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  [Essay] When We Say Goodbye: Kim Ae-ran’s “They Said Annyeong”

  Kim Ae-ran debuted in 2002 with her short story “No Knocking in This House.” At the time, she was a junior studying theater at the Korean National University of Arts and a first-time winner of the Daesan Literary Award for College Students, established by the Daesan Foundation. Three years later, her short story “Run, Dad!” was awarded the Hankook Ilbo Literary Award, making her the youngest recipient in its history. The Hankook Ilbo said that given her young age, the decision to give her such a prestigious award was both “shocking” and “monumental.”        Such a response was warranted because she was just twenty-five years old and only three years into her professional writing career. But that’s not to forget that Kim had already been singled out by Korean literary circles as one of the best emerging authors of the 2000s. At the time, the memoir genre and writing that emphasized interiority were on the decline. Kim’s fiction, set against the backdrop of the economic anxiety following the 1997 IMF Crisis, was seen as a pioneering work among a newly emerging generation of authors. Her most famous works from this period are contained in her short story collections Run, Dad! and Mouthwatering.        Kim’s insights into life at the time, expressed with immense sensitivity toward the Korean language, are surprising despite her youth. Her intellectually attuned sentences, neither pedantic nor obfuscatory, explore the problem of how to retain one’s existence and dignity in a rapidly neoliberalizing society. Her works revealed the existence of young women’s voices even before the feminism reboot in Korea. Not only do her works disrupt the patriarchal order and affirm the accomplishments of women’s labor from previous generations, but they also uniquely capture the precariat imagination of young women in a consumer society.        Although aware of the dissonance that threatens life in Korea, Kim’s stories also carefully aimed to produce harmony in the lives of its characters through her literary imagination. But in the 2010s, with works like Vapor Trail and Summer Outside, Kim shifted away from discovering the value of life between everyday joys and unexpected tragedies—a shift that may have been influenced by the 2014 sinking of the MV Sewol and the impact of hate—toward darker stories, including eschatological narratives about the climate crisis and allegories about the MV Sewol.Aside from a steady stream of short story collections, Kim has also written two beloved novels, My Brilliant Life and A Lie Among Truths. Both full-length novels share crucial themes of growth, family, and lies—themes that apply to this KLN issue’s short story, “They Said Annyeong.”        “They Said Annyeong” was published in the anthology Collection of Stories on the Theme of Music alongside works by authors Eun Heekyung, Kim Yeonsu, Yoon Sung-hee, and Hye-young Pyun. The story begins seven years in the past when the first-person narrator of the novel, Eun-mi, is listening with her partner and housemate Heon-su to the cover of the song “Love Hurts” by indie rock artists Kim Deal and Robert Pollard. As she listens, she mishears the lyric “I’m young” for the Korean greeting, “annyeong.” This memory re-emerges in the present when her current English tutor, coincidentally also named Robert, asks her how to say “hello” in Korean.        The story switches back and forth between two narratives, one set in the past with Eun-mi and Heon-su, and one with Amy (Eun-mi’s English name) and Robert. Like the song “Love Hurts,” “They Said Annyeong” is a story about hellos and goodbyes. And like Kim’s love stories “Night There, Song Here” and “Where Do You Want to Go?” it also raises questions about the nature of communication by focusing on language and media.        This aspect appears most clearly during Eun-mi’s English lessons. Through the online tutoring platform called Echoes, Eun-mi meets (and says goodbye to) people of various backgrounds, nationalities, ages, and genders. Robert is one of Eun-mi’s many tutors. During one of their lessons, Robert asks her how she differentiates between the two different meanings of “annyeong”—“hello” and “goodbye.” Eun-mi tells him that she “just know[s].”        Such linguistic differences, while subtle, exert great influence on the characters’ relationships. Because Eun-mi and her tutors come from different linguistic backgrounds, they have trouble completely understanding these nuances. For example, Eun-mi is shocked to realize that she and Rose (another English tutor) have starkly different ideas about what constitutes a typical “dating show.” Instead of trying to clear up these misunderstandings, however, Eun-mi thinks that one must accept the inevitable losses and omissions that occur in translation.        Although Eun-mi’s thoughts are complex and layered, in the end, they become reduced to the simplest sentences in translation. Not only does this make communication more efficient, but it is also a way to protect and defend the ego. When talking about the sexual tension in foreign language classes, Eun-mi discreetly notices how the act of exchanging languages exposes one’s most intimate self. In classes where her personal life often becomes the conversation topic of the lesson, Eun-mi resorts to lying—assuming her mother’s career as her own and pretending to like things that she doesn’t—all for the sake of conversational convenience.        