The Library of
Korean Literature
A Sampler
Titles in the Library of Korean Literature
available from Dalkey Archive Press
1. Stingray
Kim Joo-young
2. One Spoon on This Earth
Hyun Ki Young
3. When Adam Opens His Eyes
Jang Jung-il
4. My Son’s Girlfriend
Jung Mi-kyung
5. A Most Ambiguous Sunday, and Other Stories
Jung Young Moon
6. The House with a Sunken Courtyard
Kim Won-il
7. At Least We Can Apologize
Lee Ki-ho
8. The Soil
Yi Kwang-su
9. Lonesome You
Park Wan-suh
10. No One Writes Back
Jang Eun-jin
The Library of
Korean Literature
A Sampler
Edited by
Natalie Hamilton
dalkey archive press
champaign / london / dublin
Table of Contents
Preface
7
1. Excerpt from
No One Writes Back
Jang Eun-jin
Translated by Jung Yewon
9
2. Excerpt from
At Least We Can Apologize
Lee Ki-ho
Translated by Christopher J. Dykas
19
3. Excerpt from
The Soil
Yi Kwang-su
Translated by Hwang Sun-Ae and Horace Jeffery Hodges
25
4. Excerpt from
Lonesome You
Park Wan-suh
Translated by Elizabeth Haejin Yoon
46
5. Excerpt from
One Spoon on this Earth
Hyun Ki Young
Translated by Jennifer M. Lee
51
Preface
Dalkey Archive Press is pleased to present this sampler as
an introduction to the Library of Korean Literature. Working
in collaboration with the Literary Translation Institute of Korea,
Dalkey Archive Press is launching ten titles in Fall 2013, and
fifteen titles in Fall 2014. This groundbreaking project was initiated in response to the scarcity of Korean titles being published
in English-language translation, and the titles chosen will give
readers an unprecedented opportunity to access works from the
contemporary literary tradition of Korea. The Library will introduce readers to an array of contemporary Korean authors writing
in a variety of styles on a range of subjects—from colonial occupation and Korean military conflicts to the rural/urban divide
and the influence of Western pop culture.
The selections in this sampler illustrate the depth of the
Korean literary tradition that will be made available in English
translation for the first time though the Library of Korean
Literature: No One Writes Back is a masterful update of the picaresque novel, following a young man who leaves home with his
blind dog on a journey through human connection, grieving, and
healing; At Least We Can Apologize by Lee Ki-ho is a darkly comic
novel about an agency whose only purpose is to offer apologies—
for a fee—on behalf of its clients, leading to an examination of
sin, guilt, and the often irrational demands of society; The Soil by
Yi Kwang-su tells the story of an idealist dedicating his life to
7
helping the inhabitants of the rural community in which he was
raised, as he strives to influence poor farmers to improve their lots
and become self-reliant, indirectly changing the reality of colonial life on the Korean peninsula; “An Anecdote: The Bane of My
Existence” by Park Wan-suh, a key figure in Korean literature, is
a brief meditation on technology and aging; One Spoon on This
Earth by Hyun Ki Young weaves history, family anecdotes, and
personal mythology together in a kaleidoscopic autobiographical
bildungsroman. These selections will give readers a sense of the
grand scope and rich tradition included in the Library of Korean
Literature, and we hope that the selections in this sampler will
inspire you to seek out the books in this series.
8
1. Excerpt from
No One Writes Back
Jang Eun-jin
Translated by Jung Yewon
I left home with an MP3 player and a novel in an old backpack.
And with Wajo.
1. Motels are secretive.
And sometimes—no, often—no, almost always, they are
suggestive.
According to a motel proprietor, most people use a motel as a
“place of rest,” or in other words, a place in which to have sex, and
they think of it as such. I used to think so too, though I’ve never
been to a motel with a woman. But now, I had become, like them,
a person who stops now and then to rest at a motel. The important thing is that I just rest. By “rest,” I mean staying a night and
taking a break. Sleeping, pure and simple.
When I walked into the Motel Iris with Wajo, however, my
sleeping wasn’t taken to be so pure and simple. So in order to
get a room, we had to offer some words of explanation before
offering money. Depending on who’s listening, the words might
come across as calm explanation, or mere excuses. The proprietor,
a woman who was dozing off at the counter, looking disheveled
despite the elegant name of the motel, automatically said when
she saw us: “Are you here for a rest, or to stay the night?”
I had to choose one or the other. At such moments, it seemed
as though an automated robot, programmed with the same words,
stood at all motels nationwide. True, there isn’t much of a choice
as to what to say to a customer who walks into a motel, no mat9
Jang Eun-jin
ter how hard you search a dictionary. Those two options suffice.
The customers may even wish not to be asked those questions,
because it’s either embarrassing or bothersome.
It seemed that the proprietor wasn’t fully awake when she
asked the question; she looked from me to Wajo, frowning a little,
with a knowing look in her eyes, a look that’s usually intended for “couples.” Perhaps all couples looked suggestive to motel
proprietors. To us, however, “rest” just meant rest, and “sleep” just
meant sleep, so choosing an option was meaningless. But having had plenty of experience with motels, we knew what kind of
an answer would serve us better. We also knew that we had to
choose an option.
So I said, with confidence, “We’re staying the night.”
What’s odd is that the answer seemed to sound even more
suggestive to the woman. She looked at us with even more suspicion. She seemed a little perplexed, too.
So in the end, I had to say—as a final offering of explanation
before paying for the lodging—“It’s a boy.”
Wajo, being the smart boy he is, barked twice, “Woof, woof !”
at the woman.
Then he lifted two legs into the air, startling her by revealing
his big genitals. Finally, she gave us the key. We always have to
work twice as hard as anyone to get a room.
2. Despite everything, the proprietor of Motel Iris is on the lenient side. Most people frown when I tell them that I’ll be staying with a dog. They say things like, “We can’t have our rooms
smelling like dogs,” “It’s hard to clean dog hair from the bedding,” “He’s toilet trained, right?” “I’ll have to ask the proprietor,
because this has never happened before,” and so on. Through experience, I’ve learned how to make them shut their mouths. I
give them an extra 10,000 won bill. Usually, two people stay in
one room in motels and inns, but even so, we have to pay an extra
10
The Library of Korean Literature:
A Sampler
10,000 won from time to time. To them, Wajo is a dog, and a dog
is not a person but a thing, an additional thing which incurs additional cost. And they never turn down the offer of extra money.
It’s better, of course, than getting turned out.
Every time that happens, the people seem less than dogs in my
eyes. Wajo is smarter than me, and smarter than them. He understands everything people say, so in many cases, he’s even better
than human. No, he’s always better than human. And sometimes,
he seems human. So I don’t regret paying extra money at their
demand. Lately, I’ve been giving them extra money before they
even ask. I evaluate their character based on how they regard
Wajo, and what they say about him. To the proprietor of Motel
Iris, I gave an 80. I took 20 points off because she suspected our
relationship to be something abnormal.
3. As you’ve probably guessed, I’m a traveler who goes from motel
to motel. I had to give up or set aside many things to come on this
journey: home, family, friends, a job, and love. In the first place,
this journey wasn’t meant as a means to gain something. I embarked upon the journey to rid myself of things, and it could only
really begin when I did so. Still, there’s probably a bit of something I hope to have gained by the end of the journey. If there
is, it’s probably something like quiet stability. It’s a simple desire
for me. To be honest, I think you should gain at least one thing
from a long journey. If there was nothing to be gained, I’d feel
wronged, and the people who have blabbed on about traveling in
all those books, and urged others to travel, would feel ashamed.
I’m not saying, however, that I began my journey after reading
their books on travel.
I don’t like travel books that are half full of photographs.
Sometimes, you can’t tell whether the book was written for travel,
or the travel was undertaken for the book. What I dislike even
more are people who like to show off their travels. You can’t tell
11
Jang Eun-jin
whether they travel for themselves, or to show other people.
People who show off their travels do so because really, they don’t
have anything. That’s why I don’t take pictures when I travel. I
don’t buy souvenirs, either. Those things just get in the way when
you travel. Travel means freedom.
I do, however, like to write when I travel. Written words are
less extravagant than photographs and souvenirs, and they are
serious and reflective. Words penned while traveling do not lie;
they’re not for showing off, but for making you reflect on, and
take care of, yourself. I dare say that in life, it is when we travel
that our minds and hearts are the most widely open. It’s a time
when we think more than at any other time in our lives. We may
even think of something that we may never have thought of in
all our lives. And so, it would be the loss or the mistake of a
lifetime not to write down in words those thoughts which may
never have occurred to us in all our lives. You can always go back
and take pictures, and buy as many souvenirs as you want. But the
thoughts that come to you while you travel will not come back.
When you go back, the feelings and sensations you have will no
longer be the ones you had before.
4. That’s why, when the day is over, I settle down in a motel or
an inn and write a letter before I do anything else. Washing up,
eating, and resting come later. If I wash up or eat, I feel as though
the day’s worth of feelings goes down the drain and the esophagus altogether. The drain and the esophagus are places unknown
to me. All I know is that they are dark, smelly, black, and long. I
don’t want to send my travels down to such places.
Letters, however, are all right. At least I know better than anyone the route through which letters travel. Better yet, if the address is correct, the route is neither dark nor smelly. So, because
I must write a letter as soon as I arrive, the motels or inns where
I stay are always places of letters for me. And for me, letters are
12
The Library of Korean Literature:
A Sampler
daily necessities.
I take out from my backpack some sheets of paper and a pencil
with an eraser on it, and lie down flat on the floor. I feel as though
I’ve turned into an octopus. Wajo is lying down at the foot of the
bed on the other side of the room, looking tired. Wajo can’t write
letters, but he is quite aware of me and my letter writing. The
sound of the papers rustling, the sound of the pencil scratching the
paper, the sound of the eraser at the tip of the pencil rubbing away
at unsatisfactory sentences and wrong words—whenever sounds
come flowing out of the letters, Wajo’s wide and flat ears cock up.
When they do, I wonder, is it possible that he understands what
kind of sentences I’m writing? Wajo listens quietly to what I’m
writing, and if he doesn’t like it, he barks loudly, once. When I
follow his advice and take another look at what I’ve written, sure
enough, something is off or inappropriate. In this way, I reflect
Wajo’s opinions in my letters. This journey is for both Wajo and
me, and since it can be termed, if necessary, a “journey of letters,” I
think he has the right to take part in the letter writing.
I mull over the appropriate recipient of the letter containing
today’s journey. The faces of people with a number on the left
side of their chest go round and round in my head. Someone
who would best fit the kind of journey we had today; someone
who would understand our story better than anyone else; and
someone who would thus keep the letter safe without throwing
it away. 239.
5. 239 was a high school girl I met at a bus stop while waiting for
a bus headed for an unknown city. 239 is the number with which
I designated the girl. Saying that, I feel like one of those machines
on bank windows that spit out number slips, but I keep a tab on
the people I meet on my journey with numbers. Numbers are the
simplest way to establish an order, and are easy to remember, too.
Above all, numbers are signs that are infinitely expandable, with
13
Jang Eun-jin
no risk of depletion, which is an attractive idea.
Numbers are a means through which I identify people. Simple
as they look, numbers contain a myriad of information. They are
like product barcodes. I touch Number 239 with a barcode reader. With a beep, information on 239 pours out onto the virtual
monitor in my mind. I focus on the information listed on the
monitor.
Two best friends. No boyfriend. Has a black cat. Average grades.
Loathes her math teacher more than anyone after her father.
Wants to study drama and film. Unfortunately, does not have a
face fit for an actress. Still, wants to be an understudy, at least. Porn
actress a possibility. Her father keeps beating her. Her mother has
been having an affair for two years with the plastic surgeon who
gave her a chin job. Only 239 knows this fact. Is begging her
mother for double eyelid surgery. If her mother refuses, she will
expose the affair to her father. Worships the Beatles and Robert
De Niro. Does not read books of poetry, because they don’t have
an ending. Thinks there has to be an ending for despair to end as
well. Has considered suicide.
6. As is the case with everyone at that age, 239 was anguishing
between youth and despair. Because youth is so beautiful in itself,
I felt as though I had tasted the most extreme despair when the
word “despair” came popping out of 239’s mouth. I thought back
to myself when I was 239’s age. At the time, my despair was over
one thing only—my stuttering. I learned at that age, however,
that the one despair brought with it a noisy cart full of countless
despairs.
