severe discomfort because of the
smoke seeping through the pipes on his
balcony. The unbearable cigarette smoke
reminds Bin of his frequently stolen mail,
and he begins to suspect the man who
lives below him as the possible culprit.
Bin rummages through his neighbor’s
mail in order to learn more about him and
through this initial suspicion, Bin gets to
know his neighbor.
The author states, “Your neighbors are
the people most closely linked to your life.
Therefore, their problems can become the
mirror with which we can examine our
own lives. Because I live alone, I view my
neighbors in our communal residence as
Spotlight on Fiction

The Gaze at
Broad Daylight
(Excerpt)
a story by Lee Seung-U
translated by Paul Jonghan Yoon

The Gaze at Broad Daylight
1 for various reasons—meteorological, sociological, or other
“Here, then, is where people come to live; I’d have thought
it more a place to die in.” Malte Laurids Brigge begins his
notebook with this sentence. This young man—sickly, lonely,
impoverished, and hypersensitive to memories of the past—
smells the air of anxiety and death in this alien city only three
weeks after he arrives. That this city, where people came to
die, was none other than Paris is a sentiment that is not easy to
understand, even considering the fact that this writing dates
back about a hundred years. After all, it is said that Paris is
where the concept of “taking a walk” was invented. If it was
a good place to go for a walk, one could also presume that it
must have also been a good city to live in. I wonder if Rilke
had heard of Varanasi, the place where pilgrims come to die.
It is Varanasi, not Paris, where men come to die. As the saying
goes, birds go to Peru to die and men, the Ganges.
Romaine Gary treated the suicidal phenomenon of a huge
flock of birds flying to Peruvian seashores to die as a mystery.
Gary wrote, “The birds whose blood was beginning to get
cold and had just enough strength to fly, came to Peru and
threw themselves at the seashore.” Here he was implicitly
comparing Peruvian beaches to the Ganges River—as if birds
had a yearning for a holy place. About forty years after his
novel was published (Birds Go to Peru to Die was published in
1962), an author in Korea wrote a paper criticizing Romaine
Gary's lack of meteorological knowledge. It was Han Seung-
Won, the "writer of the ocean," who claimed that Romaine
Gary wrote it that way because he did not know about the El
Niño phenomenon, a phenomenon that occurs when ocean
water warms up. According to Han, birds came to Peruvian
seashores and died, not because it was a holy land for birds, i.e.,
a Varanasi for birds, so to speak, but rather, it was simply due
to the lack of availability of plankton caused by El Niño, which
prevented anchovies from coming to Peruvian sea. The birds
flew to Peruvian seashores to live, to feed on anchovies, not to
die. However, there weren’t any anchovies in the area, so they
weren’t able to live and ended up starving to death.
46 list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014
If Malte had known about Han’s criticism of Romaine
Gary (this is not possible as Rainer Maria Rilke, who used
Malte as his voice, died in 1926 and Han Seung-Won was
born in 1939), perhaps he may have revised the first sentence
in his notebook. That is, people came to the city to live, but
reasons—they died because they just couldn’t survive.
Regardless, I believe that he would not have revised
his first sentence anyway. In his notebook, Malte was not
describing the city’s external landscape but projecting his
inner world onto it. What we can read and understand from
his notebook is not the physical landscape of the city but his
inner universe. When you are depressed, the world loses light.
The depression inside you swallows up the light in the outside
world. In this case, the inner depression is like a black and
white photocopying machine. No painting—no matter how
colorful and brilliant their colors are—can retain its original
hue and brightness once they go through such a machine. It
can only come out vague and drab. Malte sees the landscape
of the city and its pedestrians through the “internal black and
white photocopying machine” inside him. This is why I believe
that Malte would not have changed his first sentence. He is not
interested in meteorological science. On this, Malte is clearly
on Romaine Gary’s side, not on the side of Han Seung-Won.
I arrived at midnight in this small city of thirty thousand
people located near the cease-fire line. I arrived on the last
bus to the city that day. The bus, which had been carrying
passengers back and forth on the same road for the whole day,
looked like an exhausted camel, and the driver, a hump on
the camel’s back. It was hot inside the bus and the air, mixed
with various unknown smells and giving off strangely repulsive
odors, wasn’t circulating. There were six passengers on the
bus, four of whom were soldiers. They were returning to the
base after a brief vacation. They all had different ranks but
the same grim expressions on their faces. The higher ranking
soldier pushed the chair back low, flung himself against the
chair, and closed his eyes as soon as he got on the bus; the
private made rustling sounds while tearing open the plastic
wrapping of a pastry. The two other soldiers kept gazing into
the darkness outside the window. I became curious about
what it was that they were staring at. I wondered if they were
looking at anything at all. I have no doubt there was something
worth looking at, even in the darkness. Darkness is always
hiding something within itself. Darkness is dark because it
has something to protect. However, it didn’t appear that the
soldiers’ eyes were focused on anything specific. The grim and
rigid expressions on their faces invoked an anxiety in me as I
was heading in the same direction as they were. Invoke! I was
startled by this word that I had invoked from my subconscious
self. That I “invoked” it suggested that it had been crouching
within me all along. That which is invoked had been waiting
to be invoked, laying dormant until invoked by another.
Because it has been waiting, it responds immediately, even to
the slightest act of invocation. You could also say that anxiety
stems from the anxiety of not being invoked by someone else.
In order to suppress my anxiety, I called out to the soldiers
on the other side and asked, "How long does it take?" The
soldiers who were gazing outside the window did not respond.
I thought about calling to them again, but feeling embarrassed,
decided against it. A man with a tanned face sitting behind
them answered instead, informing me that it would take about
an hour and a half. The truth is that I already knew how long it
would take. Before I got on the bus, I had searched the Internet
and learned that it took anywhere from two hours and ten
minutes to two hours and thirty minutes. The time between
buses was an hour and thirty minutes, so if you missed a bus,
you had to wait for an hour and thirty minutes. The last bus
left at eight thirty. I had also read about local specialty foods
and tourist spots and gleaned some more information, but
could only remember that there were commercial passenger
boats close by and many military posts around the area. Not
far from them, there was also a secret military underground
tunnel from North Korea that had been discovered.
A disconcerting silence pervaded the bus. Only the sound
of the engine, like the groaning of a tired camel, stirred the
surface of the silence. Exhaust, emitted from the bus as it ran
up the hill, slipped inside the bus. The unexhausted carbon
monoxide and nitrogen gas mixed with the stench in the air
and made my stomach turn and made me feel nauseous. I
didn't have anything to eat, but did not expect to get carsick.
Trying to swallow the acid coming up from the stomach,
I started pressing my head with my fingers. Then the first
sentence from Malte's notebook flashed in my mind like an
inauspicious omen. Was I going to this place to live or to die?
[. . .]
3
Unexpectedly, my days at the country house were surprisingly
satisfying. I spent most of my time reading books in my
room. Mother thought I might be bored and told me to visit
Seoul once in a while and meet some friends, but her fear was
unfounded. I did not much care to meet friends, not even P.
Sometimes I would spend the whole day going back and forth
between my study and the living room, just lounging. I would
start reading a book lying on my back on the floor, roll over
and lie on my side, then after a while, turn around and sit
down…and then lie on my back, roll over again, and so on.
I would travel across all the rooms in the house that way. If I
felt like sleeping after reading for a while, I just went to sleep
without hesitation. Once in a while, I went out for a walk. The
scent of pine nut trees was mellow and balmy. The wind gently
stroked the trees and grass like a large caressing hand and the
birds sang in difference voices. The birds sang differently in the
morning than at dusk. At sunset, I saw a grey rabbit that was
hopping around, as if it were being careful not to scratch the
grass. I crouched down low and stayed still so that I wouldn’t
scare it away. The nervous rabbit pricked its ears and stared at
the big animal with suspicion. Then he quickly ran away and
disappeared into the forest.
Once in a while, I ventured a little deeper into the forest.
The scent emanating from the forest and grass covering
the mountain made my body feel infinitely light; I felt my
weightless body floating in the air. When I was in the forest,
I could really feel the connection between all of the organs of
the human body. I was even beginning to think that if I were
exposed to the spirit of the forest for a long time, I might even
be able to perform magic.
Though she had promised, my mother did not visit often.
She was busy and I also told her that she did not have to come
around a lot. Then again, considering that she was not the
kind of person who would listen to me, the truth is, it was
probably more because she was busy. At first, the housekeeper
came every day to cook meals and clean the house. Three days
in, she starting coming just once every three days. For both
cooking and cleaning, this was sufficient. Since I lived alone,
there wasn't much dust to clean and the house remained tidy
for several days without much effort. Also, it wasn’t really
necessary to prepare food for one person every day.
list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014 47
 P called me often though. She wanted to visit me, but I
forbade her from visiting, on the grounds that my disease was
contagious.
I also told her, “It would be prudent for you not to contact
me for a while. That’s why I’m here to begin with. I’ve been
quarantined. Do you think I’m here for vacation?”
Every time I said this to her, I felt guilty. Whatever the
reason, I was feeling an inexplicable sense of happiness in
this place. It was true that tuberculosis was contagious, so
I wasn’t lying to her—at least not technically. I just didn’t
want her to suddenly show up and disrupt this new peace I
was experiencing, perhaps for the first time in my life. I even
thought that it was good that tuberculosis was contagious.
It was not like I was tired of her and didn’t want to see her
any more. It was just that, for the first time in my life, I was
alone with nature. Until then, I had never been completely
alone; I had never not been surrounded by people. Until I
came to the forest, I wasn’t even aware of the fact that I had
never been alone. Perhaps, then, it was natural that I had
never felt a need to be alone. In many cases, you do not want
what you need because you do not know that you need it.
Ironically, you realize that you actually needed it only when
the unwanted need has been accidentally fulfilled. We live our
lives not really understanding what it is that we truly need.
This is absurd, of course. However, this is how it is with most
people. For example, when your lover leaves you, you suddenly
find yourself in need of something that you didn’t realize that
you needed when she was with you. Sometimes you come to
understand something that you did not when you were able to
sleep only when you become unable to sleep. Sometimes you
come to understand things in your old age that you did not
understand in your youth. It is a contradiction, but unless you
realize that you need it, you cannot really want it. That is what
I mean when I say you can’t help it. In any case, for the first
time in my life, I was absorbed in my inner world of silence
and solitude, living in a strangely inexplicable happiness. For
me, it was an exceptional experience.
However, this happiness did not last long. One day, a
stranger knocked at my door. He lived in one of the other five
identical-looking condominiums. He said he had noticed that
my house lights were on. Since the house had previously been
vacant, he realized that a new tenant had moved in and just
came by to say hello. He also handed me a pack of toilet paper
48 list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014
as a housewarming gift. Then, although I did not really intend
to ask him in, since he had already entered the foyer, I offered
him some coffee. I thought it would be rude of me to send
away a neighbor who came to welcome me, especially when he
went to the trouble of bringing me a housewarming gift.
He was a retired college professor. His field was psychology
and he lived with his wife. He had moved here right after his
retirement. He also told me that his wife was in bad health and
had trouble moving around. He was taking care of his ailing
wife, as she was essentially just waiting for her death. After
introducing himself like this, he asked me why a young man
like me was living here alone. I could’ve been offended, since
he was basically implying that this was the kind of place where
only old people came to live, but I didn’t mind. Also, his "I’ve
told you my story so why don’t you tell me yours" attitude
didn’t bother me, because I was familiar with this customary
practice. We usually do not talk about ourselves unless we’re
confident that the other is willing to talk about himself. In
some cases, we tell our stories first, even if the other person
doesn’t particularly want to hear it, in order to make the other
person tell their story, which we want to hear. Like most things
in our lives, the terms of trade govern our conversations. I told
him that that I was a graduate student, but my health was in
bad condition, so I was taking a leave of absence from school. I
also told him that it was my mother who had bought the land,
which was basically a wasteland before, built country homes
on it, and then sold them for profit. The retired professor was
nodding for some mysterious reason, but I didn’t care much to
know why.
Then he asked me, “How about your father?” as if it were
the next natural question to ask. Of course, there was no order
for questions like these.
“I don’t have one,” I said immediately.
The conversation was supposed to go in a different
direction from there. That’s what usually happened. When I
told people that I did not have a father, they usually didn’t ask
about him again. Although it wasn’t necessary, some would
even say they were sorry to have asked the question. In any
case, the conversation would stop there and a new conversation
would begin. However, the retired professor was different than
most people.
“When did he pass away?” he asked.
He assumed that my father was deceased and was asking
me when he died. Smiling, I retorted that I had not said that
he was dead; I said I didn’t have one. Then, looking straight
into my eyes, the old professor said bluntly “If you say you
don’t have a father, it must mean that he has passed away.”
Feeling defiant, I said “Isn’t it also possible that my parents
could be divorced?”
“That is not the same thing as not having one,” he replied.
I had a feeling that the conversation would not go smoothly
from here.
“If he isn’t around, it’s basically the same thing, isn’t it?” I
blurted out, expecting an immediate objection.
As expected, he objected. “If you say you don’t have a
father, it means he does not exist. It doesn’t matter if he is here
or far away. It can still only mean that he does not exist. It’s
illogical for you to say what exists does not exist. The principle
that applies to physical distance also applies to human
relationships. What is here exists. What is far away also exists.
Furthermore, there is a truth that no one can deny, and cannot
be denied under any circumstance, and that is the existence
of a father. That is what a father is. Let me clarify again. A
father does not cease to exist unless he dies. In certain cases, he
continues to exist even after his death.”
The old professor’s logic seemed to make sense but I did
not think he understood how I felt when I talked about my
father. Then again, logic and feeling are two different mental
activities. Should I have said I didn’t care whether he existed
or not? I thought I might have expressed my feelings better
that way. Actually, even that was not a satisfying answer either.
I finally thought that it would be better to say, "It’s not that
I don’t have a father, but I do not have a concept of one." So,
after taking some time to think, that’s what I said, as if it were
an excuse.
He stared at me with a pitiful look for a while and replied, “It
is probably your father’s attention that you don’t have, not the
concept.” Then he added, “If that were true, your father did
not die. He was murdered in your mind.”
At that moment, I panicked. I realized that the old man
was leading me astray in the conversation; I was being dragged
along and led off track like a fool, though I didn’t know why
he was doing this to me. I was suspicious of him for being so
aggressive but I didn’t have the composure to confront him for
his aggressiveness. I didn’t know how to express my feelings of
discomfort and I was unsure whether it was better to express
myself or not, and this made me angry.
The old neighbor must have also realized that our
conversation had gone astray, or at least he sensed that he had
finally managed to anger his host, so he laughed and said
reproachfully, “This is why you shouldn’t stay at a teaching job
too long. I can understand why they call it an occupational
hazard.” Then he stood up to leave.
“Thanks for the coffee. Let’s talk again.” Then he left. He
even waved as he was leaving. His visit was no ordinary event,
but I tried to ignore it. But, as if my heart had been pricked
by a needle, my conscience was feeling pained. This was proof
that I wouldn’t be able to ignore this event, even if I tried.
The next morning I was taking a walk through the forest
and realized that there was anxiety in my heart that was
disrupting my peace. It was as if it was forcing my mind
outwards, which was stepping backward in disbelief as if
scolding, "You still don't understand this?" And then strange
things started to happen.
That day, I saw a naked man walking in the forest. He
strolled along, aglow with the reddish rays of the setting sun
cascading through the long branches of trees. It was not dark
enough yet in the forest to mistake him for a wild animal, and
it was also very evident that he was walking upright. Although
it was unusual, I didn’t pay too much attention to this at first,
for I had run into people taking a walk in the forest before.
Nevertheless, I didn’t want to face any unnecessary trouble and
changed my usual course, but somehow I ended up seeing him
again. This time, he was walking toward me from the opposite
direction, swinging his arms. When I had seen him earlier, I
had thought that he was just not wearing a shirt but that wasn’t
the case. He was stark naked and had no clothes on. He had a
beard that covered his face from his ears to his chin, giving the
impression of a round face. He also had a hairy chest and legs,
and although he wasn’t very tall, he was muscular. It wasn’t
easy to guess his age from his appearance. He looked young in
a way and old in another. Not knowing what to do, I stopped
walking and stood still. I didn’t know where to rest my eyes.
However, as if his nakedness was nothing unusual, he just
walked past by me, swinging his arms as usual. He even raised
a hand to greet me. Although I couldn’t see clearly, I thought
he might have even smiled at me. Looking at him walking
away from me, I asked myself if I were dreaming. Perhaps I saw
a phantom. If he’s not a phantom, who is that man walking
list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014 49
 around in the forest naked? As if hypnotized, I stood still there
for a while, completely frozen.
The vivid figure of the man walking past me slowly faded
and suddenly turned into an image. It wasn’t exactly the same
but I was engulfed with a strange feeling that a character in a
movie had torn his way out of the movie screen and jumped
into reality before my eyes, or vice versa. In other words, it
was a feeling of loitering at a crossroads of fantasy and reality.
It was getting dark and bleak and I started feeling chilly. I
was confused and dizzy. As if trying to escape from a movie, I
hastened my pace to leave the forest. I was feeling nervous, as
if at any moment someone might start chasing me and grab me
by the neck. I wanted to turn around and look but I couldn’t—
I was afraid of getting stuck. I started recollecting stories
where the characters, just by looking back, got sucked into the
underworld or turned into a pillar of salt. Lot’s wife turned into
a pillar of salt when she turned around to look, curious about
what was happening in Sodom and Gomorrah, which was
being punished with the fire of sulfur. Eurydice lost her chance
to escape the underworld when her husband Orpheus turned
around to look back. The brilliant songs of Orpheus that had
quieted Cerberus, the ferocious dog guarding the gate of hell,
lost all of its brilliance with the one act of looking back. These
stories remind us of the calamity that lurks behind the act of
looking back. I could not understand how the forest that had
offered me such blissful peace and happiness just moments ago
could've changed so quickly, now planting fear in my mind.
Just as I could not explain my peace, I could not explain my
fear either. Without looking back, I walked hurriedly home.
However, the sense of fear grew stronger the next day as
I was talking a walk in the forest. Unlike other days, I found
myself turning my head to look around more often. But each
time I turned around and looked, no one was there. Still, I
could feel the presence of someone near me, even though I
could not see anyone. At first, I didn’t realize that I was feeling
nervous about my surroundings. Then it suddenly occurred
to me that it was not simply a feeling of nervousness about