Despite the misunderstandings that start to pile up, Eun-mi’s English lessons become a path toward understanding these strangers who teach her English through the slow accumulation of information. Linguistically, it can be difficult for non-native speakers to differentiate between “nice to meet you” and “goodbye,” but that doesn’t mean that contextual understanding and situational inferences are impossible. Likewise, although Eun-mi is unable to correct a misunderstanding about raunchy dating shows, she feels a deep sense of socioeconomic camaraderie when Rose shares that she nearly lost her home during a major hurricane.        In “They Said Annyeong” the word “situation” often refers to inevitable human and interpersonal vulnerabilities, such as impoverishment, loss, and pain. The reason Eun-mi starts studying English is that she dreams of escaping such situations. Because of her mother’s illness, Eun-mi’s finances and social life are ruined. When she confesses that her 15- and 30-minute English lessons are sometimes her only interactions with people, we begin to sense the depths of her emotional isolation. For Eun-mi, a woman in her forties whose career has been cut short, her only chance to restart her life is to leave her mother tongue and learn a foreign one.        It is under these circumstances that Eun-mi starts to feel close to Robert, her last English tutor in the story. Eun-mi, Heon-su, and Robert—like many of Kim’s characters—are introspective. But in most cases, this introspectiveness appears as reticence—the characters often don’t expound what they really mean or refrain from talking all together. At such times, the limits of language extend beyond mere linguistic barriers. Heon-su’s observation that “Love Hurts” sounds like a farewell song, “the kind sung by someone who doesn’t often express their pain,” also applies to the main characters.        Such reticence becomes all the more significant when Heon-su and Robert finally reveal their inner thoughts. The courage to do so only comes during states of intoxication. Heon-su, for example, drunk dials Eun-mi after many years to talk to her about the lyrics of “Love Hurts.” Robert is only ready to talk about his family after a glass of wine, after he realizes that it is their last class together. Through Robert’s confession, we too become aware that he, Heon-su, and Eun-mi are all in the same situation. Those who have gone through pain and loss are the ones who can understand others in similar situations.        In particular, each of the three characters finds that their hardship and pain overlap and begin with their parents. The traces of their parents—literally the roots of their existence—put their lives in precarious positions. Eun-mi can empathize with Heon-su, who spent many years caring for his parents in the hospital, but only after her own mother falls ill. By then, it is too late, and she will never be with Heon-su again. Robert says that although many stories end with some great revelation or appreciation for life, the life that he’s experienced has only been a series of losses “without purpose.” Similarly, Eun-mi says that life and death are clichéd, hackneyed, and banal. She says that sometimes relations rupture and people just leave; that being able to cope with the recurrence of such things is the exception to the rule.        It has been twenty years since Kim Ae-ran published “Run, Dad!” This is roughly the amount of time it takes for someone to become an adult. In that story, one of Korea’s best coming-of-age novels, Kim created a father who runs around the world in his shorts. But the story is also a happy lie, a fantasy about growing into better people than our parents. The attachment that Eun-mi has for her mother tongue is an attachment to her roots and traces (i.e., her parents). But now it is time to learn a new language. Although it may be cliché, we need to say “Thank you, I’ve learned a lot. Annyeong.” Eun-mi can now say goodbye. Translated by Sean Lin Halbert  Mi Ryeong Cha is a literary critic and professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST). She has published a collection of literary criticism titled A World of Abandoned Possibilities.  Korean Work Mentioned:Kim Ae-ran, Run, Dad! (Changbi, 2005)김애란, 『달려라 아비』 (창비, 2005) Kim Ae-ran, Mouthwatering (Moonji, 2007)김애란, 『침이 고인다』 (문학과 지성사, 2007) Kim Ae-ran, My Brilliant Life (tr. Chi-Young Kim, Forge Books, 2021)김애란, 『두근두근 내 인생』 (창비, 2011) Kim Ae-ran, Vapor Trail (Moonji, 2012)김애란, 『비행운』 (문학과 지성사, 2012) Kim Ae-ran, Summer Outside (Munhakdongne, 2017) 김애란, 『바깥은 여름』 (문학동네, 2017) Kim Ae-ran, A Good Name to Forget (Yolimwon, 2019)김애란, 『잊기 좋은 이름』 (열림원, 2019)  Kim Ae-ran, A Lie Among Truths (Munhakdongne, 2024)김애란, 『이중 하나는 거짓말』 (문학동네, 2024) Kim Ae-ran, et al, Collection of Stories on the Theme of Music (Franz, 2024)김애란 등 『음악소설집』 (프란츠, 2024) Kim Yeonsu, “What Kind of Person is Kim Ae-ran?” Literature and Society (Moonji, 2012)      김연수, 「김애란 씨는 어떤 사람인가요?」, 『문학과사회』 (문학과지성사, 2012)  

  by Mi Ryeong Cha

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  [Cover Feature] A Novel’s Chance and Its Destiny: On Transforming Literature into Different Media