Never had more than two best friends, due to a stuttering problem. Hated my Korean teacher, who often called on me to read
aloud in class, to the point of wanting to kill her. So, out of pride,
14
The Library of Korean Literature:
A Sampler
often declared that my dream was to be an announcer. Because
of that, my family and other kids looked at me with pity in their
eyes. Thought in the end that I’d be satisfied with being a voice
actor specializing in moaning. Was beaten time and time again
by my older brother who was ashamed of his stuttering brother.
My father blamed my mother, saying that I was born that way
because she was too devoted to her job as a math teacher and
worked like crazy on calculus problems during her pregnancy. My
mother countered that I took after him, who studied physics in
college, which led to frequent fights. Naturally led to say less and
less, stayed cooped up in a little room, with a poster of Olivia
Hussey on the wall, and read aloud from nothing but novels. The
novels had to be thick. They had to be thick so that I could go on
practicing speaking without stopping. Thought from time to time
about biting my own tongue and dying.
7. A youth in despair and a youth who was once in despair seem
to have something in common. There may not be as many kinds
of despair facing humankind as we think. As in, “Are you here to
rest, or to stay the night?” We can’t, of course, choose the kind of
despair we are to face, as we choose between the two options at
a motel counter. The good thing, though, is that there’s only one
way to overcome despair. So we don’t have go through the painful
process of choosing. That one way is to grit your teeth and go on
living without dying.
I write a letter to 239, pressing down hard with the pencil. The
letter starts out by talking about 750, whom I met today. Lead
powder spreads out on the paper. Little by little, the lead grows
duller, and as it does, the sentences come into being.
750 was someone I met on the playground of an elementary
school that had closed down. There was no one else on the playground. 750 was sitting atop the highest pull-up bar, swaying
15
Jang Eun-jin
his legs, and staring intently off somewhere. In his hand was a
palm-sized book. Hanging from a lower pull-up bar next to him,
I asked him what he was looking at.
“The 5-3 classroom,” he said in reply.
“Is that where you studied?”
“It’s where I studied, and where I pushed a friend from the
window.”
“Huh? How . . . Is he dead, by chance?”
“He might as well be.”
“What do you mean, he might as well be?”
“He’s been in a coma. For twenty years.”
“What did your friend do to you?”
“He hid my shoes.”
“And you couldn’t go home?”
“I stayed up the night in the classroom. My feet were very
cold, because it was winter.”
“No wonder you were angry at your friend.”
“He must be angrier at me now, though. So I’ve been reading
him poems at his bedside, asking for forgiveness.”
“For twenty years?”
“Yes. It was his dream to become a poet.”
“You must have read him a lot of poems.”
“I feel like I know all the poems in the world. But it looks like
tomorrow will be the last day.”
“Are you going somewhere?”
“My friend is . . . They’ve decided today to disconnect the
respirator.”
“The pain will be over, at least.”
“I buried my first cat a few days ago, in the spot where my
friend fell.”
“How did it die?”
“The vet recommended euthanasia.”
“Does that mean that your poems will come to an end, too?”
16
The Library of Korean Literature:
A Sampler
“No. I’m going to sit here and read poems for my friend and
my cat.”
“Until when?”
“Until he’s buried underground.”
750 opened his book of poems. It seemed that 750’s despair
would have no ending, like books of poetry. The good thing,
though, is that poems and poets will continue to be born, and
the poems that are to be read by 750, like numbers, will never
be depleted. At that moment, the book of poems looked like a
structure that held the essence of life.
8. I write letters because I want to convey to someone the stories
of these people, but also because I want to let someone know that
a day had existed for me as well. Letters, in other words, are like
journal entries to me. The only difference is that the day does not
stay with me, but is sent to someone else. Journals are monopolized, but letters are shared. Journals are kept by one person alone,
but letters are kept by two or more people. I began to obsess over
letters when I became acutely aware of the notion of “two.” While
traveling, you grow even more aware of the notion. Perhaps that’s
why I began my journey.
I ask at the end of the letter to send a reply within two days,
adding, “From Room 203 at Motel Iris,” and seal the envelope.
My day vanishes into the envelope. All the letters in the world
have a look of importance to them, and now, the day, confined in
a rectangular frame, finally takes on the same important look.
I write down 239’s address and my own on the envelope. I
put down 239 as the name of the recipient. Receiving the letter,
239 will be reminded of the code number I gave her. She’ll also
remember suddenly, like a dream she’d had the night before, the
words I said: “You’re the 239th person I’ve met. Don’t forget your
number, 239.” Finally, I stick a stamp firmly on the envelope so it
won’t slip off. A day may come when I write of 239 to 750.
17
Jang Eun-jin
Thus ends my weary day. My days start and end with letters.
Since I’m done with my letter writing, it is now 0 o’clock, when
another day begins for me. Maybe I’m someone who ends yesterdays and begins tomorrows earlier than others. So I may grow old
and get wrinkles sooner than others. If any changes come because
I get wrinkles sooner than others, they would probably consist of
quick resignation and awareness of reality. So getting wrinkles
isn’t such a bad thing.
After I seal up the envelope, my body begins to relax, and I
grow drowsy. I never feel drowsy before I’m finished with my letter writing, no matter how tired I am. But I need to eat before I
sleep. It doesn’t matter if I skip a meal, but I can’t let Wajo starve.
Not starving Wajo was my grandfather’s greatest aim in life when
he was alive. It was also the last will he dictated.
Translated by Jung Yewon
Jang Eun-Jin was born in Gwangju, Korea, in 1976, and graduated from the Department of Geography at Cheonnam National
University. She made her literary debut with her receipt of the
Joongang Daily New Writers Award and has since published four
novels and a collection of short stories.
Jung Yewon was born in Seoul, and moved to the U.S. at
the age of 12. She received a B.A. in English from Brigham
Young University, and an M.A. from the Graduate School of
Interpretation and Translation at Hankuk University of Foreign
Studies.
18
2. Excerpt from
At Least We Can Apologize
Lee Ki-ho
Translated by Christopher J. Dykas
1. The Pillars Of The Institution
Si-bong and I first met in the institution. I was there first, and
Si-bong entered a week later. From then on we shared the same
room. Neither Si-bong nor I know how many years we spent
there together. That’s because we can’t remember. I know that
there, I grew six centimeters taller. Si-bong gained eight kilograms. Some time ago Si-bong had reached 84 kilograms. He
was the only person in the institution who gained weight. The
caretakers always told him to thank them for that. They would
add that our growing taller, or our growing heavier, was because
of the pills they gave us. Si-bong and I religiously took the pills
we were given: four a day, in the morning and at night. When
we first started taking the pills we felt sick and dizzy, as if teetering on a seesaw. Now, when we don’t take the pills we feel dizzy.
That’s why Si-bong and I were always waiting for pill time. When
the caretakers would stomp over to our room, pills in hand, and
stand at our door, we would rush over, our heels barely grazing
the floor, and kneel down with both hands outstretched. We never had a problem swallowing those pills; they slid perfectly down
our throats and disappeared into our bodies.
When we weren’t taking our pills, we worked, either packaging socks or labeling soap. On the sock crates we would attach
a group picture of the institution’s residents. When we took the
photo, Si-bong and I were in the back row on either side, standing at perfect attention. We both liked that picture. That was on
19
Lee Ki-ho
account of our looking like perfect pillars of the institution. Every
time we weren’t feeling well, Si-bong and I would take that picture out and look at it. Then we would go back to packing the
socks in their plastic. Perhaps it was thanks to that picture, but
the socks sold well.
The point when trouble started at the institution came when a
new, older man with long sideburns moved into our room. The
man would put his pills into his mouth and, after the caretakers left, spit them out again. One time the man said he wasn’t
ill. He said that he’d done nothing but fall asleep in the square
at the train station, and woke up in the institution. Si-bong, too,
said that he had gotten into a van at the square in front of the
train station, and that when he got out he was at the institution.
I didn’t say anything.
The man with the sideburns lowered his voice and spoke.
“Look at you! You guys are fine and you’re locked up in here! We
have to get out of here as soon as we can—and I’m telling you:
That’s not gonna happen by taking those pills!”
Si-bong and I looked at each other for a moment. The man
looked at us as well.
“But, sir . . . it’s like we’re the pillars of the institution.” Sibong followed the man’s tone, speaking in a low voice. All I did
was nod silently. The man just stared at us without a word. Then
he rolled over toward the wall. After that, the man stopped speaking to us at all.
Every day the man with sideburns took pieces of paper from the
sock crates in the workroom and, back in our room, wrote on
them:
We are being held captive. If you find this note, please report this to
the police. You will be generously rewarded.
The man would always sign his name at the end of the note.
20
The Library of Korean Literature:
A Sampler
He would stick a grain of cooked rice on the back of the paper to
glue it to a stone. Then, every morning during cleaning time, he
would throw the messages over the fence.
The image of the man staying up late each night to write
these notes was so pitiful that Si-bong and I decided to help him.
Before loading each box of socks into the crates, we would write
a note inside:
We are being held captive. If you find this note, please report this
to the police. The man in our room said that you will be generously
rewarded.
We wrote these notes inside the sock crates. We would always
end the note by signing, The Pillars of the Institution. We didn’t
want to cause the man with sideburns any trouble, so we always
wrote the notes quickly so that no one else would see. The socks
sold well.
One morning, exactly one month after we started writing the
notes, the institution was swarmed with police officers, government workers, and TV news reporters. We greeted them like true
pillars of the institution, standing at perfect attention.
2. The Home We Knew
The first person to come out of the institution was the superintendent. He got into a black car along with two police officers.
Before getting in, he turned around for a moment to look at the
main building. Si-bong and I remained standing at attention in
front of the building. The superintendent’s eyes met ours for a
moment. As always, Si-bong and I greeted him politely with a
bow.
The two caretakers, the director general, and the cafeteria
woman were also taken by a police van. As the cafeteria woman was being taken away at the hands of the police officers, she
yelled, “I’m a patient, too! A patient! I’m not normal!” The police
21
Lee Ki-ho
said nothing.
Some of the reporters came up to us and asked, “Could you
please tell us who ‘“the Pillars of the Institution’” are?”
Si-bong and I answered politely that it was us. As soon as we
did, even more reporters and other people gathered in front of us.
They asked questions in quick voices.
“How were you brought to the institution?”
“Have you suffered any abuse here?”
“What exactly does ‘“Pillars of the Institution’” mean?”
Just as Si-bong and I were about to answer the questions oneby-one, the man with the sideburns cut through the crowd and
came up to us. The man took our hands and shook them vigorously. He was beaming. We were not. The man answered the
reporters’ questions for us: We were all taken from the train station, we were all beaten daily by the superintendent and the two
male caretakers, we heard every kind of insult from the cafeteria
woman, but, despite all that, we were able to hide our plan, win
the confidence of the superintendent, and were entrusted with
the sock-packaging operation. And “Pillars of the Institution,”
that was our code name, our mission: to tear down the pillars of
the institution. The entire time the man spoke he kept hold of Sibong’s hand and mine. Sweat was collecting in our palms.
After the reporters left, the government officials brought in a
doctor. Guardians of some of the residents began to show up as
well. The government workers stood by the doctor, asking the
residents questions.
“Would you like to go to another facility? Or would you like
to go home?”
The doctor sat there, tapping his pen on the table as he stared
at the residents. From time to time he even yawned and drew
pictures of trees on his paper. He smelled of alcohol. The government workers did not ask me and Si-bong questions. Instead, they
22
The Library of Korean Literature:
A Sampler
pointed to us and whispered in low voices, “There, the whistleblowers.”
When everyone was done being questioned, one of the government workers came up to us and handed us envelopes.
“You two can go home now.”
Inside the envelopes was money for us to get home. The man
with sideburns came up to us as well.
“Get home safe, Mr. Pillars. Maybe we’ll see each other again.
If you ever wanna see me, just come on over to the square in front
of the train station in the town over there.”
We walked out of the main gate of the institution. Spread out
in front of us were low-lying hills, pine trees and firs, all coated
sparsely with the final remnants of snow. Si-bong and I looked at
the clouds above the firs for a while. The trees looked like pillars,
holding up the clouds.