my surroundings, but that I was anticipating an encounter
with someone and that was what was striking fear in me. At
the core of my fear was that he was someone I knew. But here
was another problem. I recognized him but did not know
who he was—I did not know who he was but somehow I
recognized him. It was a fear that was vague yet overwhelming.
50 list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014
Completely perplexed, I walked hurriedly home again.
As I was taking a hot bath, it occurred to me that it wasn’t
the first time I’d had this looming fear of a chance-encounter
with someone I knew vaguely but whose identity I did not
know. This vague memory, which had been pushed aside
because I did not let it float to the surface of my consciousness,
finally began to emerge.
In the past, there were times I had goose bumps all over my
body and shrank in fear at the thought of someone attacking
me by jumping out from around a corner or from the top or
bottom of the staircase at midnight as I got off the elevator and
was about to step toward the corridor in my apartment. When
that happened, I would get off the elevator and, as if I were a
secret agent, check all the corners to make sure there was no
one there before taking another step. It didn’t always happen
this way but I had these experiences often enough. Later I
realized that just as I turned the corner, I became momentarily
nervous at the thought of encountering someone that I knew
but would rather avoid because I was uncomfortable meeting
him. However, I could never figure out who he was, how I
knew him, or why I felt so uncomfortable and wanted to avoid
him.
At the time, I guessed that it was a side effect of Sudden
Attack, an Internet game I had been addicted to. You had to
shoot down enemies who moved between and hid behind
buildings. I played that game for six straight months my junior
year at college while hanging out with a friend who had a
part-time job at an Internet café. The key to the game was to
find enemies hiding behind the corners of buildings, or at the
crossroads, and shoot them down first. For a few months when
I was deeply into the game, I sometimes experienced seeing a
projection of the computer game screen before my eyes, even
when I was not playing. So it wasn’t too far fetched an idea to
speculate that my suddenly heightened fear when turning a
corner was due to the game, which had somehow infiltrated
my sense of reality. There was one flaw in the hypothesis,
though—I had had that experience once even before I became
addicted to the game. So I couldn’t conclude positively that
this fear had been caused by the game or rather that the game
had merely reinforced an existing fear. Once in a while, and
very intensely, I suffered from an anxiety that I might meet
someone I wanted to avoid in a situation that I could not
escape. When I stopped and thought about it, a person who
could show up from around the corner in the game had to be
your enemy, not someone you knew and were familiar with.
That was also different. In the end, I realized that it wouldn’t
make much sense to treat the fear as it was simply due to
remnants of the images from the game. I was certain that it
was a psychological phenomenon that was more profound and
complex, rooted deeply in my personal history, rather than in
external influences, and that went back much further than I
had previously thought.
Perhaps I should have known that it was a fear that had
been neglected and left alone in the back of my mind and was
finally surfacing, as if confidently saying, "Look, here I am." I
realized that I could not escape it and was also aware that even
if I could, I did not know what I needed to do to escape it. I
became afraid of taking walks in the forest. I no longer felt at
peace.
Listening to my story, P burst into laughter. “Maybe you
actually saw a wild beast? Like a deer or boar. Honey, you
know you have poor vision. You also said you didn’t have your
glasses on…" It was true that I had poor vision. It was also
true that at the time, I had not been wearing my glasses, but
it angered me to hear that she thought I’d mistaken a deer or
boar for a man. I told her she was not taking me seriously and
hung up. P called back and told me I was being overly sensitive
and then chattered on for a while; I kept my mouth shut and
didn’t respond. She said she wanted to visit me but I firmly
refused. She didn’t seem to understand at all. To be frank, I
couldn’t understand myself either. Even in my own opinion, I
agreed that I was being overly sensitive.
[. . .]
5 valley. I would become hesitant and then serious, then talk
Driven by a mysterious impulse, I called my uncle. The
old professor, by telling me the story of the man who had
murdered his uncle, had unknowingly reminded me that I too
had an uncle. Of course my uncle was completely different
than the uncle in the tragic story. My uncle had never insulted
me nor interfered with my life. In fact, he had always kept
his silence, not saying much when I was around. Instead, my
memory of him was filled with images of his deep, loving gaze.
When I was young he used to gaze at my face for a long time
with a faint smile on his face, and whenever he did this, I tried
to avoid him. I was too young to understand the complexity
of the emotions hidden behind his gaze. It was once on my
mother's—his sister's—birthday that I finally really caught a
glimpse of the hidden compassion and sympathy in his look.
I was fifteen years old. My uncle was quietly looking at my
mother, who had just blown out the candles on a birthday cake
and was feeling a bit embarrassed about being a birthday girl.
In his gaze, I could sense an inexplicable compassion, a kind
of deep earnestness and sympathy toward her. Then I realized
that he was gazing at my mother's face in the same way he
gazed at mine, the gaze that I had tried to avoid, unable to
understand what it meant. As time passed, I gradually began
to realize that it was his sister he was looking at when he was
looking at me. Even as he looked at me, he saw his sister in me.
In other words, his gaze was not directed at me. To him, my
existence was relevant only in terms of reminding him of his
sister's circumstances, life, and fate. It had been like this long
before and was the same even now.
I don't mean to say that I was excited to remember that I
had an uncle, like Archimedes who, after discovering the law of
volume and mass, jumped out of the bathtub and ran into the
street proclaiming "Eureka!” I just felt as if a deep loving gaze
was looking down on me from the sky and the thought that I
too had an uncle suddenly came to mind.
I talked for some time about many different things with
my uncle, even repeating things that I had already said. He
just quietly listened. I talked about my dreams, about the old
retired professor, and how I had become afraid of encountering
someone showing up from around a corner. My stories were
all jumbled up, but he stayed quiet regardless. My speech was
like a rollercoaster, going up a hill before going back down a
excitedly and then mutter. Even so, somehow, he understood
exactly what I was trying to say. I even felt that he understood
what I wanted to say better than I did. In a way, this was
understandable because, although I called him driven by a
strange impulse that I couldn’t quite comprehend, I really did
not know precisely what it was that I wanted. I had been living
entrapped in fear that one day I would encounter someone in a
way I did not want. However, there was something suspiciously
strange about that fear too. On the surface, I did not to want
to meet him; but in truth, I wondered if I was panicking
list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014 51
 because I might not meet him. Did it make sense to say that I
wanted to meet someone I did not want to meet? I was afraid
that things would happen the way I wanted to even if I did not
really want them to. Chaos—the earth was without form and
void; darkness was upon the face of the deep.
My uncle opened his mouth after a long silence and said,
"So you’re looking for your Father?" When I heard that, I felt
numb, as if my forehead had been hit by shards of ice. Then I
came to my senses. It was as if I had just heard a divine voice
saying, "Let there be light."
He clarified precisely what it was that I wanted, but did
not want at the same time. But the light cast on the darkness
was too brilliant and too sudden so I was pushed myself back
into the darkness again. I felt a little dizzy. Now I knew that
the gaze I’d subconsciously felt was my father’s. But I didn’t
dare say this out loud. Even in the middle of my confusion,
I worried that my uncle would catch a hint of acting in my
tone. A play delivers what a character understands through
an actors' dialogue. One could say dialogue is always used to
verify or communicate what characters know. If an actor on
stage doesn’t deliver his lines, not only the audience, but also
the other actors on stage, including the actor himself, will
not understand what he knows. Sometimes they choose to
willingly remain in a state of incomprehension. An actor uses
his dialogue to communicate facts that are already obvious,
clear, and well-understood, to liberate the audience and the
characters on stage, who have decided to remain in a state
of incomprehension or have been entrapped—or decided to
be entrapped—by such a rule. One could say it is a form of
regurgitation. This is the reason why an actor's dialogue tends
to sound exaggerated on the stage. What transpired in my
dialogue, “In other words, the gaze that I’d felt subconsciously
was my father’s,” woke me up from my willful state of
unknowing. I thought about other lines that I had to say.
"There’s no doubt that it was my father’s tombstone. I was
definitely looking at his tombstone but I couldn’t read his
name on the stone. It wasn’t that his name wasn’t written on it.
If the name wasn’t written there, how could I have known that
the tombstone was my father's? The reason I was convinced
that the tombstone was my father's was because I did see his
name on it. But what exactly had I read on the tombstone if I
don’t even know his name? What exactly was written on it?”
I was curious what my uncle's deep loving eyes were gazing
52 list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014
at then. He asked, "Do you want to find him?"
To me, his question sounded more like, “Will you be OK?”
I nodded. He couldn’t have seen me nodding, but he let out a
long sigh. It was a sound you make when you realize that you
have to accept something even if you don’t want to. I could feel
an air of tragic seriousness in the air. Perhaps it was due to the
sound of my uncle sighing.
6
The inn where I was staying was inside the bar’s alley, which
was narrow and smelly. At night, drunk soldiers urinate or
vomit on the fence outside the inn. The wall had a rather big
sign that read "No Urinating" in red paint, and even had a
pair of scissors drawn beside it, but it was unlikely that drunk
lads, especially at night, paid any attention to it. There was a
street lamp fifty meters away and the acrylic billboard of the
inn was blurred by dust and dirt. The lamp blinked regularly,
indicating that it was probably about time to replace it. It was
dark enough at the bottom of the wall for drunks leaving the
bar, staggering and in good spirits, to unzip their flies and
urinate there. In the morning, the inn's owner would throw
water at the wall, cursing into the air. However, the smell
didn’t dissipate that easily. On a cloudy day, sitting in the room
inside the house, you could smell the stink of old piss carried
by the wind, sneaking into the room through the door crack.
Still, the inn owner couldn’t complain because the people who
urinated against the wall usually ended up staying at the inn.
There was no special reason for me to choose that inn.
I arrived late at night in this city of thirty thousand people,
located as close as possible to the cease-fire line, and was
strolling down the street, trying to get myself acquainted with
the new place. But as soon as I took a few steps I realized that
this was a bad idea. First, because the wind against my skin
was much colder than I’d expected, which was maybe why
I saw almost no one else on the street, and secondly, it had
become dark. Most of the stores had their shutters down and
their lights turned off. There were street lamps here and there,
but they looked like they were shivering from the cold instead
of generating light. It wasn’t just dark, but also chilly and
desolate. I almost regretted having come here. Have I come
here to live or to die? I recalled the sentence from Rilke's book.
Trying to shake off that persistent question, I looked around
and tried to find a place to spend the night. That’s when I saw
the sign that read "Traveler's Inn" in the corner of the entrance
to an alley. I later found out that there was another inn about
a block away that was fairly new and much cleaner, and a
few more not too far from there as well, but that night the
Traveler's Inn was the only place I saw. A few days later, I also
learned that Traveler's Inn was the oldest, the most decrepit,
and the dirtiest of the lot, and therefore the cheapest place in
town. But I didn’t think about moving elsewhere because I
wasn’t sure how long I would be staying, and after becoming
accustomed to the place, I didn’t want to bother moving again.
To compensate for the small and smelly room, there was a large
garden that had fruit trees, various flowers, and a vegetable
garden that I could enjoy, perks that the other establishments
didn’t offer. There was also the benefit of not having to look
for a place to eat. The inn owner cooked and prepared meals
using homegrown vegetables for her guests. She did charge for
the meals but the price was next to nothing.
From the first day, she was curious about how long I
would be staying. How long would I stay here? I asked the
same question to myself. Uncertain of how long it would be, I
scratched my head. Looking at me suspiciously, she asked me
whether I had come to meet a friend doing military service on
the base. "No," I replied. Then she asked me the purpose of
my visit, inspecting my face up and down with her eyes half-
closed.
"Why are you here? You look like a normal person..."
suggesting that, other than visiting friends who were
completing their military service, there wasn’t much of a reason
for a normal person to visit this area. I was offended by the way
she talked, connecting my appearance and the purpose of a
visit with some grand hypothesis, but I told her truthfully that
I had come to find someone.
"Who?" She asked, showing interest. "I was born here, got
married and gave birth to my children here. I’ve lived here for
fifty-seven years. Fifty-seven. There’s no one here that I don’t
know. This place is as small as my palm. If I don’t know the
person, nobody does. Tell me." She stared at me intently with
wide open eyes.
"Yeongwha Farm..." I said and she quickly interrupted.
"I know Yeongwha Farm. What about Yeongwha Farm?" I
asked her if she knew the farm well. "I told you I’ve lived here
for fifty-seven years. Ask me anything you want. Who’s at that
farm that you’re looking for?" She dried her hands in her apron,
looking keenly interested.
"The person I’m looking for is a man..." I squeaked this out
as if I were a man who had committed a crime.
"A man. Who?" She asked again, as if she were interrogating
me. I didn’t know why but I couldn't muster a response. When
I hesitated, she started making gestures to urge me to speak.
"What is his name? Give me his name."
My tongue was searching for his name in my mouth. If
you move your tongue and let the air in, it makes a sound. A
combination of several consonants and vowels. It won’t even
take a second to pronounce those syllables. However, a name
isn’t simply a collection of simple syllables. To say someone’s
name isn’t just the basic operation of one’s tongue combined
with air. A name is like the soul of our being. To say someone’s
name is to acknowledge their existence and affirm it. When
we say someone’s name, we experience our soul connecting to
the soul of the being whose name is being spoken. For certain
names, it’s enough for the name to simply reach your lips to
get you excited and stirred. For other names, your muscles
immediately start to repulse before bringing it to your lips.
Certain names make you excited and others, depressed. There
are names that you don’t dare say and there are names that
you say reluctantly. This phenomenon occurs because of the
contact between souls. I tried to place on my tongue the name
that my uncle had told me, the name of my father, but my
tongue was stiff and didn’t move. I realized that my vocal
chords weren’t willing to pronounce that name. You could say
that they found it awkward or uncomfortable to pronounce it.
My soul hesitated to pronounce it, though I had no images that
could be evoked by the name of my father—or perhaps it was
due to the absence of such images. To acknowledge a father
that hadn’t existed for twenty-nine years wasn’t an easy task.
"It was because your mother has been a complete and
sufficient world for your well-being." As if my uncle had been
anticipating the question, he gave me an immediate answer to
my rhetorical question of how I could have been so indifferent
to the existence of my father for the twenty-nine years that I’d
been alive. I didn’t know he had prepared the answer, but I
thought it was an answer I had no choice but accept. Mother
never gave me the chance to feel needed. Since I was young,
my mother provided me with whatever I needed the most,
when I needed it the most, and in the most suitable way. My
list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014 53
 mother was warm, gentle and strong. She was always busy
because she had to do many things at the same time but had
never neglected any of her work, especially in raising her son,
and she never showed any signs of frailty. Mother was to me
both a fence and a garden. In my youth, I was much happier
than any of my friends who grew up with both parents.
Mother never did or said anything that would remind me of
the existence of my father, she never made me feel the need
for him. Even without a father, I was sufficiently provided for
in order to grow into a responsible adult. Exactly why did one
need a father?
Immediately, I wholly understood my uncle’s response.
Then why do I feel so confused? I was happy with everything,
didn’t feel inconvenienced or dissatisfied. I didn’t only not
need a father, but I felt like I didn’t have one. It didn’t matter
whether he existed or not, and I wasn’t even aware of his non-
existence, so why had I suddenly become conscious of his
existence? How did it happen that out of nowhere I felt that
I had to find my father? How am I to understand these two
contradicting emotions? The anxiety within me answered the
questions I asked myself. I never needed anything or had any
complaints, but sometimes I felt an emptiness inside of me.
The fence was strong but something was missing, the garden
inside the fence was abundant but lonely. My unfounded fear
of the alien—or all too familiar—gaze that I had felt turning
around the corner was, in fact, based on something. Although
my mother provided a world that was complete and sufficient
for my well-being, it was not because I did not need a father,
but that she had fulfilled her role as father very faithfully—a
delicate difference that I came to understand. Mother, with her
absolute dedication and perfectionism, had completely driven
out the necessity of a father from my world. Any need for a
father was nullified by the presence of my mother. The reason
my mother alone was sufficient for my being was because
she fulfilled the role of both mother and father. Mother was
complete not only because she was my mother but also my
father as well. Paradoxically, in the end, this had the effect of
creating the need for a father. The retired professor said a father
was something that no one could deny and could not be denied
under any circumstances. A father continues to exist even after
his death.
"I’m curious, young man. Is it such a secret...?" The inn
owner, impatient to learn my secret but not very sensitive to
54 list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014
the confusion that was happening inside me, could not wait
any longer and waved her hands impatiently to show me that
she was giving up. I quickly swallowed the name that had been
on the tip of my tongue all along. "You know, Sergeant Kim in
Room 105 works there. Why don't you ask him? If you came
here to look for a job, you can go with him to the farm," she
said, and knocked on the door of Room 105. "Sergeant Kim,
it's high noon already. Come out and have a meal. You need
something to eat before you go to work!"
The door of Room 105 opened only after I had already
finished my breakfast and was walking in the garden, lost in
my thoughts.
He answered, "I worked last night. I can go to work a little
late." A man in a black jacket came out of the room yawning.
He finished off a whole rice bowl within seconds, without once
looking at the inn’s new guest.
The inn owner pointed at me and introduced me to him,
explaining that I wanted to go to Yeongwha Farm. From the
way he talked and from his expression, he clearly thought
that I was a day laborer who had come to look for a job at the
ranch. I didn’t care as long as I wasn’t interrogated. He looked
up and glanced at me and said rather bluntly, "Then, come
with me to the farm later." I waved my hand and said I hadn’t
come here looking for a job. He answered, "Yeah, I thought
that would be strange too. You look like a tuberculosis patient
or something. Are you from Seoul?" I nodded. I was surprised
to find out that I looked like a tuberculosis patient to others,
but that was a fleeting thought. More than that, I was a little
irritated by his condescending manner of speech. But then if he
had known that I was actually a tuberculosis patient, I didn’t
think he would have said that. I didn’t want to embarrass him
by confessing that I actually did have tuberculosis. I smiled
at him, pretending to agree. He looked up at me as if to ask,
"What is it then?"
"I’m looking for someone." As soon as I had finished
speaking, the inn owner, who had come out of the kitchen to
throw out the water, came out and interrupted us.
"So exactly who is it that you're looking for?"
Sergeant Kim also gazed at me quizzically. I tried once
more to raise the name my uncle had told me to my tongue.
I could hear my heart pounding and my face became red. I
shook my head slowly. "No. I just have something that I have
to find out. I don't think I need to visit Yeongwha Farm today."
Avoiding their inquisitive eyes, I went back into my room, still
keenly feeling their curious gazes on the back of my head.