  Shortly after my third novel, Intimate Stranger, was published eight years ago, I was contacted by a few studios interested in acquiring rights for the screen adaptation. A famous producer even approached me and suggested I write the script myself. He’d sign the contract on the condition that I participate in the writing. I straight out refused, as I had no idea how to write a screenplay. He said I could learn quickly, but I doubted it would be that easy.        I didn’t watch a lot of television. I could think of only one or two series I’d watched from beginning to end, and neither of them were recent. My lack of knowledge would make it all the more difficult to identify trends for structuring a screenplay or dramatizing the story effectively. In short, I had no interest in the job.        Even now I’m pleased with my decision not to participate in writing the screenplay. As a writer, I know that a work demands total devotion from its author. One cannot devote oneself to something one doesn’t love.        Ultimately, I sold the screen rights to a female director preparing her second feature film. She planned to write the screenplay herself, and actually, she seemed worried that I’d get too involved in the project. Only after I promised her I wouldn’t, raising my hands in a pacifying gesture, did she share her interpretation of the novel. We spent hours discussing the dramatization and I could tell that she was perfect for the task. Not only did she have deep feelings for the novel, but above all, she was a writer herself. She’d read the book so many times that the cover was in tatters, and Post-it notes with her ideas were pasted throughout.        Yumi Lee, the protagonist of Intimate Stranger, deceives others by assuming false identities. She’s a habitual liar, changing her name, job, and hometown multiple times. The climax of the story—which also works as a commentary on the irony of gender as a socially imposed construct—is the scene in which she changes sex. The director told me that she couldn’t depict all the character’s lies onscreen; in particular, the part where she changes into a man would be impossible to capture. She wanted to make desire central to Yumi’s story, and not gender. Also, she presented the character as a villain. A villain! Wouldn’t that make her evil? I was caught off-balance, as I’d never considered a central character of mine in that light. I was also concerned that they’d portray Yumi as crazed without any context. But in the end, I agreed to all the director’s decisions. Now, as then, I regard an adaptation of a literary work to be distinct from the original. The medium is a form which dictates what can be relayed through it. It is entirely up to the director to determine what can be conveyed on screen. She is the creator of the work.        In hindsight, I probably doubted that my work would really be made into a movie. During my career, I noticed many writers in my circle, including myself, signing copyright contracts with studios, but only very seldom were these projects ever realized. A screen project was like a unit of soldiers on a mission. The risks were high, commensurate with the supplies and resources required. Most of all, the flow of capital involved was beyond anything that one could imagine. Even with a signed contract, very few works made it to the production stage and, having gone through this process many times before, my expectations were understandably low. Years passed without any news, and I assumed that the project had fallen through like the others.        When the director finally got back to me, it was during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. She said she had something important to tell me, and a studio representative accompanied her to our meeting. They wanted to amend the contract, applying the rights to a drama series instead of a film. They said that theatres were empty due to the pandemic, and funding was being diverted to streaming services. It would take Netflix months to review a manuscript. With the adaptation in hand, they’d decided that Intimate Stranger would do much better as a series than as a film. I agreed to the change without too much fuss. The project went into full gear after that. The actors were cast, production was finalized, and promotional articles came out. Every time the director resolved an issue, she filled me in on how things were progressing. I was the first to be informed about anything to do with the series. I felt that she respected me as the author of the original work and strove to keep a place for me at the table. Later I found out how exceptional this attention was.        Before the end of the year, I received a copy of the script for the show. Titled Anna, it was divided into eight episodes. I read it immediately, and as I expected, it diverged from the novel in many places. In the novel, Yumi’s father dresses her in expensive clothes befitting a Russian Grand Duchess, and so “Anna” becomes a kind of nickname for her. In the drama, however, Anna is the name of the woman that Yumi begins to imitate in earnest.        