Si-bong asked me, “So, you’re gonna go back home now?”
I answered honestly, “I don’t know where my house is.”
Si-bong continued to look at the clouds, then said, “Really? I
know where my house is . . . ”
I said nothing as I looked at the dirt road that led up to the
highway. The crisscrossing tire tracks in the dirt looked like the
metal grates on our windows at the institution.
Si-bong brushed off his pant legs and spoke. “So, you wanna
just start by going to the house we know, first?”
I nodded silently. Only then did we slowly start walking. After
walking for a while, Si-bong and I turned around for a moment
to look back at the institution. With all the people gone from
inside, the institution looked somehow in danger, as if it might
come tumbling down at any moment. I felt queasy. The institution was the place where we had lived for a number of years, a
place that had taught us so much. That was certainly something
to be thankful for. Now, Si-bong and I were leaving that place.
23
Lee Ki-ho
Translated by Christopher Dykas
Lee Ki-ho debuted when his short story “Birney” won the
monthly Modern Literature New Writer’s Contest in 1999. He
is currently a professor in the department of creative writing at
Gwangju University.
Christopher J. Dykas is from Los Angeles, California. After
five years working in Seoul as a teacher, radio host, and translator,
he returned to Los Angeles to pursue graduate studies in Applied
Linguistics at UCLA.
24
3. Excerpt from
The Soil
Yi Kwang-su
Translated by Hwang Sun-Ae and
Horace Jeffery Hodges
1-1
After returning from the night school where he taught, Heo
Sung lay down, resting his neck upon his schoolbag and lacing
his fingers behind his head to form a pillow. Lying still, he could
hear mosquitoes buzzing to and fro as they tried to get around
the mosquito-repellent smoke. Now that the seventh month of
the lunar calendar was half past, the wind felt a bit cool after
nightfall.
For a couple of years, Heo Sung had lived in Seoul with little
possibility of hearing the mosquitoes’ buzz. In his hometown,
even listening to them again pleased him.
“How tall and beautiful Yu Sun has become,” Heo Sung murmured to himself. Her image appeared before him, healthy and
strong with gently rounded features. Though her face was tanned
dark from the mountain region’s strong sunlight, her eyes, nose,
and mouth stood out sharply without losing the softness of a
young woman’s features. Reflecting moonlight, her face had been
beautiful, almost like moonlight itself. Only her roughened hands
did not fit. Used for weeding fields and working in water, they
were not the porcelain hands of a city woman. She wore a stiff skirt
and a traditional summer jacket of hemp cloth, along with black
rubber shoes. She went without socks, which left the tops of her
feet darkly tanned. Equally dark were her hands, wrists, and neck,
25
Yi Kwang-su
as well as her calves below the short bloomers and shorter skirt,
as if the summer sunlight had wished to kiss her body whenever
offered a chance, desiring her beautiful and healthy skin.
Heo Sung tried to compare Yu Sun with Jeong-seon. The latter was daughter to Mr. Yun, the aristocratic official in whose
Seoul residence Sung was the house tutor. Jeong-seon was a
fragile woman with fair skin, almost transparent, and hands so
small and soft that they seemed likely to shatter at a touch. She
had been one of the loveliest beauties in Sookmyung Girls’ High
School.
In Sung’s eyes, Jeong-seon was the celestial maiden of the
moon, so unreachable. He had roomed in the servants’ quarters of
the Yun family while tutoring their young son in primary school
studies, and for such a poor man from the countryside without
parents or property, a beautiful woman like Jeong-seon, the only
daughter of a noble and wealthy family, was one in whose presence he felt unworthy even to lift up his eyes.
But he might be able to secure at least a woman like Yu Sun
for himself. In his current situation, Yu Sun’s parents might be
reluctant to offer him their daughter’s hand, but they would perhaps consider him as a future son-in-law after he had graduated
from college.
With those thoughts, Sung sighed over his circumstances.
Sung’s family had been among the well-off families in the
village. His father Gyeom, a graduate of Daesung School in
Pyongyang, had been arrested several times under the Japanese
Military Police Government as a suspect in the Sinminhoe,
Bukgando, and Seogando affairs, as well as in the independence
movement. His various sentences added up to about eight years,
but he spent over ten altogether behind bars, including detentions at the police station after his arrest and his time confined
during the investigations.
The family fortune had been used up in supporting him dur26
The Library of Korean Literature:
A Sampler
ing those long prison years, and sustaining the household itself
was difficult, let alone providing for Sung’s school fees. Once out
of prison, Gyeom had used the family’s rice paddies and other
lands as collateral for funds from a financial cooperative to start
a business. But having no experience with that kind of work, he
failed, losing all the collateral land, and so turned to alcohol out of
anger, only to die of typhoid fever. His wife and daughter, Sung’s
younger sister, also became infected and died, leaving Sung with
nothing but the clothes on his back.
Sung thus had no place of his own, and the house where he
was now staying belonged to his cousin Seong.
Yu Sun’s family lived over a hill from where he was staying.
Her parents were simple farmers. Sun’s father Jin-hi was still
young, and her grandfather had succeeded in the first-level national exam, attaining the title chosi. The Heo clan had lived in
Sung’s village for several hundred years. The Yu clan had lived
equally as long in the village over the hill. Both had produced
family members who had succeeded in the national exams, or
who had lived in the tile-roofed houses of the rich. But according
to Grandfather Yu, “There’s been no use for scholarship or in being yangban nobility since the Reformation of 1894.”
As the two villages slowly declined, the courageous gave up
their government offices, tied headbands to their brows, and
threw away their books and brush pens to wield hoes in rice paddies instead. Some, however, buckled down, sticking to their offices and hoping for the glory of old times. But a few like Sung’s
father stood “at the forefront of reform,” keeping their hair cut
short and wearing Western-style clothes. Some of these ended up
in prison. Members of Yu Sun’s family were among the quiet, sly
ones who looked out for their own interests. Heo Sung’s family
was among those active in affairs, working to improve the world
or going to modern schools.
27
Yi Kwang-su
1-2
On the evening before leaving for Seoul, during his last lesson in
a week of night school, Heo Sung taught the rest of the textbook
with special devotion and even gave an informal, wide-ranging
lecture to encourage people.
The night school had been divided into one class for men and
another for women. In the latter were some women as old as his
aunt or grandmother, but others the age of his younger sister.
They listened with open curiosity as Sung explained about personal hygiene, about the spherical Earth and how it rotated daily
while the Sun remained unmoving, about electrical light and airplanes, and about how clouds became rain or snow.
“Is it really true?” many wondered. Some women couldn’t believe any of it, but none spoke up in opposition. The men’s class
was different. Some asked questions, or even opposed him.
“What on earth is this?” someone asked. “Why’s life getting
so hard?”
“These days, I heard even university graduates can’t get a job,”
said another, more knowledgeable of the world.
“You’ve studied so much. Now’s time to get married and start
a family. What’s the use of studying any more?” With such words,
men the age of his uncle or his grandfather would suddenly interrupt the lecture with unexpected advice.
Most were of the Heo clan, but a few members of the Yu
clan had come from over the hill. Yu Sun was one of those in the
women’s class.
Unlike many others, Yu Sun had received an elementary
school education, but she still came to attend his night school.
She was one of the most attentive students.
Thinking of his upcoming departure, Heo Sung felt sad.
During class, he had looked at Sun as often as possible. Sun’s eyes
sometimes met his. He wished that he could continue teaching.
28
The Library of Korean Literature:
A Sampler
After the course was over, dozens of men gathered under the
old zelkova tree to hold a farewell party for Sung. They brought
yellow melons, alcoholic drinks, and steamed cobs of corn and sat
together in a circle chatting.
“When are you coming back again?”
“I’m not sure. Probably next year.”
“When’s your graduation?”
“Two years from now.”
“You’re studying law, right?”
“Right.”
“You’ll become a police chief after graduation?”
“Well . . .”
“He could also become a county clerk. But to be a county
commissioner takes time.”
“A lawyer makes good money, I’ve heard, but there’s another
test for that, right?”
“Right.”
“He’s talented, he can become a lawyer.”
“A lawyer earns well, I’ve heard.”
“For making good money, a doctor’s the best job.”
“For the big money, you need to find a gold mine.”
“There’s no money to be made in Korea. It’s dried up like a
drought.”
“For farmers like us, it’s nearly impossible to get your hands
on a ten-won note.”
“Have some more melon.”
“Oh, it’s quite late now.”
Thus went the conversation. While Heo Sung was listening,
his face sometimes flushed, and he occasionally sighed. But he
felt a closeness with these uneducated people, an affection for
them. Their words seemed to entail boundless goodwill. He liked
their humane side, different from polite, careful, calculating city
folk.
29
Yi Kwang-su
That evening, Sung suggested that a cooperative be formed.
His recommendation received a positive response from nearly everybody, but he would have to leave without being able to implement it.
With his bag and blanket in hand, Sung left his cousin’s place
before dawn to catch the early train. Listening to the sound of
insects in the grass along the road, he walked toward the train
station. He had just reached the fork leading off in the direction
of Muneomi when he was suddenly startled.
“It’s me.” It was Yu Sun. Sung was so surprised at this unexpected encounter that he immediately and unselfconsciously
took her hands. “When are you coming back?” she asked.
“Next summer.” Sung stroked her hair as she stood and leaned
her forehead against his chest.
Sun gave him four steamed cobs of corn wrapped in a handkerchief before he continued on his way. She waited until his train
rushed through the dark bluish dawn, curving toward Muneomi,
and waved with tears in her eyes.
1-3
Sung emerged from a passenger car to stand at the top step, wishing to catch a glimpse of Sun as the train turned, but dawn light
left the young woman’s form hidden in mountain shadow a kilometer away. Sung waved in the direction he assumed she stood
and murmured, “See you next summer, Sun.”
The train was running on the steel bridge of Salyeoul Village.
“Salyeoul! How lovely is that name!” Sung looked down at the
water flowing under the bridge. Dark water still wore the summer
night. As his eyes followed its course upstream, the milky-white
fog of the valley, more typical of early autumn, grew visible. Over
the moisture-soaked ground and over the softly murmuring water, the white fog was spreading, one of the most evocative beau30
The Library of Korean Literature:
A Sampler
ties of nature.
On both sides of Salyeoul were rice paddies irrigated by the
stream’s water. These paddies yielded rice to the bounty of 150
bushels per acre. Originally, there may have been miles of grassland, or forests that shut out the sky. Into such a wild forest, inhabited by deer and fox, the clear water of Salyeoul might have
flowed. There was a hill still called “a hill of bright sky.” As a child,
Sung had learned from his father that one used to see the bright
sky only upon reaching the crest of that hill.
Sung’s ancestors had cultivated the forest, very likely in tandem with Sun’s ancestors. They must have cut trees, dug out the
roots, made water pools for rice paddies, and plowed the paddies
in sweat and blood. Eating the rice grown there, these ancestors
had dwelt in this place and enjoyed their lives over generations,
and Sung’s and Sun’s own bodies, their bones, flesh, and blood,
were like flowers that had budded, grown, and blossomed in this
soil, a soil mixed with their ancestors’ sweat!
But most of these paddies no longer belonged to their clans.
Nowadays they were all the property of a company, a bank, a
cooperative, or a farm. Those who lived in Sung’s hometown
Salyeoul were now like uprooted grass. One heard the idle and
peaceful sounds of roosters and dogs or horses and oxen less often
this year. Not only had their numbers decreased, but the sounds
themselves seemed less idle and less peaceful. Life had become
anxious, tough, and full of resentment.
As the train rolled along, Sung watched mountains, fields, and
villages come and go. He saw the fully ripened rice, yellow millet
bowing, barnyard grass, and sorghum, which recalled a bleeding
warrior with loosened hair. He saw women bearing jars atop their
heads after drawing early water. The morning sun was shining
onto the damp water jars, and these flashed golden. A woman
brushed away the water overflowing from the jar with one hand
and with the other covered her breasts, which would have showed
31
Yi Kwang-su
under her short jeoksam, a woman’s traditional summer jacket.