I admitted that I wasn’t ready. Do I have to prepare myself

for this? I thought about it and though I didn’t know how I
had to prepare, it seemed right to do so. What do I want to
accomplish by just visiting? When I thought about it, I felt
breathless, as if I’d been punched in the chest. Laughing at
my lack of planning and my impulsive behavior, I clicked
my tongue and slapped myself in the face. I left the inn and
wandered around the street, thinking and whispering to
myself; perhaps I should just leave. This was possible, of course.
It meant returning to the world of my mother's protection
and love. What my mother had built for me was a house. If
I could just turn around, I thought, going back wouldn't be
too difficult. Going back to the coziness of home—it was not
only possible, but it was also the easy thing to do. The difficult
thing was getting out of my mother’s house. Other thoughts
intervened and interrupted these thoughts. That house no
longer offered me peace, at least not the way it had before. I
had become conscious of the gaze around the corner and once
I had found out to whom it belonged, I was summoned by that
gaze, or to find that gaze. I had come out into the wilderness,
so my mother's house no longer offered me peace. I could
not go back. While walking in this city, population less than
thirty thousand, and as close as one can get to the cease-fire
line of the DMZ, I brooded over the idea of the house and the
wilderness. If the house was my mother's space, the wilderness
was the world of my father. My mother built a house, raised
a family, and cultivated the land. My mother was trapped in
responsibilities and my father was a free-spirited being. Heaven
and earth, moral obligations and practical interests, centripetal
and centrifugal force... At first, these thoughts were like
chewing gum, soft and sweet, but they soon became as tough
as rubber, to the point that I could no longer chew.

The Gaze at Broad Daylight

Lee Seung-U
Jaeum & Moeum Publishing Co.
2009, 159p, ISBN 9788957074695

list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014 55

 About the Author
Lee Seung-U (b. 1959) made his literary debut when he won
the Korean Literature New Writer’s Award with his novella,
A Portrait of Erysichton in 1981. He is the author of the
following short story collections: The Cockroach of Gu Pyeong-
mok, Mysteries of the Labyrinth, People Do Not Even Know
What Is In Their Home, I Will Live Very Long, and Journals
From Days Past. His full-length novels are: The Shadow of
a Thorn Bush, The Reverse Side of Life, The Private Lives of
Plants, Wherever That Place Is, and The Song of Here and Now.
His essay collections are: You Have Already Begun to Write a
Novel and Living a Novel.

56 list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014

 Reviews Fiction

Consuming Disaster
Travelers of the Night Disasters are unfortunate events faced by
Yun Ko-eun, Minumsa, 2013, 252p humanity. With disasters claiming tens
ISBN 9788937473036 of thousands of lives, some regard them
as a kind of message or sign. Disasters
are also sometimes referred to as the final
judgment. Travelers of the Night, a novel
by Yun Ko-eun, takes this belief one step
further. The book introduces characters
who perceive disaster as a consumable
good, instead of a revelation. This is the
reality of a post-capitalist society, which
reduces all of nature to capital.
Ko Yo-na, the protagonist, works at
a travel agency. She disguises herself as a
tourist and heads for Mui, an area that
will soon be kicked off the list of disaster
travel destinations. Having lost its appeal
as a spectacle of disaster, Mui is attracting
fewer and fewer travelers by the day.
Interestingly, Yo-na faces a similar fate
as she is about to be fired from the travel
agency.
Travelers of the Night is neither an
escape from everyday life nor an exile from
reality. In fact, it is the creation of a world
dominated by a harsher reality. Author
Yun Ko-eun flaunts her imaginative power
once more with her unique concept of
disaster travel packages. One difference
is that whereas her past works were an
attempt to escape from the gravity of
reality, Travelers of the Night is more of a
reaffirmation of it.
The tour to the end of the world leads
to many unforeseeable situations. Hopes
of return are shattered and it is revealed
that disaster was expected from the start.
Yo-na was merely a part of the cast of the
planned disaster. At the exact moment
when disaster unfolds, the only emotion
that remains is love. Travelers of the Night
is an excellent portrayal of a journey
towards love, leaving behind the burden of
reality.
by Kang Yu-jung

Author
Author

Simple Fare Full of Love

Noodles
Kim Sum, Changbi Publishers, Inc.
2014, 372p, ISBN 9788936437282
style narration, reminiscent of novelist
Shin Kyung-sook's The Place Where the
Harmonium Was illustrates Kim Sum's
aesthetic virtuosity.
narrative unfolds as a monologue directed
by Chong Won Sik
at the stepmother:

“As I softly sprinkle some f lour on

Novelist Kim Sum, who won last year's
Daesan Literary Award, as well as the 2012
Hyundae Literary Award, has released her
fourth book, a short story collection titled,
Noodles. The collection contains nine
stories, including the title piece, “Noodles”
and “One Evening with Kyung-sook,”
which won the Hyundae Literary Award.
While Kim’s writing is known for its
realistic portrayal of her characters’ inner
turmoil under intense external pressure,
she also includes elements of fantasy in her
narratives. This collection notably focuses
more on family relations while showcasing
her unique style.
“Noodles” stands out for the first-
person narration by a female protagonist
who tells the story of her stepmother who
has been diagnosed with cancer. The story
opens with the protagonist visiting her
stepmother to make some noodles. The
the dough and begin flattening it with a
rolling pin, I feel like I am only getting
older and older, just like you. After your
icy husband passed away and all of your
stepkids left home...how much time have
you spent kneading noodle dough at home
in solitude?”
The first dish that the stepmother
made for her stepdaughter was noodles.
The protagonist, a callow young woman
at the time, felt that homemade noodles
were excessively simple fare, but as she
grows wiser with age, she eventually
comes to understand the similarities
between her stepmother's humble life
a nd her si mple no o d le d i s he s. T he
process of making and kneading dough
engenders the protagonist's compassion
for and understanding of her stepmother's
suffering. The stepdaughter’s monologue-

list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014 57

 Poetry
Pale Shadows of Old Love
Pale Shadows of Old Love
Kim Kwang-kyu, Minumsa
1995, 186p, ISBN 9788937406164
58 list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014
by Kim Kwang-kyu
We met at five in the afternoon –
late in the year of the April Revolution –
clasped hands in glad greeting,
sat in a cold, unheated room,
frosted the air in heated discussion.
We were foolish enough to believe
we would live for something,
something divorced from politics.
The meeting ended without resolution. That night
we downed large bowls of grog in Hyehwa−dong Rotary
and wrestled innocently with the problems of
love, part-time jobs, and military service.
Each of us sang at the top of his lungs:
songs no one listened to,
no one imitated.
We sang without thought of profit:
our songs rose in the winter sky
and fell as shooting stars.
Eighteen years later we put on ties
and gathered again. We were something now:
we were the new generation, afraid of the revolution.
A sub of 10,000 won was collected.
We inquired about wives and children,
asked each other how much we earned,
worried at the rising cost of living,
gladly deplored the state of the world,
gossiped in expertly modulated voices.
No one sang. We left a goodly amount of drink
and expensive side-dishes,
noted changed phone numbers and parted.
Some went to play poker,
some went to dance,
and some of us walked the streets of Tongsung−dong
with empty hearts.
We had come back after long wanderings,
rolled calendars tucked importantly under our arms,
back to where old love once bled.
A few unfamiliar buildings interposed suspiciously,
but the roadside plane trees were in their wonted places.
Kim Kwang-kyu (b. 1941) made his literary
The few remaining desiccated leaves debut in the quarterly Literature and Intelligence in
1975. His first book of poetry, The Last Dream to
made us bow our heads.
Affect Us, was published in 1979. Kim's published
Aren’t you ashamed, works include the following poetry collections:
No, That Isn’t So, Aniri, The First Time We Met,
aren’t you ashamed? The Soft Touch of Time, The Heart of Knack
Mountain, Waterway, Like a Small-minded Person,
The wind whispered around our ears. and Although I Have Nothing. His two volumes of
essays, Between the Real and the Assumed Voice and
Deliberately we talked middle-aged health
The Slow Steps, along with his poetry collections,
and took another step deep into the swamp. Faint Shadows of Love (English, London 1991),
The Depth of A Clam (English, New York 2005),
Die Tiefe der Muschel (German, Bielefeld 1991),
translated by Kevin O’Rourke
and Botschaften Vom Gruenen Planeten (German,
*First published in Looking for the Cow: Modern Korean Poems (Dedalus Press, GÖttingen 2010) have been published in
1999). Reprinted with permission from the author and translator. translation.