The novel’s narrator was cut entirely from the series. A depressed novelist—her career finished, her marriage over—she depicted scenes of everyday sadness, which is a common trope in contemporary fiction. However, for this very reason, the effect could not be felt on the screen so there was no need for her. The camera subsumed the narrator’s role, replacing her descriptive musings with camera shots. In the novel, the narrator’s words conveyed much of the storyline, but in the video format, the audience simply followed the camera’s point of view. Such differences were vividly apparent in the screenplay.        Intimate Stranger, the book, follows the life of Yumi Lee. Through her disguises, she infiltrates different social classes and becomes involved with many men—even marrying one—before abruptly vanishing to assume a new identity and find new targets. Instead of following this sequence, the screenplay of Anna focused on one section and expanded on it. It depicts Yumi’s first marriage in exhaustive detail, focusing on her relationship with her husband and what they exchange in the name of desire. In the drama series, however, a plot twist involving the husband at the end is entirely new, so you can actually regard the screenplay as a different work. Only later, when I saw the filmed version, could I recognize the two works as coming from the same source.        The director offered me the chance to watch all eight episodes before the series premiered. In the beginning, the camera shows the military camp town where Yumi was born and raised. I was astonished by how closely it resembled the scene I had imagined. The bleak alleys, shabby tailor shops, the appearance of the supporting actors were all so familiar. This scene, which I had never described in detail to anyone, was brought to life with such precision that I had the sudden, surreal thought that it had been filmed just for me. This sensation reminded me of the kinds of thoughts that cross my mind while I’m writing. I don’t think about the reader then. The process is extremely personal because I don’t pay attention to popular or commercial appeal. I think to myself, I’m writing a book that I want to read. However, when I saw one of the most beautiful actresses in Korea being called by my character’s name, I knew the series wasn’t just for me anymore. Anna concentrates on Yumi to the extent that there are very few scenes without her. The camera dwells on the actress’s beautiful face. Shots of the elaborately made-up visage are juxtaposed with shots of her bare of cosmetics. Through this technique, the camera shows us the inner life of this mysterious character.        Yumi’s desire is expressed through her lies, but underneath is emptiness. She fraudulently presents herself as having high social standing, but her habitual lying has no meaning or purpose. She simply wants to enjoy the momentary gratification her lies grant her—the respect, the satisfaction, and the pleasure of the moment. To attain this, she has no scruples about fabricating lies that are bold to the point of ridiculousness. In short, she is monstrous, hollow inside. Anyone who peeks behind her mask will not desire her. This was my design when I wrote the novel. I wanted to write about a woman with a monstrous inner core who could not be the object of desire as she herself is the desiring subject. She was me; she was all of us. . . we all have this aspect hidden under the mask of the socially imposed female identity.        The most sophisticated aspect of Yumi’s lies is her use of feminine artifice. With expensive brand name products and a tasteful choice in clothes, she crafts an attractive outward appearance. She becomes a charming conversationalist, someone who can mirror another’s mood and satisfy the other’s emotional needs. But this, too, is a mask, not her true self.        The series Anna created a number of splendid masks for Yumi. I was told that the lead actress changed into dozens of suits for the filming. This was also the reason designer shoes and bags appeared more frequently in this series than in others. High heels, in particular, symbolized Yumi’s status seeking. As she gets closer and closer to succeeding, her shoes become sleeker and narrower at the toe. She pants and gasps climbing the stairs to her high-rise apartment in those shoes.        Another way the adaptation differs from the novel is that Yumi poses as a music professor in the book whereas in the drama series she becomes a professor of fine arts. Although both fields are plagued by the same problems of exclusive connections, behind-the-scenes financial transactions, and academic forgery, perhaps these issues are more vividly portrayed in an art school setting. In the scenes where Yumi stands in front of grand paintings and sculptures, she herself appears like an object of art—no different from an installation piece that is both fake and real. The actress’s physical beauty embodies the message that the drama series wants to convey.        After the trailers were released and as soon as the first episode aired, I was bombarded with calls. Close friends congratulated me, but I also got calls from people I’d lost contact with ages ago. I was stunned. What were they congratulating me for? Even then, I couldn’t recognize the power of visual media. I didn’t know that so many people watched dramas, discussed them, and celebrated them so enthusiastically.        