At the loud rumbling of the rushing train, a number of tanned,
naked children ran after, excited and shouting. Thatched-roof
houses, having survived the long rainy season, looked as saggy
and tired as farmers after long summer labor. Like the worried
folk who lived in those houses, the black thatch of the roofs appeared weather-beaten. In homes thick with fleas and bedbugs,
the people—poverty-stricken, sick with worry over debts and illnesses, and deprived of hope—lived out their lives with a frown.
The train stopped at a station, and Sung could see the stationmaster, a conductor mingling with the station staff, the redbrimmed hat of a Japanese policeman, a gentleman, apparently
head of a township, wearing a Panama hat, a young female student with a basket, and an older couple, probably the student’s
parents, leaving for Seoul.
With a tweet from the stationmaster and a whistle from the
locomotive’s steam engine, the train soon started to chug along
again. After leaving this bigger town with its small station behind, Sung felt hungry. He took out the corn that Sun had given
to him. After eating two cobs, he felt a little embarrassed, rewrapped the rest, and put them back.
When he got off at Gyeonseong Station, he was confronted
with a swarm of busy taxis, crazy buses, rickshaws like toys, and
people with hearts cold as wind-driven sleet. He felt as if he had
awakened from a dream.
Sung boarded a tram and returned to Mr. Yun’s house in
Samcheongdong. After setting his baggage down, he went to the
main reception room to find only a few men sitting there wearing Korean traditional hats, but Mr. Yun was not among them.
Sung then went to the small reception room, but Yun’s first son,
In-seon, was not there either. On his way back, he met one of the
house servants, an older woman, carrying an earthen pot of stew.
“Oh, tutor, you’re back.” After greeting him heartily, she added,
32
The Library of Korean Literature:
A Sampler
“The master’s son is very ill. Mr. Yun is with him in his room.”
1-4
As a house tutor and a student from the countryside, Sung’s
arrival would be of no more significance than a neighborhood
cat’s intrusion. Moreover, in circumstances like these, when the
eldest son’s health was critical and recovery uncertain, the whole
house was in a stir, so nobody took notice of Sung except the
older woman, who served him food and told him about In-seon’s
condition.
In-seon was born weak. His mother died a few months later
from tuberculosis, a disease she had already been afflicted with.
In-seon inherited his mother’s constitution. His skin was thus
bright, thin, and soft as a woman’s, and he had a narrow chest
and lanky frame. Though very weak, he was certainly a handsome
man and talented, as his excellent school performance proved.
By contrast, In-seon’s wife was a woman of health and sensuality. Sung had seen her several times, noting her smiling eyes and
coquettish manner. In-seon’s friends joked about his weakness,
attributing it to his wife.
This summer, In-seon had gone to Seokwangsa Temple on
vacation to avoid the heat but had been afflicted there with diarrhea. Since returning home, he had suffered fever as well as indigestion and insomnia. Mr. Yun had grown worried and called in
doctors, modern as well as traditional, but In-seon failed to improve. Mr. Yun then invited a famous traditional doctor who was
said to have studied twenty years at Jiri Mountain. This doctor
prescribed deer antlers and certain roots, such as mulberry, that
had to be decocted and imbibed. In-seon took the medicine, but
became red and hot over his entire body. He grew delirious, spoke
senselessly, and laughed spasmodically. After he had suffered a
week in that state, another doctor came to give an injection and
33
Yi Kwang-su
other medicine, which made him sleep, but he had been unable
to speak or eat properly since then.
In the reception room were still some men sitting together attired in Korean hat and topcoat, doctors of traditional medicine
with official governmental titles like jinsa, or sagwa. They were
debating the five natural elements in the Chinese art of divination and the sixty combinations of Heavenly Stems and Earthly
Branches to decide on how to change the direction of the sick
person’s head every day, from which direction the water for the
concoction had to be drawn, or at what time the concoction had
to be performed and so on.
These men took care of their concoction personally, sitting
beside the fire and ordering a housemaid standing nearby to assist. She was forever being ordered to light the pipe tobacco and
bring it over.
Mr. Yun had set his heart especially on In-seon not only because he was the first son but also because In-seon had lost his
mother very young and was such a fragile child. Moreover, after
turning 60, Mr. Yun had given over to In-seon’s charge all paperwork regarding his property and the house budget, leaving
entailed to himself only the right of veto as the highest authority.
In-seon, unlike the other sons of wealthy families, did not squander wealth but knew how to practice economy, and Mr. Yun thus
took great delight in such a trustworthy son.
Watching his son now suffering helplessly, he became so upset that he wouldn’t take meals properly, but only smoked and
drank.
On the morning after arriving, Heo Sung went to the main
reception room to offer greetings to Mr. Yun.
“You are back,” said Mr. Yun.
Uttering only that one sentence, he turned again to the traditional doctors in their Korean hats and reprimanded them, saying, “Of what use is that medicine?”
34
The Library of Korean Literature:
A Sampler
The doctors again started to debate the cause of the disease,
but without knowing what they were talking about and just
mouthing traditional medical terminology.
From outside, the boiling of the medicine pot grew audible
and the vapor with its peculiar odor came seeping through the
pot’s paper cover.
It was a clear, hot day.
1-5
The ginseng and deer antlers having provided no beneficial effect, In-seon died on an early morning five days after Heo Sung’s
arrival. The evening before his death, relatives came to gather in
the house at news of his critical condition. Among them were
Mr. Han-eun, a distant cousin of Mr. Yun and well-reputed in
society; some cousins of In-seon; some young men who had studied overseas in either Japan or America; and some other men
unknown to Heo Sung, along with their wives. Also came Kim
Gap-jin, an older alumnus of Sung’s high school and now a law
student at Gyeonseong Imperial University. He was the son
of Kim Nam-gyu, who had been involved in the Japan-Korea
Annexation Treaty of 1907 and had received the title of baron.
Kim Gap-jin had been well-known as a brilliant student since
his early school years, and this had also made him arrogant. His
father, however, who had wasted all his money on alcohol, women, and unwise investments, died after going bankrupt and being
accused of swindling. His fall had led to loss of his baronetcy
even though he was not indicted, leaving Gap-jin to descend into
poverty without inheriting the title. His father and Mr. Yun had
been good friends, so the latter was supporting his study. For that
reason, Gap-jin not only visited Mr. Yun’s place to offer the ritual
New Year’s bow, but even on occasions dealing with house affairs,
as if he were a family member.
35
Yi Kwang-su
After In-seon died, people’s envious attention was directed toward Mr. Yun’s daughter Jeong-seon, whose mourning for the loss
of her elder brother only added more beauty to her features. She
had been born to Mr. Yun’s second wife, daughter of Kim Seungji in Namwon, the richest man in the Jeolla Province, where Mr.
Yun had been dispatched to serve as a government official. Jeongseon’s mother was famous for her beauty and for having brought
to the marriage a large dowry. At the time, some people in Seoul
sneered at Mr. Yun for having married the daughter of a rural
commoner for money, and there was some truth to this.
Rumor had it that Miss Kim brought land producing 25,000
or 50,000 bushels of rice as dowry, but whatever the case, no one
could deny that Mr. Yun’s wealth had increased by about 50,000
bushels during his two years of service in the Jeolla Province. A
part of that might have come from bribes or extorting people, but
at least two-thirds came from his bride.
Through his marriage and position in the Jeolla Province,
Mr. Yun became a well-known man of wealth in Seoul, and the
changing times that brought the new railroad line connecting the
capital to the Jeolla Province raised land and rice values several
times higher, increasing Mr. Yun’s wealth even more.
But his wife died before she turned forty, having given birth to
a daughter and a son. The son had died not very long after birth,
and only Jeong-seon had been left as her own flesh and blood.
People said that Jeong-seon looked exactly like her mother. She
was tall and slender, and her skin was bright and soft. In contrast
to her late brother In-seon, she was not weak, but healthy despite
being soft. Her only fault, if one needed to be found, was that her
high nose and moist eyes made her seem almost too seductively
charming for a lady of a well-bred household.
Jeong-seon was the top student at Sookmyung Girls’ High
School a couple of times, and after entering the music department at Ewha College, she gained a high reputation for her beau36
The Library of Korean Literature:
A Sampler
ty and brilliance. She was the daughter of a wealthy, noble family,
a beautiful woman, and an excellent student. Rumor had it that
she would inherit at least some part of her mother’s dowry, so
the attention she received from talented young men and various
families with sons was understandable. This was especially the
case now that Mr. Yun’s first son In-seon had died, for his sonin-law would become head of the household until his third wife’s
son, Ye-seon came of age, or so people assumed.
Who would draw that lot for the fortune of becoming Jeongseon’s husband? The question aroused great interest.
1-6
After watching his eldest son die, Mr. Yun charged into the reception room and drove out the doctors with Korean hats, the
Daoist masters. “Fools, what do you know? You killed my son!”
At this furious outburst, they took fright, withdrawing from
the house and out the gate. But one of them soon returned to the
yard with a plea. “Please give us some travel money.”
At this, Mr. Yun shouted, “These fools are sneaking in again!
Drive them out! Call the police to come arrest them all.”
At this threat, they uttered no further word and ran away.
Mr. Yun then grabbed the boiling pot of medicine and dashed
it to the ground. It rolled along, spitting hot black fluid.
Heo Sung, who had been standing behind the door, waited
until Mr. Yun calmed down and then came out to offer a word of
comfort. “I am wordless for sorrow.”
“Yes, In-seon died.” With that response, Mr. Yun looked at
Heo Sung. Heo Sung remained silent, not knowing what more
to say.
“You did right, expelling those ghost-haunted fools.” With
these words, Kim Gap-jin also came from the room, apparently
having stayed overnight. Even in these circumstances, he was
37
Yi Kwang-su
wearing his serge university uniform with its initial “J” from the
“jo” in “Keijo Imperial University,” the Japanese name for Gyeong
Seong Imperial University. In his hands, he held the square hat
with a badge that read “University.”
“In-seon died.” Mr. Yun repeated to Gap-jin.
“Yes, what a tragedy. It’s because those superstitious fools
made him take that poisonous medicine. If you had put him in
a hospital at the beginning, as I advised, this wouldn’t have happened. What do those quacks know except how to kill a person?”
Gap-jin’s conclusive and admonitory tone revealed his arrogant
character.
“Do you think that I didn’t try with doctors?” Mr. Yun retorted. “What more do they know? They just wanted to take my
money.”
“It was a mistake from the beginning to call Korean doctors.
Such idiots, the Koreans, what do they know? The ignorant bastards don’t know a damn thing! You should have called Japanese
doctors, like Doctor Hujimura or Doctor Ito. In-seon could have
survived.” Gap-jin continued with such condescension.
Mr. Yun gave Gap-jin a cross look and went back inside, calling for someone.
Heo Sung, unable to endure Gap-jin’s manner, reprimanded
him. “You shouldn’t talk like that.”
“What are you yapping about? You’re just a private college
student. Students of those colleges think they’re such patriots.
Listen, what do professors at Bosung College know? They don’t
know as much as freshmen at a real university. As for you, if you’re
only good enough to get into a school like that, you’d be better
off going back home to farm the soil of your forefathers instead
of feeding yourself on cold rice and staying in a servant’s room
of some house just living off somebody, which is so disgusting.”
Sneering and shaking his head, Gap-jin left, probably for a nap
after his sleepless night.
38
The Library of Korean Literature:
A Sampler
Sung didn’t become upset because he was used to such words,
having often experienced Gap-jin that way. Reflecting upon the
distinction that yet existed between city people and country people, between noble and commoner, he sighed.
But Sung felt uneasy. He reflected on Gap-jin’s words: “feeding yourself on cold rice and staying in a servant’s room of some
house just living off somebody, which is so disgusting,” and “better off going back home to farm the soil of your forefathers.” The
words troubled his heart, almost stabbing it, although not in the
way Gap-jin had intended by his insult.
1-7
It was true. Young male and female students from the countryside thronged to Seoul because they didn’t want to work the soil
of their forefathers but preferred to freeload, which was indeed
disgusting. That was true. The rice paddies, fields, and mountains where ancestors had toiled in blood and sweat—which
would yield rice, vegetables, clothes, or all necessities of life if
one worked them hard enough—had either been hocked at high
interest or sold to support sons and daughters studying in Seoul.