list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014 59

Reviews
Nonfiction

Korea’s Healing Trail

You Must Be Tuckered Out
Sung Woo Je, Kang Publishing, Ltd.
2014, 452p, ISBN 9788982181870

Just as Spain has the Camino de Santiago
and Canada has the Bruce Trail, Korea
is home to Jeju Olle on Jeju Island. The
current trend of walking as exercise has
created an increase in the number of
hikers visiting the world’s best-known
trails. This book is a travelogue about Jeju
Olle, known among trail officials around
the world as an up-and-coming walking
course.
Individuals left psychically
a nd emot iona l ly br u ised by tod ay’s
c omp e t it ion-ba s e d s o c ie t y c ome to
Jeju Olle to experience healing. Later,
they return to their daily routines with
a renewed sense of drive and vitality,
claiming that the Olle Trail has “some
kind of strange energy.” So where does this
strange energy come from? What are the
stories of the people who visit this trail and
what kind of lives do the people who live
along it lead?
Author Sung Woo Je, a journalist
by trade, listens to the stories of those
he meets on the trail during his journey,
sharing some moving tales along the way.
His writing incorporates conversations
w it h fel low tra i l wa l kers, loc a l Jeju
residents, guest house owners, haenyeo
(traditional Jeju diving women), village
heads, and migrants to Jeju, revealing the
hardships of their lives.
Since the opening of its first route
in 2007, Jeju Olle has grown and now
covers a network of 425 km of walking
trails, comprised of a total of 26 routes.
More than a mere tourist attraction, it is
a trail of pilgrimage that offers healing
for tired bodies and minds and a record
of Jeju’s long history. Though every guide
book about Jeju introduces the trail and
its founder, Suh Myungsook, accounts by
travelers who have actually walked it are
harder to come by. That’s what makes this
book all the more special.
by Richard Hong

60 list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014


Pioneering Reporters
Prominent Female Journalists of Korea, 1920~1980
Kim Eun-joo, Communication Books
2014, 362p, ISBN 9791130400440
Author
Consumer Convenience
The Sociology of Convenience Stores
Jun Sang In, Minumsa
2014, 216p, ISBN 9788937488825
As a follow-up to Crazy About Apartments,
sociologist Jun Sang In studies the impact
of convenience stores in Korea in The
Sociolog y of Convenience Stores. W hy
convenience stores? According to Jun, if
apartments are Korea’s “national housing,”
then convenience stores are its “national
stores.”
If one compares the population density
to the number of convenience stores, Korea
ranks the highest in the world, higher even
than the United States, the birthplace of
the convenience store. Convenience stores
first began showing up in Korea in 1989
and franchises were established at a rapid
pace. By the end of 2012, there were over
24,559 stores throughout the country
serving more than 8,800,000 consumers a
day.
What does the growth of convenience
stores say about Korean society? On a basic
Reviews Nonfiction
T his book conta ins t he biographie s as literary writers. Some of them were
of Korea n women reporters, written later elected as government ministers or
by journalist Kim Eun-joo. In Korea, members of parliament.
reporters who are women are still referred Kim Eun-joo divides the lives of these
to a s “ fema le reporters,” while ma le female reporters into two main categories.
reporters are simply called “reporters,” First, as pioneers, these educated women
p er p e t u at i n g t he p erc ept ion t h at a carried out their progressive activities with
journalist is a male occupation. The use of a sense of duty and responsibility. Second,
the term “female reporter” is an indication as writers with literary aspirations, many
of the scarcit y of women work ing as of them, entered the field of journalism as
journalists in Korea. a means to publish their work.
However true this may be, the legacy
of some representative female journalists by Lee Hyun Woo
has had a lasting impact. Kim follows the
activities of nine female reporters from the
1920s to the early 1980s and outlines their
proactive engagement during each period.
The lives and activities of these women are
a reflection of modern Korean history.
As they were pioneers and patriots,
Korean female reporters were considered
“the most cutting-edge women of their
day.” These journalists were women’s
rights and social justice activists, as well
Author
level, convenience stores are “a site where known as the “880,000 won generation
structured bureaucracy has reached its eatery.” Moreover, part-time jobs at these
zenith and where the McDonaldification convenience stores do not even meet the
of society is exhibited intensively.” nation’s minimum wage law.
Convenience stores are the physical
representation of modern rationa lit y by Lee Hyun Woo
and consumer capitalism. Additionally,
Korea’s convenient stores, riding the wave
of globalization and open economy in the
1990s, helped to drive a new generation
of westernized lifestyles that dominated
Korean society. These convenience stores
are evidence of how globalization has
affected the country.
H o w e v e r, w e c a n n o t o v e r l o o k
the negative aspects of the empire of
convenience stores. W hile one of the
primary functions of convenience stores
in Korea is to serve as an eatery, this
phenomenon also reveals the polarization
of Korean society. Convenience stores
have become a place where individuals
f a c e d w it h f i n a nc i a l pr oble m s c a n
scrape together a daily meal, and the
stores have subsequently also come to be
list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014 61
 Reviews Nonfiction

How Movies Make Science

Hollywood Science
Kim Myong-Jin, Science Books
2013, 238p, ISBN 9788983716330
Hollywood Science examines the
relationship between the modern human
and science and technology through an
analysis of how cutting-edge technology
in the 20th centur y is recreated and
portrayed in television and film.
The selection of 30 films consists not
only of well-known works, such as The
Matrix and The Day After Tomorrow, but
also animated television from author Kim
Myong-Jin’s childhood, such as "Conan,
The Boy in Future," as well as films that
are not as well known. One such example
is The Boys from Brazil, which follows the
story of a Nazi scientist and the 94 boys he
created as clones of Hitler.
The films and television programs
Kim cites raise profound questions about
the status of science and technolog y
in our society, as well as their social
ramifications. The Conversation (1974), a
film about wiretapping, warns us of the
danger of a surveillance society controlled
by technolog y. Films like The Insider
question the openness and objectivity of
the practice of science through the eyes
of a whistleblower, an informant perhaps
with the public interest in his mind, whose
actions turn his life into an impossible
challenge. "The Pluto Files" elucidates
rea l-life d iscussions t hat took place
among scientific insiders and among the
general public regarding the controversy
surrounding stripping Pluto of its planet
status.
Currently, K im is involved in the
Movement for Democracy in Science and
Technology. His recent interests involve
the reexamination of various aspects of
cutting-edge science and technolog y,
pa rticu la rly outer space, computers,
and the environment, as well as bio and
nanotechnology.
by Kim Mansu

Author
Author

Science's Impact on Our Daily Lives

Homoscience (Vols. 1 & 2)
Korea Educational Broadcating System
GisigChannel
2013, 224p, ISBN 9788952770714
Homoscience is a textual adaptation of
the documentary Milestone of Scientific
Revolutions that aired on the Educational
Broadcasting System (EBS), a Korean
TV channel specializing in educational
programming.
Volume 1 focuses on five topics: the
universe, the solar system, the earth,
evolution, and genetic inheritance. This
volume covers topics such as the Big Bang
theor y, the Hubble Space Telescope,
the true nature of solar energy, the laws
governing planetar y motion, and the
secrets of chemical elements.
Topics on biogenetics, such as cells
and microorganisms, genetic inheritance,
DNA, stem cells and cloning, and the map
of the human genome are also featured in
this volume.
Vo l u m e 2 d e a l s w i t h d i g i t a l
technolog y, new high-tech materia l,
GMO seeds, genetic mutations, a nd
t he su n. T hroug h t hese topic s, t his
volume attempts to illustrate the changes
brought about by modern technological
civilization, the advent of which depended
on our understanding and mastery of these
topics.
Entertaining and informative, the
book is an inquiry into digital technology
and its impacts on our daily lives, seed
technology development as a possible
solution to global food shortages, research
into genetic mutation as a means to cure
diseases, and harnessing the sun as a
sustainable source of energy.
Since this is an adaptation of broadcast
material, the book is written in succinct,
easy-to-understand language and includes
abundant visual material. The addition of
little-known anecdotes from the lives of
various innovative scientists in these fields
makes it a pleasurable read.
by Kim Mansu

62 list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014

Reviews
Children's
Books

Along Comes a Lion

Moonlit Night
Lee Haery, Borim Press
2013, 40p, ISBN 9788943309732
Author
A feast for the senses, Moonlit Night, by
Lee Haery, offers a simple yet remarkable
story illustrated in soothing colors with
the vivid touch of pen and ink drawing.
H i g h up i n t he s k y, a m id s t t he
backdrop of a dreary high-rise apartment
building in a woodsy area, there is a full
moon. A little child, not yet asleep, is
looking at the moon outside the window.
The moon grows bigger and bigger and
then, out of nowhere, the round face of a
lion appears. The lion, with a flying mane
and large round eyes, turns his head in the
direction of the child. But the child is not
startled. Instead, he jumps on the back
of the lion and calls out to all the other
children in the apartment complex.
“Hey guys, come out! Let’s play!”
The children, come out one by one,
shake their heads, stomp their feet, jump
up and down, roll on the ground, do a

64 list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014

shoulder dance, and play to their heart’s
content with the lion. They sing, “Let’s
race to the sky! Let’s run through the
moonlight! Let’s race to the sky!”
But before he knows it, the children
who ran to the end of sky and raced
through the moonlight, go back home,
riding along the wind. Where did the lion
go? Only the bright moon can be seen in
the woodsy area by the apartment.
The round lion that appeared out of
nowhere and the children’s thrilling play
provide a powerful catharsis for readers.
The message is clear. Children must play,
as must adults.
As a matter of fact, contemporary
u rba n l i fe i s f i l le d w it h s t re s s a nd
desolation and if not for “play,” catharsis
cannot be achieved. Here, the author
surprisingly offers the Korean Lion Mask
Dance, a traditional Korean folk ritual
in which people put on lion masks on work, Lee Haery provides the reader with
the day of the first full moon of the lunar a vivid portrayal of the entrancing dance.
year. It was believed that the lion had The stillness of the deep and delicate
the power to conquer evil by casting out night, the luminescence and warmth of
demonic spirits, thereby bringing peace to the moonlight, the lion with its full mane,
the village. In every village, people wore the children full of mischief, the raucous
lion masks and danced to the music of the and exhilarating dance, and the quiet after
kkwaenggwari (small gong) or a bamboo play all complement each other. The vivid
flute; then children were put on the lion’s expressions of the lion and the children
back to grant them longevity and the and the unique characters add to the
villagers in lion masks prayed for fortune liveliness of the work.
for each household.
Above a ny thing else, the Korea n by Yoon So-hee
Lion Mask Dance is characterized by its
animated and powerful movements. It is
a beautiful Korean custom in which the
villagers gather together and dance with
a vivacious spirit and a joyous heart to
welcome in the New Year under the bright
full moon.
With her multi-layered, subtle pen
list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014 65
 Reviews Children's Books
Pets Have Feelings, Too
A Girl and Her Dog Called Cloud
Jeong Ho-seon, Changbi Publishers, Inc.
2013, 50p, ISBN 9788936454456
Author
Don’t Mess with Nature
Big Fish
Lee Gihoon, BIR Publishing Co., Ltd.
2014, 50p, ISBN 9788949101736
You see a big fish that’s truly massive.
It looks hundreds of times bigger than
a human. But this huge fish is captured
tightly in nets and ropes. You wonder,
“What in the world is going on?”
Big Fish is an eye-catching picture
book that elicits curiosity and wonder.
The story, in the form of a graphic novel,
unfolds without a word. It takes place in
what seems to be a village in Africa long
ago. Amid a prolonged drought, a number
of brave warriors set out on their way.
They’re going on a hunt for the mythical
Big Fish that sends down water from the
sky. On their way, they run into a man
building a gigantic ship. The warriors
laugh at him, pointing at the blazing sun.
At last, they find Big Fish, catch it
after a desperate struggle, and carry it
home. Animals come after them in search
of water, but the people drive them out to
66 list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014
A nyone who ever owned a puppy vivid look into the puppy’s mind.
understands just how charming, lovely, The author’s message is that keeping
and prone to loneliness puppies are. A a pet is all about communication. By
Girl and Her Dog Called Cloud is a picture show ing t he puppy being sent away
book that portrays how a little white from the girl in this book, the author
puppy called Cloud meets a young girl, emphasizes the attention, care, sacrifice,
whom it loves like its own big sister, but and responsibility we must have for our
must eventually part ways. pets.
T he g irl a nd her puppy a re be st
buddies. They share a fondness for a by Yoon So-hee
particular stuffed teddy bear and they are
always playing together, hugging, kissing,
and complimenting each other. The puppy
doesn’t like it when it is left alone at home.
One day, when it is dark and noisy outside,
the puppy is all by itself. Scared and lonely,
Cloud barks loudly and makes a mess of
the house, which upsets the girl’s mother
and her neighbors. The puppy ends up
being sent away to a house with a yard,
and the girl weeps as she says goodbye to
the puppy.
This book describes Cloud's wide array
of facial expressions and actions with such
minute details that they give the reader a
Author
the other side of a solid fence. When Big
Fish begins to spurt water, the people hold
a celebration. But the water doesn’t stop,
and a flood engulfs the village. Everyone
disappears underwater as the animals that
have taken refuge in the gigantic ship
watch on.
This incredible tale unfolds like a film.
Reality merges with fantasy and motifs
from mythology and fiction, such as the
tale of Noah’s Ark and The Old Man and
the Sea, intermingle. The story conveys
how many different sides there are to
humanity. The human imagination is
infinite and the fighting spirit great, but
greed is catastrophic.
With Big Fish, author Lee Gihoon
seems to be raising the alarm on the
human ambition to conquer and control
nature. The varied illustrations, with
elaborate detail and compositions, convey
the author’s message in a visually dramatic
way.
by Kim Inae Sujung
 Reviews Children's Books

Where Cats Learn Magic

Cat School: The Secret of Angkor Wat
Kim Jin-kyung; Illustrator: Kim Jae-hong
Munhakdongne Publishing Corp.
2013, 144p, ISBN 9788954623582
Cat School is a fantasy series based on
the myths of East Asia. The series was
completed in 2007 with the publication
of Volume 11. In 2006, the series won “Le
Prix des Incorruptible,” an award voted on
by children in France, proving its value in
the genre of children’s world literature.
When cats reach the age of 15, they
leave the human world to enter Cat School
to learn their history and magic. Once
they acquire this knowledge and the ability
to perform magic, they become Crystal
Cats to fight the Shadow Cats, a group of
wicked cats, in order to protect the human
world. This fantasy adventure is the main
plot of the series.
Cat School (World Series), the prequel
to the completed Cat School series, is set in
Angkor Wat during the early 13th century
when Suryavarman VII ruled the Khmer
Empire (present-day Cambodia).
In the time leading up to the
coronation of the k ing, the conf lict
bet ween religion and royal authorit y
becomes tenser than ever. The Crystal
Cats learn the magic of the “Soul of
Crystal,” which can make them one with
God, in order to fight against the Shadow
Cats who aim to break the coexistence
between Hinduism and Buddhism, as well
as the harmonious relationship between
humans and nature. At the end of this
fantasy, the author’s message reveals that
human civilization can be sustained only
through reconciliation and tolerance.
Author Kim Jin-kyung is currently
on the short list to become a recipient of
the Hans Christian Andersen Awards.
Fantastic illustration provided by Kim Jae-
hong, who won the Espace Enfants Prize
of Switzerland and the BIB (Biennial of
Illustration Bratislava) Children’s Jury
Award.
by Yu Youngjin