During the two months that the drama aired, the novel Intimate Stranger received more interest than a newly published book, and sales profits increased at a staggering rate. I was receiving interview requests for a book that was published seven years ago. It was perhaps my busiest season as an author to date. It wasn’t a negative experience, either; in fact, it was a great pleasure. But the whole time I felt like I was in a daze. When the editors at the publishing company called to tell me about urgent additional printings, they asked, “Where have all these readers been hiding until now?”        Today, the publishing industry is gradually contracting. The digital age has arrived, and the old text-based system of creating, receiving, and sharing messages is being replaced by an audio-visual one. Although a wider variety of genres is being published now, books have less influence than they did in previous generations. As a full-time writer, I’m long past the point of being disappointed that I’m selling fewer copies of my books. It is no exaggeration to say that we are now in an age of visual communication.        The reading population declines every year, but cooperation between the publishing industry and other media continues to grow stronger. Each year film rights for novels are being optioned more actively and urgently, and books are frequently adapted into stage performances or musicals as well. These adaptations are a very desirable form of publicity, the dream of every author, as they attract more readers to their original works. For example, with the worldwide release of Anna, Intimate Stranger had the chance to be translated and published in multiple languages. Whereas the book had been the basis for the drama series, it was the series that paved the way for the book’s larger re-release.        As the drama series was trending, drawing readers back to the book, the question I fielded most frequently was, “How do you, as the author, regard the drama?” People seem to believe that I must have some standard or grounds for critiquing the adaptation. However, I always reply that comparing them is meaningless—they are two different works that exist on their own terms. As they’re two stories originating from the same idea, the adaptation can be viewed as a kind of spin-off. Even if you’re depicting the struggles of the same character, the effect will be entirely different depending on whether you use print or visual media. The story in a novel always poses questions that the readers must fill in for themselves. The adaptation, however, can be viewed as one possible answer to those questions. Any answer is possible and none is definitive. This, too, is why familiar prototypes of stories are remade in every generation: we like to see a fresh take, to acquire a new perspective from a familiar tale. Each time, the story takes on new life. People enjoy seeing the adaptations in diverse media. Ultimately, it is the narrative that they have in common, uniting them. Our desire for stories isn’t that different from that of our ancestors who gathered in front of the fire to hear storytellers long ago.        More than two years have passed since the final episode of Anna aired. The show ended, and with it, my hectic schedule. I returned to my life of peaceful obscurity. Once again, I make a living writing novels for myself and I don’t have many complaints. What has changed is that I’m able to introduce myself more easily. If I say I’m a novelist, many people look uncertain as to how to respond, but if I mention Anna, they brighten up. The power of dramas, the impact of popular media, is amazing. The presence of visual media is felt everywhere in our culture now.        They say that each book has its own destiny, and Intimate Stranger is the perfect example. As an author, I hope that all books fulfill their destiny in kind. This is, however, something distinct from my own goals or efforts. Various opportunities and possibilities that amount to nothing more than chance await books in the literary market today. Meanwhile, authors write in solitude, removed from the tumult, only guessing as to when the words they planted as seeds will mature into trees, not knowing how far their branches will extend. Translated by Kari Schenk  Chung Han-ah debuted in 2007. Her works include the short story collections Laughing for My Sake, Annie, and Liquor and Vanilla, and the novels Little Chicago and Intimate Stranger. She has won the Munhakdongne Writer’s Award, the Kim Yong-ik Novel Prize, the Hahn Moo-sook Literary Award, and the Sim Hoon Literary Award. Intimate Stranger was adapted into the serial drama Anna for Coupang Play.  Korean Work Mentioned:Chung Han-ah, Intimate Stranger (Munhakdongne, 2017) 정한아, 『친밀한 이방인』 (문학동네, 2017)

  by Chang Han-ah

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  [Cover Feature] The Poverty of Imagination Era