The only aim now of parents and their children was to lead a
life without tilling the soil. With dark-tanned faces, large rough
hands, big feet, meek eyes, and rugged bodies, these offspring of
farmers who had lived for generations by their muscles working land and struggling against nature now wore ill-fitting city
clothes and roamed the city streets. What a pitiful sight it was
to watch them, these young men and women, regarded as “rustics” or “hicks” in the eyes of city people even when they dressed
in high-priced, fashionable clothes, which only made them look
more ridiculous. Their parents sold land and struggled to survive,
while they wasted precious money in the department stores and
drinking establishments of Seoul’s expensive Jongno area.
39
Yi Kwang-su
Even if they finished college or university someday, what
could they do to earn their daily bread? Their desire to enjoy
life without hard work, or to work in government posts, or as
white-collar workers or bank clerks, wouldn’t be fulfilled. All that
they would get in Seoul was a piece of paper from some college,
extravagant spending habits and desires, tuberculosis and sexual
diseases, and health problems brought on by a city lifestyle illsuited to a constitution meant for nature and the countryside.
Nothing more. They didn’t want to work the ancestral soil, but
would prove unable to get a job that they did want, so their hope
of enjoying life without hard work would bring them hunger and
unemployment.
“I’m also one of those people.” So thought Sung, dispirited. Gap-jin’s silly manner of putting on airs seemed rather
advantageous.
From inside the room, three women’s lamenting voices were
audible. One came from Jeong-seon, another from Jo Jeong-ok,
the late In-seon’s wife, and the last appeared to belong to Inseon’s stepmother.
Jo Jeong-ok was the granddaughter of the well-known nobleman Jo of Jaedong, who had high government ranking, and the
daughter of Baron Jo Nam-ik. She had graduated from Jaedong
Girls’ Middle School and then Public Girls’ High School, mainly
attended by Japanese. There she also wore kimono and hakama, a
pleated, ankle-length Japanese skirt. After graduating, she went
to Tokyo for one year through connections to the office responsible for descendents of the Korean royal family. Mr. Yun was
said to have little luck with sons but to be always surrounded by
beautiful women, and Jeong-ok was a beauty. She had, however,
smiling eyes and behaved in a coquettish manner, too much for
a daughter of a well-bred family. The education that she had received—not only in her family but also in primary school, middle
school, and the girls’ high school—provided not motivation or
40
The Library of Korean Literature:
A Sampler
training but individualism and selfishness.
She had learned nothing of patriotism, which was in fact not
taught in Korean schools, nor of Christian love for humanity, nor
of the Buddhist philosophy of sacrificial service, treating everyone
as likewise benevolent and interconnected, nor of sacrificing oneself to help other Koreans out of their misery and provide them
happiness, nor any practical training whatsoever. The only things
taught were filial loyalty, service to husbands, fiscal responsibility,
and loving kindness to children, none of which extended beyond
an education based on individualism or familialism. Moreover,
her father Jo was well known for his disorderly life, and the family of her father-in-law, Mr. Yun, had nothing to offer her but
wealth, no philosophy of life. Those with whom Jeong-ok interacted were all more or less her kind of individualists and selfish
hedonists.
For a woman like Jeong-ok, to lose her husband around thirty
meant losing everything in life.
1-8
Jeong-ok couldn’t control herself. The more time passed after her
husband’s death, the greater her sadness. She wailed. Striking the
ground, and even trying to hang herself by her long, untied hair,
she cried continuously.
“Jeong-ok, Jeong-ok,” Jeong-seon would say, trying to quell
her tears, but she would then cry along with her. Older relatives
scolded them: “You should stop crying like that in your father’s
presence!” But Jeong-ok didn’t care.
“The young women these days behave so badly—no respect
for their parents and no shame!” remarked the older women,
speaking ill of Jeong-ok. These old ladies were dismayed to see
that the strict morals of their youth had been disrupted and felt
displeasure at such unrestrained behavior.
41
Yi Kwang-su
Money saved Mr. Yun from his sadness. It was the most important item of his personal holy trinity. First was money, second
was women, and third was his son. Although In-seon was now
dead, he had yet another son Ye-seon, though very young, and he
had money. Managing wealth amounting to one million won was
no easy job. Mr. Yun had many men under his command, but nobody was equal to the task. In-seon had been the only one trusted
with bank books and official seals, and the loss of In-seon in his
capacity as a most faithful clerk was a blow as great as In-seon’s
death itself. Mr. Yun nevertheless continued his life and business
just like before as soon as the funeral was over, despite his sadness
as a father who had lost a son.
But what was left for Jeong-ok, the late In-seon’s wife? Her
family and education had left her narrow-minded. Absent any
dispensation from heaven, nothing could be expected of her
beyond a desire to enjoy married life and be adorned with new
dresses. Even a new dress had meaning only to the extent that it
might please her husband, so nothing remained for her now but
sadness, darkness, and hopelessness. Moreover, her mother-inlaw, a slightly older alumna of the same school, whom she had
despised as the wife of an old man, would now despise her in
return as an ill-favored young widow. Reflecting on this, she felt
miserable. A child would have comforted her, but Jeong-ok’s son
and daughter had both died before they could speak, and her only
other pregnancy had resulted in a miscarriage.
Her crying, overheard constantly from her room, was too
heartbreaking to listen to. The only person who could comfort
her was Jeong-seon, but with the new semester that had started
in September, she went off daily to school until late afternoon,
leaving Jeong-ok alone to cry by herself almost incessantly. She
could have gone to her family if they had lived close, but they
lived in South Chungcheong Province, in Yesan. Besides, her father and mother had both passed away, and only her womanizing
42
The Library of Korean Literature:
A Sampler
older brother still lived there with his wife.
Heo Sung gradually became necessary to the household. Mr.
Yun started to trust him after assigning him a few jobs, and Sung
began to work as his secretary, taking care of bank business, doing paperwork, and contacting others, even performing the most
sensitive jobs. He did the same work as In-seon had done except
that he was not Mr. Yun’s son. Mr. Yun even let him move from
the servants’ quarters to In-seon’s place, a small reception room,
so the servants started to call him “sir” in a highly respectful tone,
in contrast to their previous manner, when they had referred to
him simply as “the man from the countryside” or “the student.”
The complex work that Sung was now in charge of interfered
significantly with his studies, but he was not displeased that Mr.
Yun placed absolute trust in him. Moreover, he was delighted
that visitors who had previously not even properly responded to
him now took the initiative in greeting him.
1-9
One day while Sung was in the main reception room doing some
bookkeeping under Mr. Yun’s supervision, Gap-jin came in. He
greeted Yun after the Japanese manner, then turned with a sarcastic remark toward Sung, who was making entries in a ledger. “You
are elevated in status now.”
Without pausing, Sung chuckled.
“Is this guy your manager?” asked Gap-jin, turning to Yun.
Yun smiled. “He is my secretary.”
“Should I hire you as court stenographer next year when I become a judge?” Gap-jin asked, laughing loudly before continuing
his sarcasm. “If a country fellow becomes butler to a lord, won’t
his name and title be put on the funeral banner and memorial
tablet?”
After finishing his work, Sung took Gap-jin into the small
43
Yi Kwang-su
reception room. Gap-jin was very surprised to discover a desk
within and Sung’s hat and coat hanging on the wall. Only then
did he realize that Sung had moved in. “Is this now your room?”
Gap-jin asked, great surprise visible on his face. He was truly
astonished.
“No, it’s Ye-seon’s room. But it’s not being used by him yet, so
Yun told me to use it,” responded Sung. Then noticing Gap-jin
still standing, he said, “Have a seat.”
Gap-jin sat down where Sung had pointed. But he was so
surprised by the fact that Sung had moved from the servant’s
quarters to this room that he couldn’t easily calm down. So it was
true that Sung was not just a manager or butler but was being
treated as a real “secretary,” exactly as Mr. Yun had stated.
But surely not . . . Gap-jin thought, gazing at Sung. He had
large hands and feet, and his face looked a little rough, features of
a country man, but even in the eyes of Gap-jin, who liked to look
down upon country people, Sung was a man of bearing.
Sung had been well known already in high school not only
for his physique but also for his intelligence, for which Gap-jin
had great respect. Sung was also a soccer player, for which Gapjin had no envy, and was quite proficient in Japanese, for which
Gap-jin did have high respect. If Sung had attended the same
university as Gap-jin, there would have been no reason to look
down upon him except for his status as a commoner from the
countryside. But Gap-jin disdained anything done by Koreans
other than himself and regarded it worthless. As the student of
a private college, Sung was thus held much lower in Gap-jin’s
opinion.
Staring again at Sung, he reflected, “Surely Mr. Yun would
not want Sung to marry Jeong-seon and become his son-in-law.
Who should be Jeong-seon’s husband except me?”
He had been confident of himself. Upon graduating from university, he would marry Jeong-seon, he thought, and she would
44
The Library of Korean Literature:
A Sampler
come with a dowry of land producing five thousand bushels of
rice annually, and so on and so on . . . Thus had he imagined and
calculated. Even when some family made an offer of marriage, he
had boasted, saying “Oh, no, I haven’t thought of marriage. I’m
still just a student. Shouldn’t I focus on my studies?” He could
say this because he had been so confident of himself. For him,
the son of a noble if poor family, marriage meant wealth. Women
were easy to get. In bars, he could find them in abundance, and
seducing female students was easy for him. He had more than he
needed. But a wife with money—that would be a most valuable
acquisition, one that he still needed.
Translated by Hwang Sun-Ae and Horace Jeffery Hodges
Yi Kwang-su was born in 1892 during the twilight years of the
Korean monarchy, which ended in 1910 with the annexation of
Korea by Japan. Recognized as one of modern Korea’s best novelists, especially for his 1917 novel The Heartless, he died in disfavor
in 1950, accused of collaboration with the Japanese.
Hwang Sun-Ae and Horace Jeffery Hodges live in Seoul,
Korea, and together they have translated several works of Korean
literature. Hwang Sun-Ae has a doctorate in literature and
Horace Jeffery Hodges has a PhD in history from UC Berkeley
and works as a professor and an editor.
45
4. Excerpt from
Lonesome You
Park Wan-suh
Translated by Jennifer M. Lee
My computer was acting up again. This time, the problem was
senility. Less than a year had passed since it devoured thirty A4sized pages of my document. I wanted to take this opportunity
to update the 386 model to the newer 586, but the thought of
having two sets of computers in the house was repugnant to me.
Of course, the logical thing would have been to throw away the
old computer or donate it to a worthy cause. But I didn’t think
I could do that. It was because of the missing thirty pages. They
were equivalent to three hundred handwritten pages on standard
manuscript paper, but it was more than the sheer number of pages
that concerned me. The missing portion made up a quarter of the
novel I’d set out to write. Whether I’m writing a full-length novel
or a short story, the first half is always the most difficult. In terms
of time also, that part takes me forever. After writing the first
quarter, writing the second quarter is infinitely easier. Finishing
off the remaining half is like skipping downhill humming and
whistling after a difficult climb to the top.
It was that precious first quarter that my computer had swallowed up. I called the manufacturer but all I got from the maintenance technician was a lecture about not backing up my work. I
asked around and was referred to several computer gurus, but all
they could retrieve was less than ten lines. At first, I was grateful
even for that. My hope was to bring back the file little by little in
that fashion. But no one was able to recover anything beyond that
initial amount. I suppose one thing I gained from that experience
46
The Library of Korean Literature:
A Sampler
was overcoming my dependence on that magical machine and
adopting a more wary attitude. Sometimes I do miss the good old
days of computer-free writing. It’s not easy to constantly back up
my work, not to mention how tiring it is to distrust a partner—
even if it is a machine—with which I spend countless working
hours. But I know well that there is no turning back.
After the gurus made every attempt and came up emptyhanded, I thought of bringing in torture experts. Torture presented a neat prospect for me, because what could not be teased
or coaxed out could perhaps be wrung out. I remember distinctly
the time I inadvertently kicked a broken radio and recovered its
sound. So I pounded the computer with my fist, tapped on it
here and there with my knuckles, cursed it as the bane of my
existence, and threatened it with a heavy club. Still, it refused
to budge, disclosing only the file name and not its contents. I
wrestled with it for days, making myself sick. By the time I recovered, the bits of my writing stored in my short-term memory
had also vanished. Thus, what might have been the greatest novel
of my career was completely gone. Still, I couldn’t just trash the
bane of my existence. For one thing, its word-processing capability was unaffected despite the abuse inflicted upon it. For another,
I still maintained a relationship with it in the form of anger and
resentment for having swallowed up the fruits of my labor, the
pages begotten from my blood, sweat, and tears. I am one of the
few remaining writers from the old school who can claim with a
straight face that the inspiration for writing comes from a hotblooded heart and a noble conscience. That same person was now
in a relationship from hell with a scrap of machine.