Author
Author

More than a Vessel

Singing Bottle
able to make different sounds, depending
Ahn Eun-young, Sakyejul Publishing Ltd.
2013, 24p, ISBN 9788958286929 on the amount of the liquid it holds. As
a result, it becomes an instrument that
creates sounds, rather than a vessel that
There is a bottle. Depending on what it holds something.
holds, it can be a juice bottle, an empty The f irst-person narration by the
bottle, or even a bottle for pee. When it bottle itself makes it easier to understand
fills up with rain, it becomes a water bottle it s circ u m st a nc e s. W hene ver a ne w
and when the rain dries up, it goes back to situation develops, a sound appears first
being an empty bottle. Is an empty bottle to engage young readers. The story and
no longer useful? Just at that moment, the illustrations correspond well with each
you hear a voice exclaim, “I found it! It’s other and a solid plot helps young readers
perfect!” The empty bottle is filled with a understand and enjoy the story.
certain amount of liquid and is turned into
a “singing bottle,” which makes beautiful by Eom Hye-suk
sounds.
Singing Bottle by A hn Eun-young
tells the story of how a bottle is defined
depending on what it contains. If the story
stopped there, the book would simply be
another educational children’s picture
book. However, the last scene shows that
although liquid may be put into the empty
bottle, the characteristics of the bottle itself
are not defined by that liquid, but by being

list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014 67

 New Books
Fiction
© The Happy School, Kim Joong-suk, Barambooks

Recommended If You Have Time, Brother Kevin

by Publishers
Love Me a Little
Hong Hee-jeong
Munhakdongne Publishing Group
2013, 168p, ISBN 9788954622554
If You Have Time, Love Me A Little won the
Korean editors have handpicked their favorite titles 18th Munhakdongne Publishing Company
Literary Award, paving the way for new
from their own publishing houses. The following list possibilities in Korean fiction. This is a
contains hidden gems in Korea’s publishing industry. novel about the bittersweet coming of age
of today’s youth. The book is a portrayal
For further information, please contact the agents of adolescent boys and girls who live life
directly. at their own pace, in an age when it has
become too difficult to live in the manner
that suits one’s instincts.
Copyright Agent: Kate Han
mshan@munhak.com
82-31-955-2635
www.munhak.com
Kim Su-yeon
Munhakdongne Publishing Group
2013, 196p, ISBN 9788954622547
Brother Kevin is about children who
have to sacrifice their present life for
the security of their future through the
arduous days spent at cram schools.
Thrown into vicious competition, these
elementary school-aged children are
preparing to enter elite high schools.
The book shows how the age that
students must compete and one-up
each other continues to get younger
and younger, with nothing to protect
them in Korean society.
Copyright Agent: Kate Han
mshan@munhak.com
82-31-955-2635
www.munhak.com

Poetry Children’s Books

Eternal Moonlight:
Sin Saimdang
Ahn Young, Wis & Vis
2013, 384, ISBN 9788992825733
Sin Saimdang (1504~1551) is regarded
as the embodiment of the “wise mother,
good wife” in Korea. This book offers a
depiction of her life as, in the words of
the author, “a progressive woman born
500 years ahead of her time.”
Copyright Agent: Ha Seung Jin
wisnvis@naver.com
82-2-324-5677
I Put the Evening Inside the
Drawer
Han Kang, Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd.
2013, 165p, ISBN 9788932024639
This is the first volume of poetry
published by novelist Han Kang, who
has eloquently written on the pathos
and the loneliness in life, as well as the
truth and emotions that one encounters
at the boundary between life and death.
I Put the Evening Inside the Drawer is a
compilation of 60 poems, some of which
have been previously published.
Copyright Agent: Moon Jeongmin
jmoon@moonji.com
82-2-338-7224 (int. 7129)
www.moonji.com
The World Wrapped Up
in a Piece of Cloth
Heo Dong-hwa; Illustrator: Kim Mi-yong
Marubol Publications
2013, 40p, ISBN 9788956634562
A piece of cloth doesn't have a fixed shape
like a bag. So with a piece of cloth you
can wrap something of any shape or size,
square or round, big or small. By looking
at traditional wrapping cloths, we can see
that our ancestors understood the spirit of
harmony and fitting together.
Copyright Agent: Kim Min-sun
minsun@marubol.co.kr
82-2-790-4150 (Ext.503)
www.marubol.co.kr
Face Country
Lee Min Hui; Illustrator: Park Mi Jeong
Gesunamu Publishing House
2013, 50p, ISBN 9788989654902
Beautifully illustrated, the queen of
“Face Country” metaphorically plays
out national affairs through through
face washing and applying makeup.
Bringing fresh characters to life, Lee
presents the Queen's subjects who
come alive to research and closely
examine old literature and documents
on cosmetics and face washing tools.
Copyright Agent: Shin Saehyung
gesunamu21@hanmail.net
82-2-566-6288
www.gesunamu.co.kr

68 list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014

Lady Fortune
Seo Jung-oh; Illustrator: Han Tae-hee
Bombom Publishing Co.
2012, 32p, ISBN 9788991742406
Lady Fortune is a strong and courageous
girl who throws away a comfortable
future and takes control of her own fate.
As the spirit governing over life, the story
of Lady Fortune is based on the shaman
song "Samgongbonpuri," passed down
through generations on Jeju Island.
Copyright Agent: Heo Sun-young
bbsun@bombombook.com
82-2-2215-4468
http://cafe.daum.net/bbpub
The Happy School
Lee Gyeong-hye; Illustrator: Kim Joong-suk
Barambooks, 2012, 34p
ISBN 9788994475288
This is the story of a pretty school in
a small village. One day, due to the
construction of a dam the little village
is flooded. All the children and all the
villagers have to leave and so the pretty
school is deserted and alone. The pretty
school is lonely and sad until one day
some people return. How did the pretty
school become happy again?
Copyright Agent: Lee Min Young
windchild04@hanmail.net
82-2-3142-0495
http://cafe.daum.net/barampub
The Wish of the Giant Rock
Kim Chun-ok; Illustrator: Kim Tae-hyun
Bombom Publishing Co.
2012, 40p, ISBN 9788991742413
Hearing the news that 11,000 handsome
rocks are to gather to form a peak in Mt.
Geumgang, Ulsan Rock leaves its home
in Ulsan and heads north. The rocks must
arrive before the azaleas bloom, but will
Ulsan Rock make it in time? This story
recounts the fun legend of how Ulsan
Rock and the town of Sokcho had their
names intertwined.
Copyright Agent: Heo Sun-young
bbsun@bombombook.com
82-2-2215-4468
http://cafe.daum.net/bbpub
The Ginger Flower
Kim You Jeong; Illustrator: Kim Se-hyun
Mirae N Co., Ltd., 2013, 44p
ISBN 9788937885624
This picture book for elementary school
students is based on the short story of the
same name written by Kim You Jeong
in 1936. Set in a poor mountain village,
it tells the story of first love between a
precocious girl and a naive boy. Readers
will be delighted by the rural dialect, the
unexpected way the story unfolds, and the
realistic picture of the era.
Copyright Agent: Park Jiyoung
rights@mirae-n.com
82-2-3475-3870
www.mirae-n.com
Poo-poo Poo-poo
Cheon Mi-jin; Illustrator: Seo Yoo-noh
KIZM Education Group
2013, 22p, ISBN 9788967491239
This is a picture book to help toddlers with
the ins and outs of potty training. Through
fun descriptions of how various animals do
a poo, the book shows toddlers the proper
way to use the toilet.
Copyright Agent: Jeong Eun-mee
kidsmltd@naver.com
82-2-3445-6400
www.kidsm.co.kr
A Greedy Man and a Silver
Gourd
Lim Jeong Ja; Illustrator: Lee Kwang Ick
Mirae N Co., Ltd., 2013, 40p
ISBN 9788937885679
One day a greedy merchant chances
across a silver gourd of goblin treasure.
When night falls, the head of the goblins
comes to find the merchant and asks him
to return the gourd. Instead, the greedy
man demands that he build him a palace.
As the greedy man becomes ever greedier,
will the head of the goblins keep granting
his wishes?
Copyright Agent: Park Jiyoung
rights@mirae-n.com
82-2-3475-3870
www.mirae-n.com
Only a Stupid Princess
Would Sleep All Day
Lee Gyeong-hye; Illustrator: Park Ah Reum
Barambooks, 2008, 139p
ISBN 9788990878694
A long time ago when the writer was
reading stories to her children, she
changed the parts that seemed unfair or
dissatisfying or sad as she saw fit, and the
resulting stories reflected the bias-free
viewpoint of children. This book takes
famous stories we all know and gives
them a new twist and sense of fun.
Copyright Agent: Lee Min Young
windchild04@hanmail.net
82-2-3142-0495
http://cafe.daum.net/barampub
Pig School Science Series
(5 vols.)
Baek Myung Sik
The Book In My Life Publishing Co., Ltd.
2013, 48p, ISBN 9788997980666
This series is an easy, fun, and quick
reading set of science books for children.
The books are organized around the
four sections of the elementary science
curriculum: biology, earth and space,
materials, and movement and energy.
Through the various adventures of a pig
trio, young readers not only learn about
science but also start to develop their
sense of curiosity.
Copyright Agent: Lee Da Gyeom
bookinmylife@naver.com
82-70-7813-2024
http://cafe.naver.com/thebookinmylife
list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014 69
 Children’s Books
Eat Nature! Series (4 vols.)
Oh Jin-hee; Illustrator: Baek Myung-sik
TheBookInMyLife Publishing Co., Ltd.
2013, 96-112p, ISBN 9788997980369
This is a textbook on healthy eating
for children that shows us the gifts that
nature gives us to eat each season. While
encouraging readers to think about what
is necessary to ensure they can continue
eating healthy foods from nature, the
book also leads readers to discover the
varied tastes of nature made by soil, water,
sunshine, and wind.
Copyright Agent: Lee Da Gyeom
bookinmylife@naver.com
82-70-7813-2024
http://cafe.naver.com/thebookinmylife
We Can Order a Family
For You!
Han Young Mi; Illustrator: Kim Dajung
Sallim Publishing Co., Ltd.
2014, 172p, ISBN 9788952228239
A child wonders, “Can a Mom and Dad
that make me study all the time really be
my real parents?” The book encourages
parents to reflect on their attitudes and
shows children the true reasoning behind
their parents nagging. The author, a
mother of two who has won numerous
awards, wrote the story from a child’s
point of view, creating a book that parents
and children can read and enjoy together.
Copyright Agent: Bae Joo Young
juyoung@sallimbooks.com
82-31-955-1367
www.sallimbooks.com
70 list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014
Twelve-Year-Old Mona Lisa
Lim Jihyeong; Illustrator: Jung Jinhui
IANDBOOK, 2013, 184p
ISBN 9788997430598
Yulee is teased by her older sister and her
friends because she is chubby, so she starts
to hate the way she looks. After a coach
tells her that Korean wrestling can make
you lose weight, she joins the wrestling
club. But although she becomes a skilled
wrestler, she is disappointed because she
doesn't lose any weight. Will Yulee be
able to shake off her complex about being
chubby and gain confidence in front of
her friends?
Copyright Agent: Woo Ansuk
iandbook@naver.com
82-2-2248-1555
www.iandbook.co.kr
The Patchwork Kid
Lee Gaeul; Illustrator: Shin Sejung
Hollym Corporation
2013, 52p, ISBN 9788970946894
There was a little girl whose clothes were
so worn out and full of patches that
people called her the “patchwork kid.”
Although she was poor, she had a kind
heart and learned to sew by looking over
the shoulders of seamstresses as she did
odd jobs. With beautiful prose and lovely
illustrations, the book shows readers
how thrifty our ancestors were, joining
together seemingly useless materials to
make the things they needed.
Copyright Agent: Yoon Kyungran
apple@hollym.co.kr
82-2-735-7553
www.hollym.co.kr
The Child That Tears Paper
Park Seongcheol; Illustrator: Kim Eunyeong
IANDBOOK, 2013, 136p
ISBN 9788997430758
Gangsan is uncomfortable around his
classroom partner Yulee, who has autism.
However, after seeing a video about
Siamese twins and hearing a confession
from his teacher, he realizes that the way
he viewed differences was wrong. He
begins to understand Yulee, and in the
end, the two become genuine friends.
Copyright Agent: Woo Ansuk
iandbook@naver.com
82-2-2248-1555
www.iandbook.co.kr
Finding Summer
Lee Gaeul; Illustrator: Heo Gu
Hollym Corporation
2013, 96p, ISBN 9788970946719
Summer the street cat and Kay the house
cat swap coats and come and go freely
between the house and the outdoors.
As they become friends, Summer, who
was in Kay's house after swapping coats,
suddenly disappears without a trace. The
story gives us a chance to understand how
cruel it is to think of living creatures as
mere possessions.
Copyright Agent: Park Mina
mnpark@hollym.co.kr
82-2-735-7553
www.hollym.co.kr
Ghost Bakery Math
Kim Sunhee; Illustrator: Lee Nam Ji
Sallim, 2013, 172p
ISBN 9788952227591
This is a fun book for learning decimals
and fractions. The only bakery in a
ghost town is hiring an assistant. All the
ghosts in the town gather for the exam to
appoint just one assistant. Only four of
them complete the first round of fraction
and decimal challenges on the numbers
of different breads and the mixing of
ingredients. Who will become the baker’s
assistant?
Copyright Agent: Bae Joo Young
juyoung@sallimbooks.com
82-31-955-1367
www.sallimbooks.com
The Red Bird
Yi Jin-young
Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd.
2014, 32p, ISBN 9788932025285
This is the story of a little bird that
befriends a lonely child who is being
ignored at school. The little bird,
alienated by all the other birds for being
too red, realizes that he is not useless after
all because he can comfort someone. The
beauty of the story is augmented by lyrical
illustrations that reveal the inner feelings
of the bird and the child.
Copyright Agent: Moon Jeongmin
jmoon@moonji.com
82-2-338-7224 (int. 7129)
www.moonji.com