  This is the era of splendid images. Literature is in decline and it seems that visual media has entered a golden age. However, it is interesting to note that film companies around the world, including those in Hollywood, are all suffering from a ‘story famine.’ In this magnificent era of story inflation, when people around the globe are gorging themselves on a glut of stories, some may wonder, “What story famine?” There are hundreds of cable channels on TV; global streaming services like Netflix, Disney, and HBO are springing up everywhere; and thousands of movie theaters are still in operation worldwide. On top of that, billions of consumers are ready to open their wallets wide for great TV dramas or films. The problem is that while the demand for more visual content is growing and the number of streaming channels has exploded, it has become harder and harder to find a captivating story that can be told through the visual medium with huge production costs. Whenever I meet film producers, the one thing they all say without fail is, “It’s so hard to find a good story to make into a film these days.” Which is why film studios everywhere are thumbing their noses at their audiences, churning out hundreds of movies a year by endlessly pulling out old blockbusters from their file cabinets to remake, rehashing the same stories in the form of sequels, and pouring astronomical production costs into stories so old and worn that anyone can plainly see how they will play out within the first five minutes. But what’s even funnier is that these movies we find so absurd are actually the best stories that film producers can find, carefully handpicked out of the tens of thousands of screenplays that make their way around the global film market every year.        Robert McKee, renowned for his Story Seminar, declared in his book Story that the art of the story has steadily been on the decline in the twenty-first century.        The power of storytelling is in decay, he argues, and today’s writers are unable to create stories with the same overwhelming force and beauty as writers of the previous generation. They instead scramble to fill the hollow shells of empty stories with flashy action, histrionic, lewd and violent performances, and all sorts of decorative shots packed with camera techniques.        Is McKee’s claim too extreme? Well, even in this era of story inflation, it has become increasingly rare to see films like Giuseppe Tornatore’s Cinema Paradiso, Roberto Benigni’s Life Is Beautiful, and Majid Majidi’s Children of Heaven—films whose stories confront the deep truths of dreamers and are told without any trickery. Filling that void now are these rowdy, two-hour films in which speeding cars smash into each other, machine guns spray bullets, and bombs explode to reduce city buildings to rubble—all for no apparent reason.        Compared to previous generations of writers whose story consumption was limited to household appliances such as radios and black-and-white TVs, we are a generation that grew up consuming an unprecedented number of movies and dramas. We are also a generation that still craves and consumes a wide array of genres, as well as a generation that has been blessed and baptized with the sheer imaginative power of  writers and directors of earlier generations. But even as we devour stories in such huge quantities, we aren’t creating stories with the same overwhelming impact and beauty as writers of the past. This goes for films and novels alike. Moreover, this isn’t a phenomenon restricted to any one country—it’s a global trend. Advancements in scientific technology have fueled the development of media technology, which in turn has improved film production environments and led to a dramatic increase in the capital invested in filmmaking. However, the stories created by this generation are only stylish and ornate on the surface, flashy casings that are devoid of substance. That is why we feel a sense of emptiness as we consume all these countless stories. We’re not producing anything that comes close to the imaginative power needed to meet these demands in terms of quality or quantity. We’re living in an era that suggests we ought to have imagination in abundance, yet strangely enough, we’re instead experiencing its dearth. We’re like people on a lake dying of thirst.        What exactly is the problem? There are probably many complicated reasons at play here. But if I were to choose the most apparent cause for this trend, it would be that people of this day and age live in an environment that is quite good in terms of consuming imagination but incredibly bad at nurturing it.        As with everything in the natural world, a system must renew itself in cycles in order to be sustainable. In a natural ecosystem, plants are eaten by herbivores, herbivores are eaten by carnivores, the carcasses of carnivores are eaten by microorganisms, and those microorganisms become nutrients in the soil, allowing plants to grow. In the same way, the students who consume education grow up to become the teachers who produce education. In the case of publishing, the readers who consume books naturally cultivate both the imagination and language proficiency they need to ultimately become the writers, translators, and editors who produce future books. But while it is possible to maintain a healthy cycle that turns book-consumer readers into book-producer writers in the publishing world, there is an ironic mechanism in place in the film industry that makes it hard for the viewers who consume movies to become the directors who produce them. This is because, in contrast to the act of reading, which naturally fosters the imaginative muscle, watching movies is a passive, flaccid way to consume the imaginations of others without fostering an imagination of one’s own.        