For the machine, it must have been the most human-like
treatment it ever received. The latest problem I was having with
the computer could only be explained by senility. That was the
very human-like response I got for treating it like a person. After
a few lines, the consonants and the vowels would refuse to come
47
Park Wan-suh
together, or the consonants would bounce off. For example, I’d
type “go” but I would only see the letter “g.” Thinking I didn’t press
down hard enough, I would retype the letter “o” several times to
no avail. A closer inspection would reveal that the o’s had scattered randomly, latching onto other words and crippling them.
In another instance, I’d type the word “river” and the second “r”
would run off elsewhere. This kind of misbehavior occurred at
unpredictable times and showed no detectable patterns, with the
vowels and the consonants flying off in all directions. If you spit
on your palm and slap on it, you never know which way it will
splatter. My computer spewed out gibberish in the same manner.
I began calling my gurus again. But these so-called gurus didn’t
quite understand what I was saying, claiming never to have heard
of such a problem. The diagnosis of senility was probably first
suggested by one of them because it certainly didn’t come from
me. Senility is said to be a nightmare of a disease for humans,
and it proved to be just as maddening for computers. I was fed up
with anything computer-related, but as luck would have it, I had
a deadline to meet. A friend took pity and lent me a notebook.
The notebook proved to be far less satisfactory than the computer I had grown attached to. Yeah, right. Attached to a darn
machine. An ancient machine that I couldn’t give away even if I
tried. But as long as my next great masterpiece was hiding in that
thing, it was for me an oyster containing a pearl. I couldn’t give it
up. I called the manufacturer one last time and requested a house
call. The young technician who showed up didn’t understand my
explanation of senility, so I had to show him what I meant by
typing. But the wretched machine refused to cooperate. It had
always acted up every two or three lines, but with the technician
over my shoulder, I typed a whole page without any glitches. I
began to sweat. My typing was so clumsy and slow, and at that
speed, it was impossible to tell whether I or the machine was at
fault. After watching painfully, the technician spoke up.
48
The Library of Korean Literature:
A Sampler
“Who used this computer before you?”
“It’s not used. It’s been mine from the beginning.”
“So, you’re chatting on this thing with your computer skills?”
His face, which had been full of peeved derision suddenly assumed a brief and impish curiosity. Maybe it was a good thing
that he hadn’t caught on to the fact that I was a writer whose work
required the regular use of a computer. I always thought I had
made a name for myself as a writer, but perhaps I was mistaken.
“I don’t do any chatting, whatever that is.”
“Then you must be into gaming.”
He became even more brazen, slimy in his insolence. Then he
took over the keyboard. After his fingers danced adroitly over the
keys, he declared that the computer was hopelessly infected by a
virus.
I hurriedly grabbed the notebook sitting next to it and took it
to another room.
“What are you doing? Why did you take that away?”
“Didn’t you say the computer had a virus? I don’t want it
spreading . . .”
“Ma’am, are you sure you’re the one using this computer?” The
young man asked me in disbelief. Oh . . . I smiled sheepishly when
I realized my mistake. Granted, I was technically challenged, but
I wasn’t so ignorant to think that a computer virus could be transferred by air or by touch. My blunder was due to a reflex action to
the word virus, an instinctive response to protect someone else.
“So is the virus responsible for jumbling my letters?”
“I’ll fix what I can now. You can find out for yourself when you
use it later.” Shoving the diskette he had brought with him into
the computer, he replied brusquely. At my age, why had I given
up the simple beauty of a pen in favor of this newfangled machine and thus make myself vulnerable to this kind of insolence?
It was so frustrating. The technician said that he had finished repairing the computer and asked once again if I was the main user.
49
Park Wan-suh
The third time was not the charm in this case. I felt compelled to
reveal what I did for a living.
“Young man, as it is your job is to repair this machine, mine is
to type on it to write.”
He nodded his head in understanding, his face full of
compassion.
“Ma’am, you live in a nice apartment like this. Why make life
so difficult for yourself ? With your typing skills, how much can
you make a day? My mother is much younger than you. She gets
a monthly allowance from us children, travels, and is enjoying her
golden years. You should do the same.”
“So I should,” I sighed. Before I knew it, I was agreeing with
him. One mistake after another with this guy.
“There are so many typists out there who can run circles
around you. It’s a wonder that you even get jobs.”
The young man mumbled in a concerned voice and handed me
a bill for seven dollars for the repair. Yes, it was a wonder for me as
well.
Translated by Elizabeth Haejin Yoon
Park Wan-suh (1931-2011) was one of the most beloved and
recognized names in Korean literature; her works were bestsellers
and have been published widely around the world. In 1970, at
age 39, when not many women in Korea would dare dream about
a new career, Park debuted as an author with her first novel, The
Naked Tree. She died in 2011.
Elizabeth Haejin Yoon was born in Korea and immigrated
to the U.S. at age eleven. She attended Cornell University before
working in various nonprofit organizations in the U.S., Korea,
and Japan.
50
5. Excerpt from
One Spoon on This Earth
Hyun Ki Young
Translated by Jennifer M. Lee
Father
My father, who led an ill-fated life, must have known that he
would obediently resign himself to the hands of death. Without
showing any trace of that fate on his face, he lost his appetite all
of a sudden and within fifteen days he had laid down his spoon
once and for all. During the last three days of his life he was
unconscious. The doctor said senility came sooner than expected
because his lungs were deteriorating. I tried to feed him rice gruel
by trickling portions of it into his mouth but his stomach could
not handle it; he had diarrhea every time. Even though my father
was unconscious, he was still obsessive about cleanliness so much
so that whenever there was any indication of diarrhea coming on
he woke up startled and frantically looked for the bedpan. This
happened several times and eventually he even rejected the rice
gruel and calmly prepared himself to meet death.
Even though he was moaning lowly and groaning in his attempt to breathe life into his body, his faced looked calm and
serene. The low lull of his moaning sounded like the fading ashes
of a bonfire settling to the ground ash by ash. As I witnessed the
ever-so-natural progression of his death, I was reminded of my
father’s gruesome car accident six years ago. My father almost
died from excessive hemorrhaging; the suffering he had experienced, until he had shriveled up into the sad figure of a cripple
because of a severely fractured right femur, was the cruelest pain
of all. Was he so at peace with himself because he had already
51
Hyun Ki-young
experienced the sufferings of death? Above all else, he who had
a life of turmoil looked like someone who was reconciled with
death. Wasn’t this the final victory of a loser?
Overwhelmed by the emotions of gratitude and regret, I had
unknowingly put my hand inside the covers and started massaging the bottom of my father’s feet. When I was in junior high
school, I used to massage my father’s feet so he could fall asleep.
What started out as an act of love later became a loathsome act
of obligation. I used to be an obedient junior high school student,
but I became a rebellious high school punk who clashed with my
father in reckless conflicts. In other words, at the center of my
father’s life of turmoil was my share of unfilial acts.
On the day my father breathed his last breath, my younger
siblings and I purified our father’s body with scented water before shrouding him in his last garment. At this moment, I realized with every ounce of my being that his body was doomed
to return to matter like a chopped-up stump, stiff and spiritless.
He was emaciated and bony; his skin had lost its luster like a
dried-up fish scale, and the thigh that suffered the fracture was
severely warped. I was cleaning his pitiful body with scented water and when my hand finally went to his crotch area, I was so
overwhelmed with uncontrollable emotions that tears just rolled
down my face.
For the first time in my life, I saw my father’s genitals. The
tension I felt when I was cleaning that area, and the touch of his
skin, evoked emotions I could still feel even after three years had
passed. The fact that my very being originated from here was so
self-evident that it seemed rather illusory, to such a great extent,
that it felt like an enormous burden that overpowered me at that
very moment. It was one seed of existence, the place where the
existence called “I” originated by chance, but the origin of life is
now returning to ruins. That ruin was my father’s death, and his
eternal absence was confirmed in me as a sharp pain. His death
52
The Library of Korean Literature:
A Sampler
made me realize the reality that my own death would find me
sooner or later.
I’ve seen many deaths in my life, but I never felt the reality
of death so vividly as I did at that time. I can still distinctly feel
the sharp pain I felt when I came face to face with death—a
death which originally hovered from a distance like a hazy form
of illusion, then one day made a surprise attack on my father
and penetrated his body. The sorrow and fear of seeing one’s own
death too soon were probably embedded in the tears I cried as
the eldest son before the spirit of my departed father. Now that
my father has passed away, it’s my turn to go; this rude awakening
pierced the innermost part of my heart. Birth is an accident but
death is an unavoidable necessity.
However, death does not mean the complete extinction of life.
Death does not completely destroy human individuality. This is
evidenced by the fact that my father’s image still clearly lives on
in my heart and soul even though he has died. Even after his
death, my father has been in and out of my consciousness making
me feel as if he had
������������������������������������������������
moved
��������������������������������������������
into my heart�������������������������
, �����������������������
residing there. No, actually, isn’t my father none other than myself ? I am beginning to
look more and more like my father. My father’s life did not cease.
It lives on in me, his son. The end is not a discontinuation but a
beginning. Likewise my existence is not a separate entity but it
signifies the blood ties of one connected link of collective lives.
My father was laid to rest in the family burial plot at the base
of �������������������������������������������������������������
Mt. ���������������������������������������������������������
Ha�������������������������������������������������������
l������������������������������������������������������
la. ��������������������������������������������������
My uncle was already buried at that graveyard prepared by my cousins and I. Next to him, one grave site away, a
second burial mound was created for my father. I took a few measured steps and stood on the plot where I will be buried. At that
moment my thoughts naturally went to the image of my eldest
son in his first year of college. Touched by this strange sentiment,
I laughed out loud.
The grave site had a good view. In one glance, I was able to see
53
Hyun Ki-young
the breathtaking scene of the vast sky and the ocean meeting at
the horizon and vying for the blue light, the wide and level green
fields, the ascent of the soft ridgelines, and the clouds, like white
silken fabrics, that floated low at the foot of the mountain. I would
never tire of looking at this wonder of nature. In no time my sorrow evaporated and I became lighthearted. With such a luxurious grave site, why would anyone get depressed by the thought
of death? As I thought about my father’s spirit, which left his
physical body and lightly floated nestled inside that cloud like a
white funeral streamer, I accepted not only my father’s death but
my own death with ease.
Across the path there was one tall cedar tree that obstructed
the open view of the family burial plot. I climbed and tried to
chop off the top portion of the tree but such a minor task turned
out to be so physically taxing that I almost vomited. I could not
ignore the fact that I was getting old. On that day, my whole body
accepted the grim reality that at the age of fifty, I had fewer days
ahead of me than days gone by.
This is how my father’s death made a great impact on my psyche;
it changed my way of thinking permanently. I picked up a habit
of getting lost in absentmindedness and now and then groping
around in the memory of my past, and my feet brought me to my
hometown more frequently than before. On an island surrounded
by water, the boy who dreamed of entering the world by piercing
through the horizon and the boy who left by kicking aside his
father who was standing like an obstacle at the threshold has now
become a middle aged man in need of a balm for body and soul,
desiring to regress into his mother’s womb. There is no purpose
for writing this story other than to relive my long forgotten days
of youth through the telling of this story.
Now only my hometown memories of my childhood and
youth shine gloriously in my mind when I think about my past,
54
The Library of Korean Literature:
A Sampler
and the rest of time and tide is a meaningless succession of days.