Time Capsule 1985
Hong Myung Jin
Sakyejul Publishing, 2014, 248p
ISBN 9788958287124
This is a book about the people who
made Haebangchon (“Liberation
Village”) their home the year the time
capsule was buried in the outskirts of
Namsan Mountain in Seoul. In the
backdrop of a specific time and space,
Haebangchon in the year 1985, the book
tells the story of the ordinary people who
lived in the neighborhood during that
period.
Copyright Agent: Kang Hyunjoo
kanghjoo@sakyejul.co.kr
82-31-955-8600
www.sakyejul.co.kr
Five-Color Eating Regimen
Hong Young Jae, MID
2013, 496p, ISBN 9791185104041
Utilizing five different colors, this book
introduces a map of food products that
can help boost one’s health. Healthy
foods that contain a high level of
phytochemicals are presented together
with their color groups. Food items that
function as health food are classified
based on different categories such as the
intensity of color, availability, pressure
on the body, and price. The author, who
was diagnosed with two cancers by the
age of 58, successfully fought the diseases
through dietary treatment.
Copyright Agent: Choi Jonghyun
mid4@live.co.kr
82-10-9279-3448
www.bookmid.com
Children of the
Yeongsan River
Oh Younghae; Illustrator: Choi Shinoh
Gobooky Books Co., Ltd.
2011, 105p, ISBN 9788992479998
This collection of verse by poet Oh
Younghae has been made anew as a
picture book full of the scenery of the
four seasons and the happy memories
of hometown life. The book introduces
children to the ways kids played long
ago while parents will feel the warmth
and beauty of nostalgia for their old
hometowns.
Copyright Agent: Yang Minjae
graphicbook@naver.com
82-32-323-8895
www.gobook2.com
Zo Sun-hi’s Inspiration
Zo Sun-hi, Minumin
2013, 300p, ISBN 9788960173330
Top-notch professional photographer Zo
Sun-hi suggests ideas that can help readers
restore their sensibilities and creativity. In
this book, Zo gathers her inspiring photos,
intimate musings, and one-liners that
help open the door for generating long-
lost creativity and transform mundane
everyday images into creative works.
Copyright Agent: Michelle Nam
michellenam@minumsa.com
82-2-515-2000 (Ext. 295)
http://minumin.minumsa.com
Nonfiction
Letters from Joseon: 19th
Century Korea Through
the Eyes of an American
Ambassador's Wife
Robert Neff, Seoul Selection
2012, 431p, ISBN 9788997639090
During a span of time that encompasses
the Sino-Japanese War, the murder of the
Korean queen, and King Gojong's refuge
in the Russian legation, John Mahelm
Berry Sill served as the American Minister
to Korea (1894-1897). The personal
letters between the Sills and their family
in the U.S. provide a view of Korea during
some of its most unsettling years.
Copyright Agent: Park Shin-hyung
sales@seoulselection.com
82-70-4060-3950
www.seoulselection.com
Kang Shin-joo’s Lessons
on Emotions
Kang Shin-joo, Minumsa
2013, 528p, ISBN 9788937488351
This book features 48 human emotions
as explained by Spinoza, 48 literary
masterpieces, 48 pieces of advice by the
philosopher, and 45 famous paintings.
Readers can embark on a journey into
their own minds together with Spinoza,
the “ethicist of emotion.” In a bid to
present the philosopher’s complex
message, the author borrows episodes
from writers who were well-known for
interpreting human minds.
Copyright Agent: Michelle Nam
michellenam@minumsa.com
82-2-515-2000 (Ext. 295)
www.minumsa.com
Millennium Dish
O Han Saem, Choi Eu Gene and Yang Bung Geul
MID,2012, 368p, ISBN 9788996612261
This book offers an overview of Korean
cuisine, representing one important facet
of Korea’s 5,000-year history. Educational
TV channel EBS set up a three-minute
program as part of a campaign to
rediscover Korean history, and the book
is a compilation of the moving visuals
and texts aired by EBS. Readers can get
practical information about health and
Korean cooking, as well as gain a sense of
Korea's beauty and history.
Copyright Agent: Choi Jonghyun
mid4@live.co.kr
82-10-9279-3448
www.bookmid.com
The Machine Interpreting
Things
Ban Ejung, Semicolon
2013, 276p, ISBN 9788983716347
Ban Ejung, an art critic and influential
blogger, describes 100 everyday objects
and phenomena presented together
with related images, in only 500-600
words each. The book is likely to come
off as a dictionary of ordinary objects
that reflects the author’s perspective
and writing style. His trademark witty
writings revisit ordinary objects with
fresh eyes and a rare precision.
Copyright Agent: Michelle Nam
michellenam@minumsa.com
82-2-515-2000 (Ext. 295)
http://semicolon.minumsa.com
list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014 71
 Nonfiction
In a Fit of Emotion
Lee Jang-mee
Laughing Girl Publishers
2013, 232p, ISBN 9788958781615
This book is a collection of photo essays
by painter Lee Jang-mee. A collection
of drawing diaries that she created for
her blog over the past 10 years, the
book sheds light on the small things in
everyday life, which are captured through
the author’s ideas and feelings.
Copyright Agent: Jeon Jeongsook
jeonjjs@naver.com
82-10-5221-6422
It’s Okay to Live Differently
from Others
Yoo Jong Pil; Illustrator: yosaru
Medicimedia, 2013, 264p
ISBN 9788994612744
Yoo Jong Pil, proposes a set of ways to
lead one’s life differently from others.
Yoo’s own life’s path has taken him from
working for a large Korean conglomerate
to dabbling as a puppet show script writer
to founding The Hankyoreh newspaper.
The author argues that the endeavor to
live differently from others often leads
to moments that are far removed from
society’s yardstick of success.
Copyright Agent: Song Duna
realduna@naver.com
82-70-7834-9695
http://medicimedia.co.kr
72 list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014
Uljiro Circle Line
Choi Hochul
Gobooky Books Co., Ltd.
2008, 176p, ISBN 9788992479219
This book is the first collection of work
by Choi Hochul, who records stories
with pictures. In the distinctive “modern
genre painting” style, these illustrations,
which cross the boundaries of animation
and conversation, will be deeply moving
for young readers. Within its pages, the
stories of different lives unfold like a
panorama, conveying a sense of wonder.
Copyright Agent: Yang Minjae
graphicbook@naver.com
82-32-323-8895
www.gobook2.com
The 100 Jewish Celebrities
Park Jae Sun; Illustrator: Kim Jeong Hun
Medicimedia, 2013, 562p
ISBN 9788994612843
Park Jae Sun, a former South Koran
ambassador, analyzes 100 Jewish
people in diverse sectors, ranging from
Nostradamus to Monica Lewinsky,
and offers his ideas and potential take-
home messages. He tackles three main
questions: Who are Jewish people? Are
they special? What can we learn from
Jewish people?
Copyright Agent: Kang Weon Kug
kugk0820@naver.com
82-10-9081-1962
http://medicimedia.co.kr
The Awakening
Ven. Pomnyun Sunim
Jungto Publishing House
2012, 197p, ISBN 9788985961691
This book delivers the fundamental
lesson: anyone can enjoy a life of
freedom and happiness, no matter where
they are. One of the memorable passages
in the book is: “Happiness is always in
ourselves as the warm sunlight comes
down upon us in the springtime, but
people complain that the world is dark
and cold, while closing their eyes or
standing in the shade. Once you open up
your eyes, the world is bright.”
Copyright Agent: Park Jia
rights.jungto@gmail.com
82-10-7437-3785
www.book.jungto.org
Why Can’t I Control
My Emotions?
Lee Ji-young
Chungrim Publishing Co., Ltd.
2014, 283p, ISBN 9788935209958
Offering ways to control emotions for
those who have relationship problems,
Lee Ji-young, lays out a four-step
solution to stabilizing emotions. She
explains useful techniques to pull back
from fiery emotions, such as activities
designed to change one’s mood, as
well as other skills on how to express
uncomfortable emotions to others
without hurting others’ feelings.
Copyright Agent: Juana Woo
jmwoo@chungrim.com
82-2-546-4341
www.chungrim.com
The War with Memory:
Pursuing the Truth about the
Korean War and Massacre
Kim Dong Choon
Sakyejul Publishing
2013, 480p, ISBN 9788958286806
This book chronicles a number of
unresolved cases involving imperialistic
suppression, the Korean War, and
democratization in the aftermath of the
military dictatorship. It is the sequel to
Kim’s The Unending Korean War: A Social
History. The book explains the efforts
that have been made to deal with the
past, as well as key issues and tasks, both
theoretical and practical.
Copyright Agent: Kang Hyunjoo
kanghjoo@sakyejul.co.kr
82-31-955-8600
www.sakyejul.co.kr
Emotion Therapy: Self-therapy
to Be Free from Inner Emotional
Problems
Park Young-chul
Chungrim Publishing Co., Ltd.
2012, 292p, ISBN 9788992355919
Touting a message of “self therapy,” the
author proposes practical techniques to
take control of one’s emotions, targeting
those who are likely to get hurt easily
in connection with work, relationships,
and family. The first step to taming one’s
emotions is to understand the subconscious
factors that control our minds, and our
repetitive emotional patterns.
Copyright Agent: Juana Woo
jmwoo@chungrim.com
82-2-546-4341
www.chungrim.com
 Overseas Angle
Conveying Cultural Nuance
in the Chinese Translation of
Gwanchon Essays
Lee Mun Ku’s Gwanchon Essays, a serialized novel published
between 1972 and 1977, is the story of a hometown that
lives on in the memory of the protagonist. The hometown
exists only in the main character’s memory; in reality, it has
completely changed. Through the author’s memories, the
reader can understand the scars of the Korean War, the abuses
of industrialization, the collapse of traditional society, how
relationships change over time, and the loss of hometown.
The Chinese version of this novel was published in
November 2012 by the People’s Literature Publishing House in
China and began to attract Chinese readers’ attention. When I
was translating this novel, I spent a lot of time deciding how to
translate its content and form. As a result, I focused on two key
points. The first key point was the “individual’s experience.”
The serial novels written by other authors such as Choi In-hoon,
Suh Ki-Won, and Yun Heunggil are similar in that most of
them reflect on the essence of life, profound human suffering,
and other social mechanisms.
W hile reading Gwanchon Essays, I could sympathize
deeply with the concerns of Korean intellectuals and wondered
how Chinese readers would understand and respond to such
concerns and specifically Korean sentiments. The narrator of
this story returns to his hometown Gwanchon after being away
for 20 years. Feeling the profound loss of home, he portrays the
fall of rural society and the collapse of traditional society, that
is, the feeling of community that Koreans used to share. Painful
memories of the war and personal thoughts on the subsequent
social changes are the central themes of the novel.
Chinese readers have responded to the book by asking
74 list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014
themselves, “Are we not also experiencing a similar sadness
now?”
Since the Chinese economic reforms that began in earnest
in the early 1980s, industrialization has steadily intensified
and brought about dramatic changes to Chinese society. In
particular, the New Rural Reconstruction Movement, which
has been a topic of discussion since the late 1990s, has changed
China’s rural society, similar to the way the New Community
Movement changed rural communities in Korea. Though
such changes are now part of the past for Koreans, they are
just beginning for the Chinese. A newspaper article reported
that Chinese people made about three billion trips during the
40 days before and after Lunar New Year’s Day, which shows
just how much affection they still have for their hometowns.
Literature about finding one’s roots and nativist literature,
which were popular in the 1980s, also represent the tenacious
Chinese attachment to tradition.
How will Chinese people understand and respond to the
themes of the collapse of traditional rural society, the loss of a
spiritual home, lamentations on changes in human relationships,
and the sadness regarding such social changes? I am reminded
of a review of Lee’s book that stated, “No matter what kind of
terrifying skills and techniques we employ to live a wonderful
life, I have a sense that the substance of our life doesn’t differ
much at the end of the day.” Though industrialization cannot
be and does not need to be stopped, critical reflections about the
effects of industrialization by intellectuals may very well be the
voice of reason that those facing the realities of industrialization
are waiting for. It seems that this book is popular with Chinese
 "It seems that this book is popular
with Chinese readers because...they can
imagine their own future and empathize
with the happiness and sadness felt by
Koreans during such social changes."

冠村随笔
李文求, 人民文学出版社
(People’s Literature Publishing House)
2012, 281p, ISBN 9787020094882

readers because by using Korean literature and history as a translation.

mirror, they can imagine their own future and empathize with I think in translation, the best method is to attempt to
the happiness and sadness felt by Koreans during such social convey a similar effect, rather than a similar word or a direct
changes. translation, to offer some room for the readers of a translated
The second key point was the “taste of Korea.” Since the version to imagine, and to break down the barrier of language.
book is essay-like in form, Lee Mun Ku employs a somewhat This was my desire for the translation of this novel.
loose and simple inner monologue style of writing, a dialect
distinct to the South Chungcheong Province, and Korean by Jin Hezhe
sensibilities in his characters. Above all, the author’s beautiful
use of the Korean language, using words that transcend the
realm of language and thought, leaves a lasting impression.
How, then, could I maintain this taste of Korea, one that
is full of local color? How could I translate it so that Chinese
readers would be able to enjoy and understand it properly?
When I first read the book, my concerns as a translator were
enormous. Written Chinese characters and some references to
texts, including Confucian texts, would undoubtedly be familiar
to Chinese people. The Thousand Character Classic taught by
Grandfather in the first story, “Sunset on West Mountain,”
and the titles of the other stories show the author’s profound
knowledge in Classical Chinese. While Chinese readers would
easily be able to understand these parts without much difficulty,
vocabulary that is unfamiliar even to Koreans, or dialect and
puns that readers accustomed to city life would find hard to Jin Hezhe is a professor in the
understand, created a communication obstacle. As I felt a great Department of Korean Language at the
responsibility as the translator to overcome such obstacles and Harbin Institute of Technology. He has
facilitate readers’ understanding, I attempted to find the words published Your Paradise, Pale Shadows
of Old Love, Anthology of Modern Korean
and expressions that produced similar effects to Chinese readers.
Fiction, and Ichido, the Fugitive.
This was the hardest and the most challenging part of the

list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014 75

 This is where I reveal my bias. I work for Comma Press
which is, to date, the most prolific publisher of short stories in
the U.K. We are also unique in that around 40 percent of our
output is fiction in translation. Once branded as committing
“double commercial suicide” for championing two of the
hardest categories to sell in the U.K. market, (short fiction and
translated fiction), we’re no stranger to writing that diverges
from mainstream expectations. I admit, I flew to Seoul already
resigned to the preconceived notion that I would not find what I
had come looking for; I was so pleased when I only had to glance
at the material provided by the British Council to see the words
“short story collection” under nearly every Korean author’s profile,
not even shyly tucked away at the bottom of the paragraph but
sometimes printed proudly on the first couple of lines. Changbi,
Jaeum & Moeum, Moonji, Munhakdongne, and Minumsa are
the leading publishers of the form, their lists brimming with short
story collections that deal with everything from everyday human
experiences (love and relationships, abandonment and loss) right
up to the downright bizarre (virtual realities, household objects
that are reincarnations of the deceased, self-aware computer
games).
Another remarkable point about the industry in Korea is the
active support and opportunity available to new writers, notably
Munhakdongne’s Anthology of Award-winning Young Authors,
which showcases works by those who have had their literary
debut but who have not been exposed to the public for very long.
There is even plenty of help on hand for those who have yet to be
published, like the annual writing prizes run by major newspapers
and the “Rookie Awards” held by Korean publishers through their
literary magazines, both which seek to find the next best debut
author. However, I learned that surviving as a new writer in Korea
is tough, and a young author must be truly outstanding to beat
off the competition and enjoy a continuing career.
Fortunately for them (and for us abroad) there is list: Books
from Korea, a quarterly magazine published by LTI Korea which
introduces Korean books to international publishers. Complete
with book reviews, special features and interviews, it’s an excellent
place to start if, like me, you’re a total novice when it comes to
Korean literature. For example, if I hadn’t been given a copy of
list, I would never have read Cheon Un-yeong’s knockout story
“Ginger,” a compelling piece of writing which manages to weave
poetry out of a horrific torture scene. A small tip: if you’re ever in
Seoul, the LTI Korea’s library, which houses collections of Korean
books published in a multitude of different languages, is well Katie Slade graduated from Manchester
worth a visit. Metropolitan University in 2013 with an MA in Creative
Seoul has so much to offer from its hip and quirky cafes, its Writing. She initially worked as an international rights
and sales manager at Comma Press, a U.K. independent
wonderful culture-rich markets, its diverse nightlife, and more,
publishing house that specializes in the short story and
but look a little further and you’ll uncover a city that cherishes translated fiction. She recently moved to the editorial
and respects the books it creates by making literature as much a department, where she has just finished working on
part of the community as its citizens. Hopefully the rest of us will her first major commissioned project, The Book of Rio,
soon follow suit. an anthology of 10 short stories set in Rio de Janeiro,
translated from Portuguese, which will be released in
May 2014. She is now one of the two translation editors
by Katie Slade
at Comma and resides in Manchester City.