While I am on the subject, let me throw in another silly idea. If
we live each day like it is no different from any other, then can we
really claim that we have lived a whole lifetime? Doesn’t it come
down to �����������������������������������������������������
only one day of living? If we remember what we remember from our past as the true past, then we only really remember
today. The past fades by today’s glaring sunlight; today we only
remember half of yesterday, and we remember two days ago as
half of yesterday, three days ago as half of two days ago. If this is
the only way we remember the past, through this endless formula,
then the calculation we come up with is a little over a day and a
half of time that we spend living the past. My dear readers, do
not ridicule me for my absurd sophism. This sophism can also be
interpreted to mean that today’s sun is the most important one in
the midst of infinite time. But more than today’s bright sun, my
long forgotten past is more important to me now.
These days when I go to my hometown, I wander here and
there around the land and by the sea trying to piece together
all the fragments buried in the darkness of my past. Now I walk
around searching for paths of the wayfarer’s footprints that have
suddenly stopped in �������������������������������������������
their��������������������������������������
tracks leading to nowhere in the forest. I shout out with joy when I find a banyan tree dangling with
many fruits hidden behind an old hackberry tree near a shrine.
I try to search for my younger self amid all the objects found in
nature that remind me of my childhood and youth. People are not
the only ones who raised me; I was weaned only a few months
after birth but I grew up being nurtured at the breast of nature.
Watching a newborn calf that just came out of his mother’s womb
suddenly rise up and stand on his legs after touching the ground
for the first time gave me the impression that the calf was born
from an eruption of the earth. Anyway it’s clear to me that in my
hometown, nature played an important role in forming my identity. It was a time of innocence, void of all shame and guilt since
55
Hyun Ki-young
nature was a part of my life. It feels like only that period of my
life was the truth and the rest was one big lie.
However, the reality is that on that island, in Hambagigul
Village, which no longer exists on the map, is where my umbilical
cord was buried after birth. It may be because I am a writer who
is used to seeing the world through metaphors, but since the village had been destroyed by fire during the suppression of 1948, it
has been carved out in my consciousness as mere black ashes of
ruins. Since that time, I have visited that place to confirm that the
black ashes of ruins had transformed into green fields of grain.
But the only thing that truly stood out in my mind was the bamboo grove that stood at one side of the lot that became someone’s
barley field and a crape myrtle tree at the entryway of an alley.
Didn’t the sound of the bamboo thicket swaying with the wind,
as if muttering words��������������������������������������������
,�������������������������������������������
and the pile of bright flowers of a splendid crape myrtle tree, blooming defiantly, actually emphasize the
scorched ruins of that place all the more?
Therefore, I don’t know what to do about this feeling of loss,
as if a part of myself had also burned up in flames together with
the horrifying fire that scorched that place in 1948. It feels like
the first six years of my life spent there—that place of desolate
darkness—have been erased with smeared ink. My perception of
this darkness is the sincere truth, but it is undoubtedly the exaggerated work of a physiological lapse of memory. Since it was
only a short period of time after my birth, my ability to think was
not fully developed. In any case, I must simultaneously penetrate
the darkness of the black burnt wasteland and the darkness of my
lapse of memory��������������������������������������������������
,�������������������������������������������������
revive the dead village�������������������������
,������������������������
and confront my forgotten childhood.
Hambagigul, the Origin
The vast solitary darkness of my hometown—perhaps this dark56
The Library of Korean Literature:
A Sampler
ness was related to the darkness of the origin. A gigantic shooting star fell at one point along a line tracing back to hundreds of
years of boundless darkness. A meteorite mass of flames, brightening up the darkness like broad daylight, collided with the earth
making a grand roaring sound and created a gigantic crater on
that very spot. Later water welled up in the crater and it came
to be called��������������������������������������������������
a������������������������������������������������
“thunder pool” and a man in search of water began to settle around it. This man was my forefather. The “thunder
pool,”—the place where existence began—�������������������
was where ���������
my ancestors, who vanished into darkness after glowing like fireflies for a
short while, lived.
In the vast darkness, I felt a new life stirring. And that was
me. I was born as a fruit of that darkness. After I came out of my
mother’s womb, I was dying even before I let out my first cry. I
was slapped in the cheek and my entire body was shaken but I
was dying, turning charcoal black. Did I wish to return to that
darkness? Birth is a pure accident. Life is nothing but a light as
faint as the glow of a firefly so it is not worth desiring. In this
moment of life and death my grandmother, who was frantically
rubbing my stomach, felt something the size of a chestnut. She
pressed hard thinking this might be it. As if she had pressed the
button of an automated doll, my windpipe opened up and I cried
out my first cry so loud that it hurt everyone’s eardrums.
My existence came about by pure accident and my family wondered how I would turn out since my beginning was so precarious.
About three years after I was born, I was nothing but a piece of soft
dough, not a human being. Since I had just come out of darkness
I was still vulnerable to the influence of the dark shadow—death.
There was a saying that children’s mortality rates were equivalent
to yielding only half the crops because it was c���������������
����������������
ommon for children to die of smallpox, measles, and even a cold. At the slightest
provocation, I was on the verge of returning to darkness. I almost
had an older brother but he too withered and died after a year.
57
Hyun Ki-young
In this state of uncertain, soft-dough existence I was funneled
into darkness; I had the smallpox and the measles, spending more
time sleeping than staying awake. One day I opened my eyes due
to the sensation of something touching my face. After four long
years of slumber, I finally opened my eyes. I vividly remember
this moment even now as if this is my first memory. It was saliva
that came out of my great grandfather’s mouth. Great grandfather had me on his lap and he was dozing off, drooling—a stream
of saliva trickled down on his long beard and like a sticky spider
web it touched my face. He was very old at the time.
I had been weaned but my mental capacity remained
underdeveloped������������������������������������������������
so that I just remember a few fragments of sensory memories, like the distinct feeling of my great grandfather’s
saliva. Several months before liberation, Japanese fighter planes
were shot down not too far from Maemul, a village on a hill. I
remember the enormous explosion but I don’t remember at all
about the five skirts that were made from partially burnt parachute
cloth, one of which my mother wore for herself, and children who
were older than me picking up scraps of metal frames, making
slides out of them, and playing on the grass.
Translated by Jennifer M. Lee
Hyun Ki young was born on Cheju Island in 1941 and graduated
from Seoul National University. He has served as the Managing
Director of the National Literary Writers Association and as the
President of the Korean Arts and Culture Foundation. Hyun was
also the director of the Committee for the Investigation of the
April 3rd Cheju Uprising.
Jennifer M. Lee is a freelance translator. She is currently teaching English at Kyung Hee University in Seoul, Korea. Her translations include Yi Ch’ongjun’s classic novel Your Paradise.
58
The Library of Korean Literature
The Library of Korean Literature, published by Dalkey Archive
Press in collaboration with the Literary Translation Institute of
Korea, presents modern classics of Korean literature in translation,
featuring the best Korean authors from the late modern period
through to the present day. The Library aims to introduce the intellectual and aesthetic diversity of contemporary Korean writing
to English-language readers. The Library of Korean Literature is
unprecedented in its scope, with Dalkey Archive Press publishing
25 Korean novels and short story collections in a single year.
The series is published in cooperation with the Literary
Translation Institute of Korea, a center that promotes the cultural
translation and worldwide dissemination of Korean language and
culture.
selected dalkey archive titles
MICHAL AJVAZ, The Golden Age.
The Other City.
PIERRE ALBERT-BIROT, Grabinoulor.
YUZ ALESHKOVSKY, Kangaroo.
FELIPE ALFAU, Chromos.
Locos.
IVAN ÂNGELO, The Celebration.
The Tower of Glass.
ANTóNIO LOBO ANTUNES, Knowledge of Hell.
The Splendor of Portugal.
ALAIN ARIAS-MISSON, Theatre of Incest.
JOHN ASHBERY AND JAMES SCHUYLER,
A Nest of Ninnies.
ROBERT ASHLEY, Perfect Lives.
GABRIELA AVIGUR-ROTEM, Heatwave
and Crazy Birds.
DJUNA BARNES, Ladies Almanack.
Ryder.
JOHN BARTH, LETTERS.
Sabbatical.
DONALD BARTHELME, The King.
Paradise.
SVETISLAV BASARA, Chinese Letter.
MIQUEL BAUÇÀ, The Siege in the Room.
RENÉ BELLETTO, Dying.
MAREK BIEńCZYK, Transparency.
ANDREI BITOV, Pushkin House.
ANDREJ BLATNIK, You Do Understand.
LOUIS PAUL BOON, Chapel Road.
My Little War.
Summer in Termuren.
ROGER BOYLAN, Killoyle.
IGNÁCIO DE LOYOLA BRANDÃO,
Anonymous Celebrity.
Zero.
BONNIE BREMSER, Troia: Mexican Memoirs.
CHRISTINE BROOKE-ROSE, Amalgamemnon.
BRIGID BROPHY, In Transit.
GERALD L. BRUNS, Modern Poetry and
the Idea of Language.
GABRIELLE BURTON, Heartbreak Hotel.
MICHEL BUTOR, Degrees.
Mobile.
G. CABRERA INFANTE, Infante’s Inferno.
Three Trapped Tigers.
JULIETA CAMPOS,
The Fear of Losing Eurydice.
ANNE CARSON, Eros the Bittersweet.
ORLY CASTEL-BLOOM, Dolly City.
LOUIS-FERDINAND CÉLINE, Castle to Castle.
Conversations with Professor Y.
London Bridge.
Normance.
North.
Rigadoon.
MARIE CHAIX, The Laurels of Lake Constance.
HUGO CHARTERIS, The Tide Is Right.
ERIC CHEVILLARD, Demolishing Nisard.
MARC CHOLODENKO, Mordechai Schamz.
JOSHUA COHEN, Witz.
EMILY HOLMES COLEMAN, The Shutter
of Snow.
ROBERT COOVER, A Night at the Movies.
STANLEY CRAWFORD, Log of the S.S. The
Mrs Unguentine.
Some Instructions to My Wife.
RENÉ CREVEL, Putting My Foot in It.
RALPH CUSACK, Cadenza.
NICHOLAS DELBANCO, The Count of Concord.
Sherbrookes.
NIGEL DENNIS, Cards of Identity.
PETER DIMOCK, A Short Rhetoric for
Leaving the Family.
ARIEL DORFMAN, Konfidenz.
COLEMAN DOWELL,
Island People.
Too Much Flesh and Jabez.
ARKADII DRAGOMOSHCHENKO, Dust.
RIKKI DUCORNET, The Complete
Butcher’s Tales.
The Fountains of Neptune.
The Jade Cabinet.
Phosphor in Dreamland.
WILLIAM EASTLAKE, The Bamboo Bed.
Castle Keep.
Lyric of the Circle Heart.
JEAN ECHENOZ, Chopin’s Move.
STANLEY ELKIN, A Bad Man.
Criers and Kibitzers, Kibitzers
and Criers.
The Dick Gibson Show.
The Franchiser.
The Living End.
Mrs. Ted Bliss.
FRANÇOIS EMMANUEL, Invitation to a
Voyage.
SALVADOR ESPRIU, Ariadne in the
Grotesque Labyrinth.
LESLIE A. FIEDLER, Love and Death in
the American Novel.
JUAN FILLOY, Op Oloop.
ANDY FITCH, Pop Poetics.
GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, Bouvard and Pécuchet.
KASS FLEISHER, Talking out of School.
FORD MADOX FORD,
The March of Literature.
JON FOSSE, Aliss at the Fire.
Melancholy.
MAX FRISCH, I’m Not Stiller.
Man in the Holocene.
CARLOS FUENTES, Christopher Unborn.
Distant Relations.
Terra Nostra.
Where the Air Is Clear.
TAKEHIKO FUKUNAGA, Flowers of Grass.
WILLIAM GADDIS, J R.
The Recognitions.
JANICE GALLOWAY, Foreign Parts.
The Trick Is to Keep Breathing.
WILLIAM H. GASS, Cartesian Sonata
and Other Novellas.
Finding a Form.
A Temple of Texts.
The Tunnel.
Willie Masters’ Lonesome Wife.
GÉRARD GAVARRY, Hoppla! 1 2 3.
ETIENNE GILSON,
The Arts of the Beautiful.
Forms and Substances in the Arts.
C. S. GISCOMBE, Giscome Road.
Here.
DOUGLAS GLOVER, Bad News of the Heart.
WITOLD GOMBROWICZ,
A Kind of Testament.
PAULO EMíLIO SALES GOMES, P’s Three
Women.
GEORGI GOSPODINOV, Natural Novel.
JUAN GOYTISOLO, Count Julian.
Juan the Landless.
Makbara.
Marks of Identity.
for a full list of publications, visit:
w w w. d a l k e y a rch i ve . co m
selected dalkey archive titles
HENRY GREEN, Back.
Blindness.
Concluding.
Doting.
Nothing.
JACK GREEN, Fire the Bastards!
JIŘÍ GRUŠA, The Questionnaire.
MELA HARTWIG, Am I a Redundant
Human Being?
JOHN HAWKES, The Passion Artist.
Whistlejacket.
ELIZABETH HEIGHWAY, ED., Contemporary
Georgian Fiction.
ALEKSANDAR HEMON, ED.,
Best European Fiction.
AIDAN HIGGINS, Balcony of Europe.
Blind Man’s Bluff
Bornholm Night-Ferry.
Flotsam and Jetsam.
Langrishe, Go Down.
Scenes from a Receding Past.
KEIZO HINO, Isle of Dreams.
KAZUSHI HOSAKA, Plainsong.
ALDOUS HUXLEY, Antic Hay.
Crome Yellow.
Point Counter Point.
Those Barren Leaves.
Time Must Have a Stop.
NAOYUKI II, The Shadow of a Blue Cat.
GERT JONKE, The Distant Sound.
Geometric Regional Novel.
Homage to Czerny.
The System of Vienna.
JACQUES JOUET, Mountain R.
Savage.
Upstaged.
MIEKO KANAI, The Word Book.
YORAM KANIUK, Life on Sandpaper.
HUGH KENNER, Flaubert.
Joyce and Beckett: The Stoic Comedians.
Joyce’s Voices.
DANILO KIŠ, The Attic.
Garden, Ashes.
The Lute and the Scars
Psalm 44.
A Tomb for Boris Davidovich.
ANITA KONKKA, A Fool’s Paradise.
GEORGE KONRÁD, The City Builder.
TADEUSZ KONWICKI, A Minor Apocalypse.
The Polish Complex.
MENIS KOUMANDAREAS, Koula.
ELAINE KRAF, The Princess of 72nd Street.
JIM KRUSOE, Iceland.
AYŞE KULIN, Farewell: A Mansion in
Occupied Istanbul.
EMILIO LASCANO TEGUI, On Elegance
While Sleeping.
ERIC LAURRENT, Do Not Touch.
VIOLETTE LEDUC, La Bâtarde.
EDOUARD LEVÉ, Autoportrait.
Suicide.
MARIO LEVI, Istanbul Was a Fairy Tale.
DEBORAH LEVY, Billy and Girl.
JOSÉ LEZAMA LIMA, Paradiso.
ROSA LIKSOM, Dark Paradise.
OSMAN LINS, Avalovara.
The Queen of the Prisons of Greece.
ALF MAC LOCHLAINN,
The Corpus in the Library.
Out of Focus.
RON LOEWINSOHN, Magnetic Field(s).
MINA LOY, Stories and Essays of Mina Loy.
D. KEITH MANO, Take Five.
MICHELINE AHARONIAN MARCOM,
The Mirror in the Well.
BEN MARCUS,
The Age of Wire and String.
WALLACE MARKFIELD,
Teitlebaum’s Window.
To an Early Grave.
DAVID MARKSON, Reader’s Block.
Wittgenstein’s Mistress.
CAROLE MASO, AVA.
LADISLAV MATEJKA AND KRYSTYNA
POMORSKA, EDS.,
Readings in Russian Poetics:
Formalist and Structuralist Views.
HARRY MATHEWS, Cigarettes.
The Conversions.
The Human Country: New and
Collected Stories.
The Journalist.
My Life in CIA.
Singular Pleasures.
The Sinking of the Odradek
Stadium.
Tlooth.
JOSEPH MCELROY,
Night Soul and Other Stories.
ABDELWAHAB MEDDEB, Talismano.
GERHARD MEIER, Isle of the Dead.
HERMAN MELVILLE, The Confidence-Man.
AMANDA MICHALOPOULOU, I’d Like.
STEVEN MILLHAUSER, The Barnum Museum.
In the Penny Arcade.
RALPH J. MILLS, JR., Essays on Poetry.
MOMUS, The Book of Jokes.
CHRISTINE MONTALBETTI, The Origin of Man.
Western.
OLIVE MOORE, Spleen.
NICHOLAS MOSLEY, Accident.
Assassins.
Catastrophe Practice.
Experience and Religion.
A Garden of Trees.
Hopeful Monsters.
Imago Bird.
Impossible Object.
Inventing God.
Judith.
Look at the Dark.
Natalie Natalia.
Serpent.
Time at War.
WARREN MOTTE,
Fables of the Novel: French Fiction
since 1990.
Fiction Now: The French Novel in
the 21st Century.
Oulipo: A Primer of Potential
Literature.
GERALD MURNANE, Barley Patch.
Inland.
YVES NAVARRE, Our Share of Time.
Sweet Tooth.
DOROTHY NELSON, In Night’s City.
Tar and Feathers.
ESHKOL NEVO, Homesick.
WILFRIDO D. NOLLEDO, But for the Lovers.
FLANN O’BRIEN, At Swim-Two-Birds.
The Best of Myles.
The Dalkey Archive.
The Hard Life.
The Poor Mouth.
for a full list of publications, visit:
w w w. d a l k e y a rch i ve . co m
selected dalkey archive titles
The Third Policeman.
CLAUDE OLLIER, The Mise-en-Scène.
Wert and the Life Without End.
GIOVANNI ORELLI, Walaschek’s Dream.
PATRIK OUŘEDNÍK, Europeana.
The Opportune Moment, 1855.
BORIS PAHOR, Necropolis.
FERNANDO DEL PASO, News from the Empire.
Palinuro of Mexico.
ROBERT PINGET, The Inquisitory.
Mahu or The Material.
Trio.
MANUEL PUIG, Betrayed by Rita Hayworth.
The Buenos Aires Affair.
Heartbreak Tango.
RAYMOND QUENEAU, The Last Days.
Odile.
Pierrot Mon Ami.
Saint Glinglin.
ANN QUIN, Berg.
Passages.
Three.
Tripticks.
ISHMAEL REED, The Free-Lance Pallbearers.
The Last Days of Louisiana Red.
Ishmael Reed: The Plays.
Juice!
Reckless Eyeballing.
The Terrible Threes.
The Terrible Twos.
Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down.
JASIA REICHARDT, 15 Journeys Warsaw
to London.
NOËLLE REVAZ, With the Animals.
JOÃO UBALDO RIBEIRO, House of the
Fortunate Buddhas.
JEAN RICARDOU, Place Names.
RAINER MARIA RILKE, The Notebooks of
Malte Laurids Brigge.
JULIÁN RÍOS, The House of Ulysses.
Larva: A Midsummer Night’s Babel.
Poundemonium.
Procession of Shadows.
AUGUSTO ROA BASTOS, I the Supreme.
DANIËL ROBBERECHTS, Arriving in Avignon.
JEAN ROLIN, The Explosion of the
Radiator Hose.
OLIVIER ROLIN, Hotel Crystal.
ALIX CLEO ROUBAUD, Alix’s Journal.
JACQUES ROUBAUD, The Form of a
City Changes Faster, Alas, Than
the Human Heart.
The Great Fire of London.
Hortense in Exile.
Hortense Is Abducted.
The Loop.
Mathematics:
The Plurality of Worlds of Lewis.
The Princess Hoppy.
Some Thing Black.
RAYMOND ROUSSEL, Impressions of Africa.
VEDRANA RUDAN, Night.
STIG SÆTERBAKKEN, Siamese.
Self Control.
LYDIE SALVAYRE, The Company of Ghosts.
The Lecture.
The Power of Flies.
LUIS RAFAEL SÁNCHEZ,
Macho Camacho’s Beat.
SEVERO SARDUY, Cobra & Maitreya.
NATHALIE SARRAUTE,
Do You Hear Them?
Martereau.
The Planetarium.
ARNO SCHMIDT, Collected Novellas.
Collected Stories.
Nobodaddy’s Children.
Two Novels.
ASAF SCHURR, Motti.
GAIL SCOTT, My Paris.
DAMION SEARLS, What We Were Doing
and Where We Were Going.
JUNE AKERS SEESE,
Is This What Other Women Feel Too?
What Waiting Really Means.
BERNARD SHARE, Inish.
Transit.
VIKTOR SHKLOVSKY, Bowstring.
Knight’s Move.
A Sentimental Journey:
Memoirs 1917–1922.
Energy of Delusion: A Book on Plot.
Literature and Cinematography.
Theory of Prose.
Third Factory.
Zoo, or Letters Not about Love.
PIERRE SINIAC, The Collaborators.
KJERSTI A. SKOMSVOLD, The Faster I Walk,
the Smaller I Am.
JOSEF ŠKVORECKÝ, The Engineer of
Human Souls.
GILBERT SORRENTINO,
Aberration of Starlight.
Blue Pastoral.
Crystal Vision.
Imaginative Qualities of Actual
Things.
Mulligan Stew.
Pack of Lies.
Red the Fiend.
The Sky Changes.
Something Said.
Splendide-Hôtel.
Steelwork.
Under the Shadow.
W. M. SPACKMAN, The Complete Fiction.
ANDRZEJ STASIUK, Dukla.
Fado.
GERTRUDE STEIN, The Making of Americans.
A Novel of Thank You.
LARS SVENDSEN, A Philosophy of Evil.
PIOTR SZEWC, Annihilation.
GONÇALO M. TAVARES, Jerusalem.
Joseph Walser’s Machine.
Learning to Pray in the Age of
Technique.
LUCIAN DAN TEODOROVICI,
Our Circus Presents . . .
NIKANOR TERATOLOGEN, Assisted Living.
STEFAN THEMERSON, Hobson’s Island.
The Mystery of the Sardine.
Tom Harris.
TAEKO TOMIOKA, Building Waves.
JOHN TOOMEY, Sleepwalker.
JEAN-PHILIPPE TOUSSAINT, The Bathroom.
Camera.
Monsieur.
Reticence.
Running Away.
Self-Portrait Abroad.
Television.
The Truth about Marie.
for a full list of publications, visit:
w w w. d a l k e y a rch i ve . co m
selected dalkey archive titles
DUMITRU TSEPENEAG, Hotel Europa.
The Necessary Marriage.
Pigeon Post.
Vain Art of the Fugue.
ESTHER TUSQUETS, Stranded.
DUBRAVKA UGRESIC, Lend Me Your Character.
Thank You for Not Reading.
TOR ULVEN, Replacement.
MATI UNT, Brecht at Night.
Diary of a Blood Donor.
Things in the Night.
ÁLVARO URIBE AND OLIVIA SEARS, EDS.,
Best of Contemporary Mexican Fiction.
ELOY URROZ, Friction.
The Obstacles.
LUISA VALENZUELA, Dark Desires and
the Others.
He Who Searches.
PAUL VERHAEGHEN, Omega Minor.
AGLAJA VETERANYI, Why the Child Is
Cooking in the Polenta.
BORIS VIAN, Heartsnatcher.
LLORENÇ VILLALONGA, The Dolls’ Room.
TOOMAS VINT, An Unending Landscape.
ORNELA VORPSI, The Country Where No
One Ever Dies.
AUSTRYN WAINHOUSE, Hedyphagetica.
CURTIS WHITE, America’s Magic Mountain.
The Idea of Home.
Memories of My Father Watching TV.
Requiem.
DIANE WILLIAMS, Excitability:
Selected Stories.
Romancer Erector.
DOUGLAS WOOLF, Wall to Wall.
Ya! & John-Juan.
JAY WRIGHT, Polynomials and Pollen.
The Presentable Art of Reading
Absence.
PHILIP WYLIE, Generation of Vipers.
MARGUERITE YOUNG, Angel in the Forest.
Miss MacIntosh, My Darling.
REYOUNG, Unbabbling.
VLADO ŽABOT, The Succubus.
ZORAN ŽIVKOVIĆ, Hidden Camera.
LOUIS ZUKOFSKY, Collected Fiction.
VITOMIL ZUPAN, Minuet for Guitar.
SCOTT ZWIREN, God Head.
for a full list of publications, visit:
w w w. d a l k e y a rch i ve . co m