list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014 77

 Overseas Angle

The Transcultural Bridge

Between Korea and Spanish
Speaking Countries
Translation of culture and literature is the most essential medium of sharing knowledge.
Translated Korean books convey millennia of accumulated culture to Spanish language
readers. Unfortunately, far more Spanish literature, culture, and art are introduced in
Korea than the other way around. Considering that only about 100 Korean literary
works have been translated into Spanish, it is clear that not enough has been done to give
Korea’s longstanding literary tradition its due attention. Spanish readers learn about the
achievements of Korean literature and the fundamental values of Korean authors through
the translation of literature that deals with topics such as: colonialism, war, reconstruction,
economic development, authoritarianism, democratization, rapid urbanization, and all
the accompanying social problems. In addition, the feminine perspective on a rapidly
changing Korean society and its realities is provided by Korean female authors, who are so
influential in contemporary Korean literary circles.
LTI Korea promotes Korean literature translation by supporting translators, publishers,
and Korean Cultural Centers in Spain and Latin America. Cultivating young translators
as they study the Korean language, culture, and literature opens the flow of culture. LTI
Korea continues to support professional Korean and Spanish translators.
Universities, language schools, and Korea Cultural Centers in cities throughout
Spain and Latin America play a critical role in promoting Korean literature. The four
major institutions in Spain are the University of Málaga, the Autonomous University of
Barcelona, the Complutense University of Madrid, and the University of Salamanca.
The University of Málaga’s three-year old Overseas Residency Program for Korean
Writers is the most successful. The university was fortunate enough to host the excellent
authors Eun Heekyung, Lim Chulwoo, and Cheon Un-yeong. Author visits, cultural
events, and publications contribute greatly to boosting the interest in contemporary
Korean literature in Málaga, providing locals with an invaluable opportunity to read
Korean authors and understand their backgrounds.
Translation entails a number of challenges. Most books that translators encounter
are written for Koreans, with the assumption that all readers have a shared knowledge of
history and cultural background. This is unfair for non-Korean readers. Spanish speakers
have little to no background in Korean culture and philosophy, so translators need to fill
in the holes without damaging the original intent of the author. Translation must excite
readers, not diminish their interests with overly complex renditions. It is important to
remain faithful to the original, while also making the work relatable to the audience.
How can we foster the future of Korean literature in Spanish? Young Spanish people
are fascinated by Korean pop culture, so it is imperative to ride this trend and promote
Korean literature to the younger generation. Many young Spanish speakers who were
introduced to Korean culture through TV, film, music, and cartoons are specializing in

78 list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014

Asian and Korean studies in college. The first step to connecting front of us, but if we set aside anxiety and proceed patiently, we
with readers is through Korea’s unique stories and novels, which can topple the barriers that centuries of conflict and ignorance
target young adults and children. Animating classic literature and have put between us.
history is another possible means of engagement. The growing
number of students who prefer watching Korean historical dramas by Antonio J. Domenech
online rather than Spanish TV is a testament to their enthusiasm
* Excerpted from the December 2013 EU Translators’ Workshop discussion panel in
for Korean cultural products.
Italy.
It is very interesting to see how Korean literature is expanding
in Spanish, being dispersed through blogs that discuss Korean
culture, language, and music. Numerous social network groups
related to Korea are rapidly coalescing new readership. When
publishing Korean literature in Spanish, the young generation
must not be overlooked.
At the same time, it is important to invest in training new
translators. The programs that exist must be expanded, and more
people who speak Spanish as a first language should be recruited.
Offering Korean translation classes at Spanish universities will
help. Cultural education is also indispensable because translation
is not just about linguistics and idiomatic expressions, but
transcultural sensitivity. It is crucial to provide systematic support
for corporations that promote Korean culture in the Spanish
speaking world, in addition to cultivating new translators.
A distribution network for Korean literature also needs to be
pioneered. Despite the increasing number of translated Korean
books, their circulation is remarkably low in Spanish-speaking
countries. Japanese literature already has a foothold and Chinese
literature is beginning to settle in, but Korean literature has yet to
find a niche. Although publishers like Editorial Verbum (Spain),
Ediciones del Ermitaño (Mexico), and Editorial Bajo la Luna
(Argentina) are publishing Korean literature, more pathways to
reach readers are necessary, since publishing quality works and
attracting the public are equally important.
Further endorsement of translation is essential to fostering
mutual understanding and amicable relations between Spanish- Antonio J. Domenech is an anthropologist and historian of religion,
speaking countries and Korea. This is a historical moment for specializing in Korea and intercultural dialogue. He is also director of the Korean
Korean and Spanish culture. Living in a global era, we need to studies program at the University of Málaga and a professor of Korean Studies,
make space for transcultural exchange. It is not an easy task in as well as a translator of books on Korean culture and arts.

list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014 79

 Overseas Angle
The World of the Text
How a Murderer Remembers
Kim Young-ha
Munhakdongne Publishing Corp.
2013, 176p, ISBN 9788954622035
80 list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014
Kim Young-ha's recent novel, How a Murderer Remembers, ostensibly
the story of a retired serial killer in his 70s suffering from Alzheimer's,
is also an elaboration of the various ways in which one can not know.
From simple ignorance and forgetting, to repression and disavowal, to
neurological conditions such as dementia, Capgras delusions (delusional
misidentification syndrome), and ultimately Alzheimer's, How a
Murderer Remembers is a cautionary tale for those who believe what
they are told, for whom memory is reliable, knowledge is certain, and
language is a transparent vehicle of communication.
Over the course of the novel, the figure of the forgetful killer comes
to stand as a more universal, if ironic, figure of loss and forgetting. The
fragility of the main character's powers of memory yields the familiar
"unreliable narrator," and the capacity of the text to deliver the truth to
the reader is in doubt from nearly the beginning of the book. Yet at the
same time that Kim's meta-fictional prose questions its own capacity to
communicate, the narrator finds ways to "tell the truth" about things—
about his identity as a serial killer, about the killings themselves, and
about his more recent experiences of memory loss and confusion. He
writes poetry (where he discloses his murderous methods with total
candor, misunderstood by his poetry instructor as clever metaphor);
utilizes the double language of situational irony (when his adopted
daughter asks about her real parents—whom the protagonist had killed
when she was an infant—he is able to answer honestly that "they were
good people—they were worried about you to the last moment");
and reads the rustle of leaves in the wind as an expressions of the lost,
buried, long-dead, forgotten—enigmatic transmissions from a distant
world.
According to the "Author's Afterword," the author himself is caught
up in this world of the text. Kim notes that while he used to believe
the author created the fictional world from a position of mastery, he
has lately come to feel that the author is a sort of traveler or tourist in
that world—a visitor lacking autonomy, who is directed by the world of
language that he or she set in motion by first putting pen to paper. The
author enters this world and subordinates him- or herself to its space
and time, to the exigencies and rhythms of its inhabitants. The world
of fiction, alien and not subject to mastery, presents us with something
other than the world "as we know it." This sense of powerlessness before
language, of being a visitor in a linguistic world that itself (in the case of
Kim's fiction) calls attention to deep deficits in knowledge and memory,
could be regarded as a figure for translation itself. Translation is in
this sense a visitation—the arrival of a stranger or strange language as
a visitor (albeit cloaked in the familiar sounds of a local dialect);
but also in the more radical sense of visitation as an appearance,
an unheralded arrival from a different world outside of familiar
space and time.
This idea of translation does not immediately fit within two
dominant models by which translated literary texts and their
circulation in a global marketplace are currently understood: the
text as exemplary of a particularly national cultural identity; and
world literature as "multi-"—a collection of texts from different
(but ultimately homogenized) linguistic or cultural contexts that,
as Emily Apter points out in her recent Against World Literature
(Verso, 2013), "ignores the deep structures of national belonging
and economic interest contouring the international culture
industry". Against these, the world of the translated text as doubly
alien instead "signifies language in a state of non-belonging, or
nationalism degree zero".
This is a remarkable time to be teaching Korean literature in
the U.S. While ten years ago it might have been difficult to teach
a reasonably comprehensive course on modern and contemporary
Korean literature, today not only canonical texts but also
contemporary and cutting-edge work is available, giving readers
access to current trends and developments in Korean letters.
Yet what Kim's novel suggests, however obliquely, is that all
utterance requires translation, and that the world of the text thus
consists not of certain knowledge or cultural information but of
enigmatic messages, expressions of a world alien to author, reader,
and translator alike. Kim's fiction, often seen as unmoored from
the particularities of national context, insists on the world of the
text, resisting the common sense designation of "world literature"
(in both its national-particular and global-universal senses). It
stands instead as a sort of "literature of world," adjacent to but
autonomous from the mastery of the translator or critic. Christopher P. Hanscom is an assistant
professor in the Department of Asian Languages
and Cultures at UCLA. He is the author of The Real
by Christopher P. Hanscom Modern: Literary Modernism and the Crisis of
Representation in Colonial Korea and co-editor of
Imperatives of Culture: Selected Essays on Korean
History, Literature, and Society from the Japanese
Colonial Era. His research interests include the
relationship between social and aesthetic forms,
comparative colonialism, and concepts of race and
culture under Japanese empire.

list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014 81

 Meet the Publishers
出出出出出

Seoul
Selection
One way to approach learning about a new country is to read books on its history and culture.
There are a few publishers in Korea that specialize in English-language publications for
foreigners. Publishing books about Korea in English likely means that a publisher is highly
conscious of the unique aspects of Korea that appeal to foreigners yet convey a sense of the
universal. Seoul Selection is one such publisher.

Publishing company Seoul Selection is
located on the road to Bukchon Hanok
Village, a famous tourist attraction in
Seoul. As you walk in the door, you may
notice the brisk office atmosphere of the
company. You might also hear the low-
pitched voice of the foreign editor.
The CEO of the publishing company,
Hank K im (K im Hyung-geun), f irst
established Seoul Selection in 2002 after
quitting his job as a journalist for a news
service he worked at for over 10 years.
Kim’s original intent for starting Seoul
Selection was to contribute to the effort
to increase awareness about Korea on an
international level, which he believed
to be underappreciated at the time.
Considering his initial aim, it is natural
that the company is located in such a
famous tourist destination.
T he bu si ne s s proje c t s of S e ou l
Selection are extensive; the publishing
company is involved in essentially any
field related to the promotion of Korea.
Above all, the publishing catalog itself is
diverse. Their catalog ranges from Seoul
tourist guidebooks to books related to
literature, history, nature, and religion.
The Seoul Selection book shop, the sales
outlet of the company that is a mere five
minutes away on foot, sells organic tea,
fragrant fruit extracts, caps with the phrase
“Seoul at the front of it,” and Korean
DVDs with English subtitles, currently
the number one cultural export of Korea.
Several years ago, with the help of global
c ontent d i s t r ibuter, I n g r a m, S e ou l
Selection also gained access to a global
supply chain for its publications.
CEO Kim ranked Seoul Selection’s
2009 tourist guidebook Seoul first among
the publishers’ 90-plus books, stressing its
narrative touch as the guidebook’s distinct
feature. For the past three years, Seoul has
sold more copies than Lonely Planet, an
indication of its popularity as a guidebook.
As an example of its storytelling, Seoul
provides a well-informed account about
Pepero Day, an annual event among young
people where they give the thin stick-

82 list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014

shaped cookie snacks as gifts on November
11 or 11.11. There is also information
given regarding the popularity of the
custom, which was initially promoted by
the confectionery maker for marketing
purposes.
Due to his conviction that publishing
is a means to create awareness of the
cruelties happening in North Korea, Kim
1
also speaks proudly of Across the Tumen,
a novel about North Korea. It is a story
about the pain and suffering of a boy
named Young Dae who lost his parents 2

and ventured into China, crossing the

North Korean border to find his sister.
The book is credited for its authenticity as
it is based on numerous interviews with
North Korean refugees.
Ask a Korean Dude, written by Kim 3
himself, is Seoul Selection’s most popular
5
title at present. One of t he cu ltura l
differences it imparts to its foreign readers
the question “Have you eaten?” it should
not be taken as a suggestion to have a meal 4
together, but rather as an everyday greeting
or form of small talk. The book is full of
such tips and pieces of advice about aspects
of Korean culture that may be difficult for
non-Koreans to understand.
Other books worth reading include:
Korean War in Color, a book of color
photographs by NBC war correspondent
John Rich; Doing Business in Korea, a
book especially useful for those who want 6 9
to start a business in Korea; Letters from
Joseon, a collection of letters from the wife
8
of an American diplomat in 19th century
Korea to her home country; and Korean
7
Film Directors, a book series about well-
known Korean film directors such as Park
Chan-wook and Bong Joon-ho.
According to K im, thank s to the
efficient transportation infrastructure
and super efficient telecommunication
environment, you can meet anyone in 1. Korean Antique Furniture & Accessories 6. Korea Through Her Birds
the country within hours if you want, Mathieu Deprez, Seoul Selection Robert Newlin, Seoul Selection
2013, 127p, ISBN 1624120105 2013, 244 p, ISBN 1624120067
which makes Korea an intriguing country.
2. Eerie Tales from Old Korea 7. The Korean Way of Tea
Therefore, "you never know what can Brother Anthony of Taizé, Seoul Selection Brother Anthony of Taizé, Seoul Selection
happen.” Kim argues that even though in- 2013, 176p, ISBN 1624120024 2007, 124p, ISBN 8991913172
depth research on Korea is challenging it is 3. An Illustrated Guide to Korean 8. Ask a Korean Dude
worth it. Chad Meyer, Seoul Selection Kim Hyung-geun, Seoul Selection
2013, 308p, ISBN 162412013X 2012, 344p, ISBN 8997639005
To those who may think that obtaining
4. Seoul 9. Korea
information about Korea through books
Robert Koehler, Seoul Selection Robert Koehler, Seoul Selection
will take too much time, I recommend 2013, 464p, ISBN 899191358X 2012, 748p, ISBN 8991913997
Seoul Selection’s monthly magazine, Seoul, 5. Hangeul (Korea Essentials No.1)
as a way of finding out about the latest Robert Koehler, Seoul Selection
2010, 104 p, ISBN 8991913695
social and cultural happenings in the city.

by Shin Junebong

list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014 83

 Meet the Publishers
出出出出出
1
1. The Beauty of Korean Food
Institute of Traditional Korean Food
Hollym Corporation Publishers
2008, 261p, ISBN 9781565912533
2. Goguryeo
Jeon Ho-tae
Hollym Corporation Publishers
2008, 288p, ISBN 9781565912823
3. A Journey in Search of Korea’s Beauty
Bae Yong Joon
Hollym Corporation Publishers
2010, 428p, ISBN 978156591307
84 list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014
Hollym
Corp., Publishers
A pioneer in publishing English language books about Korea,
Hollym emerged from the desire of founder Rhimm Insoo to enter
the American publishing market, and has since opened branches in
five additional countries. The publisher is also beloved in Korea for
its children’s books and high-quality books of poetry.
Hollym Corporation Publishers, founded in 1963, was the
first major publishing company to publish books about
Korea in English. Last year marked its 50th anniversary.
Considering that Korean history was marred by great
destruction during the Korean War (1950–1953), as well as
the ruptures of modern times, Hollym is undoubtedly one of
the oldest publishing houses in Korea.
In t he 1970s, Holly m went t hrough a period of
significant growth. It grew into a financially secure company
through its publication of poetry, which included famous
poems by Korean and non-Korean poets alike. Hollym’s
poetry books were bound with a high-quality hardback cover
and sold with an LP of a poetry reading. Books on the art
of flower arranging, as well as cookbooks in color, were also
3
very popular publications.
The 1970s also saw a housing boom for the high-rise
apartment complexes that have since become emblematic
of modern Korean lifestyle. Park Chansoo, the director
of Hollym said, “Books from Hollym were bestsellers as
coffee table books for the living rooms in those kinds of
apartments.” As the basic needs for survival were met with
the growth of the Korean economy, people’s desire for
cultural artifacts began to increase.
With the confidence gained from its success in the
domestic Korean market. Hollym turned its attention to the
international market in 1979. The late founder of Hollym,
2
Rhimm Insoo, visited the U.S. and found that Japanese
publishers had already made a tremendous effort to introduce
Japan abroad through the publication of books in English.
Meanwhile, there were hardly any books in English about
Korea. Rhimm became determined to enter the American
publishing market and opened an office in New Jersey. At
present, Hollym Corporation Publishers has established
marketing networks in Germany, England, Australia,
Japan, and Singapore, an unprecedented scale for a Korean

4. Let's Visit Korea
4
Han Heung-Gi
Hollym Corporation Publishers
2006, 32p, ISBN 9781565910102
5. Mr. Moon and Miss Sun
Duance Vorhees & Mark Mueller
Hollym Corporation Publishers
1990, 45p, ISBN 9780930878726
8. The Foolish Goblin and the Woodcutter
Song Eun; Illustrator: Oh Chi-keun
Hollym Corporation Publishers
2013, 32p, ISBN 9788970946955
publishing company.
Park Chansoo says Hollym’s bestselling
books are its various series of Korean
language books, as well as Korean cooking
books. As for the Korean language books,
Hollym offers different and diverse series,
ranging from elementar y level books
covering reading, listening, speaking,
and writing to books that serve practical
purposes, such as everyday communication
and business conversation. Notable among
their cookbooks are The Beauty of Korean
Food: With 100 Best-loved Recipes and Good
Morning, Kimchi!, which contains kimchi
recipes for a healthy diet.
Books that introduce Korean culture
are also quite popular. In collaboration
with the Korea Foundation, Hollym has
published a nine-book series on traditional
Korean culture. Two of the books in the
series are Buddhist Sculpture of Korea
and Seowon, a book about the private
academies that were dedicated to higher
learning during the Joseon era.
Hollym has published 10 books in
a series on contemporar y Korean art
including: K-Pop: Roots and Blossoming
of Korean Popular Music, Coe xisting
Differences: Women Artists in Contemporary
Korean Art, and Korean Abstract Painting:
A Formation of Korean Avant-Garde. Five
more books in this series will be published
in the future.
Special Lecture on Korean Paintings is a
compilation of talks given by Oh Ju-seok,
6
5
an expert in Korean art who
lectures all over the country.
This book is much loved by
Korean readers.
Inside Korea was published in
conjunction with Hyundai Motors 7
Group with the aim of introducing
Korea to foreign readers. In both
English and Korean, the book covers
general politics, economy, society, culture,
history, and religion in Korea.
Hollym is also renowned as a publisher
of children’s books. They have been
publishing children’s picture books
since late 1980s. Hollym offers 8
illustrated stor ybook s, nurser y
school, and elementary-level books, as
well as other series suitable for various 9
age groups.
Of course, they also publish English
book s for child ren. A mong t hese, a
10-volume series with illustrations of
traditiona l Korea n fa ir y ta les is t he
publishing house’s most representative
serie s, fe at u ri ng book s such a s The
7. Special Lecture on Korean Paintings
Woodcutter and the Heavenly Maiden, The
Oh Ju-seok
Firedog, Mr. Moon and Miss Sun, and The Hollym Corporation Publishers
Herdsman and the Weaver. 2011, 261p, ISBN 9781565913141
Let’s Visit Korea and Let’s Visit Seoul 8. K-POP
are part of its “Let’s Visit” series that was Kim Chang Nam
Hollym Corporation Publishers
designed for children to get to know more 2012, 160p, ISBN 9781565913318
about Korea and are also popular sellers 9. Inside Korea
for foreign readers abroad. Lee Eung-chel et al.
Hollym Corporation Publishers
2012, 512p, ISBN 9781565914032
by Shin Junebong
list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014 85
Contributors
Bok Dohoon is a literary critic. His
collections of critical essays include A
Portrait of a Blindman and The Four
Horsemen of the Apocalypse. He is on
the editorial board of list_Books from
Korea.
Choi Jae-bong is a senior reporter
at the culture desk of The Hankyoreh
newspaper.
Chong Won Sik majored in English
literature at Sogang University. He
joined the Kyunghyang Newspaper in
2007 and worked in the city section at
the Weekly Kyunghyang. At present, he
works at its literature desk.
Claire Lee is a staff reporter writing
for The Korea Herald, an English-
language daily in Seoul.
Eom Hye-suk conducts research on
children’s literature and is a critic of
illustrated books who also works as
a translator. Her best-known work
is Reading My Delightful Illustrated
Books.
Han Miwha is a book columnist. Her
works include Bestsellers of Our Time
and This Is How Bestsellers Are Made.
Jung Seo Rin is a reporter at the Seoul
Daily Newspaper.
Kang Yu-jung is a literary and film
critic, and the author of Oedipus’
Forest, a collection of critical essays.
She is on the editorial board of list_
Books from Korea.
Kim Bum-soo is a reporter with the
Hankook Ilbo.
Kim Dongshik is a literary critic
and a professor of Korean Language
and Literature at Inha University. His
collections of critical essays include
Cynicism and Fascination and Memory
and Vestige.
Kim Inae Sujung is a children’s story
writer and critic, and the president of
the KBBY (Korean Board on Books
for Young People). She is the author of
the children’s stories Across the Duroke
River and The Brave Little Mouse,
along with a collection of critical
essays,Why Children’s Stories Are Fun
to Read. She is also the recipient of
Today’s Young Artist Award.
Kim Ji-eun is a children’s book
writer and children’s literature critic.
She currently lectures on theories
of children's fiction writing in the
Department of Creative Writing at
Hanshin University. She is on the
editorial board of list_Books from
Korea.
Kim Mansu is a professor with the
Department of Culture and Contents
at Inha University. His works include
Plot and Character in the Age of
Storytelling. He is on the editorial
board of list_Books from Korea.
Kim Young-burn is a reporter at the
culture desk of the Munhwa Ilbo.
Kim Youngwook is a children’s
book writer and an illustrated book
researcher. Her published books
include The Illustrated Book: Encounter
with Music, The Grand Fiasco with the
Bookworm, and The Mysterious Pillow.
Lee Hyun Woo is active as a book
reviewer under the pseudonym is
Rodya. He is the author of The
Bookcase of Rodya, Freedom to Read
Books, Rereading the World Literature
of Rodya, A Very Personal Reading, and
Rodya’s Lectures on Russian Literature.
Michelle Nam has been with the
Imprima Korea Agency for two years
and has been in charge of the Minumsa
Publishing copyrights division since
1995.
Richard Hong is a book columnist
and the head of BC Agency. He
translated 13: The Story of the World’s
Most Notorious Superstitions, has
appeared on KBS 1 Radio’s "Global
Today," and writes columns for The
Korea Economic Daily and Posco News.
Shin Junebong is a reporter with the
JoongAng Ilbo.
Shin Soojin is a freelance children's
book editor.
Sue Yang is a literary agent and also
runs the agency, EYA in Seoul and
Beijing, representing global authors as
well as bestselling authors.
Suh Heewon is a literary critic. He
made his debut in 2009 when he won
the New Writer’s Contest in the critic
division sponsored by the Munhwa
Ilbo and Segye Ilbo.
list_ Books from Korea
Uh Soo-woong is editor-in-chief of
the Chosun Ilbo Weekly Magazine.
Yoon So-hee is a children’s book
writer. Her books include Prejudice,
Aram’s Secret, and 7 Stories to Help You
Study. She is the winner of the 13th
MBC Children’s Writing Prize.
Yu Youngjin is a children’s literature
critic and a teacher at an elementary
school. He is the author of The Body's
Imagination and Fairytale.
Translators
Agnel Joseph dabbles in translating
Korean literature. In 2013, he won
the LTI Korea Korean Literature
Translation Award for New Career
Translators, as well as the Korea
Times Modern Korean Literature
Translation Award. You can reach him
at agnelone@gmail.com.
Ally Hwang holds a doctorate
in Comparative Literature from
B i n g h a m t o n Un i v e r s i t y a n d i s
currently translating the short story
collection Myoungrang by Cheon
Un-yeong. She was a fellow of the
International Translation Foundation
and has recently published a short
story translation of Seo Hajin's "At the
Gunwale."
Ben Jackson worked for the English-
language magazine SEOUL for three
years and is now a freelance writer and
translator in Korea. He has a master's
degree in Korean Literature from the
School of Oriental and African Studies
in London.
Cho Yoonna is a freelance interpreter
and translator.
Choi Inyoung is an artist and
translator specializing in Korean
literature and the arts. She has been
translating for over 20 years.
E. K. DuBois is a freelance translator.
She currently resides in Seoul.
Vol.23 Spring 2014 87
 Featured Authors

Im m a n u e l K i m i s a p ro f e s s o r Sophie Bowman completed the Special Section

in the Department of Asian and
Asian American Studies at SUNY
Binghamton University. He teaches
North Korean literature and culture
and modern Korean literature and
film.
intensive course at the LTI Korea
pp. 12-21
Translation Academy and is now living
and working in Seoul.
Sue Y. Kim is a freelance translator
and writer based in Los Angeles.

Jung Yewon is a freelance interpreter Yang Sung-jin is a staff reporter and

and translator. She received the Daesan
Foundation Translation Grant in 2009,
the LTI Translation Grant in 2010, and
the Korea Times Translation Award in
2011. She is currently working on the
translation of Vaseline Buddha, a novel
by Jung Young Moon.
Kari Schenk was the co-recipient of
the commendation award in the 2006
Korea Times Literature Translation
Awards, and in 2010 she attended a
special course in translation at LTI
Korea. She lectures in English at Korea
University.
Kevin O'Rourke is a professor
emeritus at Kyunghee University. He
has translated over 20 books in a wide
range of genres. Among his works, The
Contemporary Korean Poets (1980) won
the Best Translation Award organized
by the Poetry Society of London.
Kim Soyoung is currently working
on translating fiction and nonfiction
from Korean into English.
Kim Ungsan is a freelance translator.
He has worked as a lecturer in English
literature at Seoul National University
and at Korea National Open University.
editor at The Korea Herald. Yang wrote
a Korean history book in English, Click
into the Hermit Kingdom, and a news-
based English vocabulary book, News
English Power Dictionary. Cho Eunyoung won the Grand Prix
at the Biennial of Illustration Bratislava
Yi Jeong-hyeon is a freelance (BIB) in 2011 for her illustration of
translator. She has translated several Run Toto!
books and papers, including Korean
Traditional Landscape Architecture and
Atlas of Korean History.
Editors
Kim Stoker is an editor and lecturer Yoo Juyeon was the recipient of
a t Ew h a Wo m a n s Un i v e r s i t y ' s the Golden Apple Prize at the 2011
Graduate School of Translation and Biennial of Illustration Brastislava
Interpretation.
(BIB). Her award-winning work,
One Day, was evaluated as having
Shannon Doona Heit has worked successfully conveyed an East Asian
as an editor and translator for the spatial aesthetic.
Seoul Global Center and the Korea
Journal. She is currently editing the
English version of Beyond the Shadow
of Western-centrism (working title)
for Sogang University professor Kang
Jung-In. She has a master’s degree
in Anthropology from Hanyang
University.

Lee Seungmi is a second year student

at the Graduate School of Translation
and Interpretation of Ewha Womans
University, majoring in French.
Park Kyoung-lee is a graduate
student at Hankuk University of
Foreign Studies. She won the 9th LTI
Korea Korean Literature Translation
Award for New Career Translators.
Paul Jonghan Yoon is a freelance
translator and studied at UCLA and
the University of Chicago.
Peter J. Koh is a freelance translator
and interpreter who completed LTI
Korea's Special Workshop in 2009 and
Intensive Workshop in 2010.
Cover Art
Noh In-kyung, M r. Tu t t i a n d
100 Water Drops, Munhakdongne
Publishing Corp., 2012
Kang Gyeongsu worked for many
years as a manhwa illustrator. After
falling in love with children’s books,
he went on to become an illustrator
for various picture books, such as Mr.
Confucius’ Bakery and What Should I
Be When I Grow Up?, among others.
He is the author-illustrator of I’m
Angry!, Give Back My Friend’s Legs!,
and The Big Fart. He won the Ragazzi
Nonfiction Award at the 2011 Bologna
International Children’s Book Fair for
his book The Stories Shouldn’t Be True.

Shin Junebong is a reporter for the

JoongAng Ilbo.

88 list_ Books from Korea Vol.23 Spring 2014