As we all know, reading books is like making movies in your mind. A reader opens a book and reads the letters within. Letters are an effective tool for expressing the most information in the smallest amount of physical space, but they are very uncompromising. The reader must, without the support of any other visual or auditory aids, read one exacting word or sentence of the text at a time and start the imagination process within their mind—just as a film director creates images and landscapes or casts all the actors for the lead and supporting roles (as well as the extras), adding dialogue and music, and delicately arranging the space of the story in each scene. That is, reading is uncomfortable and arduous work that requires the reader to focus their imagination at every moment. As a person reads, they become both a writer and director. They become the lead actor playing their role. They become their own sound director and add in the dialogue and the music. They become a lighting director and modulate the story’s color and tone. They become a stage director and complete the mise-en-scène. Reading fiction is an art form that cannot be enjoyed if the reader cannot, from beginning to end, call upon their own imagination to internally visualize every last detail from the main character down to the arrangement of the forks and knives on the dining table. Moreover, with fiction, each reader creates a different version of the film in their heads. The cast will differ according to each reader, as will the stage design and the score, the movie’s tone and color. And so the images that readers mentally envision are singular and distinct. Thus, every reader in the world is someone who uses this uncompromising and vague material called language that the writer has left for them to produce, direct, and act in, allowing them to appreciate their own unique version of Kafka’s Metamorphosis, Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, or Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince, which is to say that each of these versions is the only one of its kind in the universe. Unlike these film production environments with their astronomical production costs and enormous number of crew and equipment, this unique film born inside the reader’s mind relies entirely on one’s own incredible imagination and therefore doesn’t cost a thing to produce aside from some donuts and coffee. Inevitably, a portion of these readers who read these books and create these countless movies in their heads will go on to become writers.        However, the audience that consumes movies has no need for imagination, brainpower, or a keen sensitivity. This is because the incredible, composite art form that is film shows us all the characters and landscapes we have to imagine outright through overwhelming visuals and sound, leaving us with nothing more to do than sit back in our armchairs and relax. Compared to reading, watching movies is so ridiculously easy that the viewer never flexes their imaginative muscles. Even worse, while each reader imagines their own distinct characters and backdrops, each viewer of a film sees the same images. Oversaturated, identical images can be our best friends when creating clichéd works and our worst enemies when they impede the growth of our individual imaginations. And we are already exposed to tons of identical imagery compared to previous generations. We lack the muscle needed to imagine and reconstruct the world. This is the fundamental problem that makes it difficult for film consumers to become film producers.        According to neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett, the brain did not evolve to think but was instead made to effectively manage the body’s stores of energy through a process called allostasis. The same way we fear bankruptcy due to unnecessary daily spending, the brain also extremely dislikes when the body expends unnecessary energy. It hinders survival. From this perspective, reading requires a lot of energy and puts tremendous strain on the brain. As mentioned, the sheer number of elements a reader has to imagine for themselves as they read novels is huge. On the other hand, moviegoers are incredibly efficient with their energy. They can simply sit back and watch. They don’t need to exert themselves to generate images; there’s no need to establish the actors and no need to insert the sound. Which is why, according to the dynamic energy budget theory, humans instinctively prefer watching movies to reading books.        So what sort of future will this energy-efficient medium usher in for humanity? In the natural world, there is a highly energy-efficient creature called the sea pineapple. When sea pineapples reach their larval stage, they lead an extremely active life, using their brains and nervous systems to swim around in search of food and a good habitat. However, once they find a suitable environment to settle in, such as on rocks or among seagrass, the sea pineapples use their suckers to embed themselves on a surface and stop moving, living the rest of their lives in that spot, filtering and eating the food that floats by. And then they eat their own brains because, by then, the brain is no longer of any use to them—it’s just an organ that wastes a lot of energy.        All living things are conservative beings. We never do anything that requires us to use more energy unless we absolutely have to. Doing so would be extremely dangerous for our survival. Reading is an activity that cannot function without the power of the reader’s imagination, while movies are an energy-efficient medium that can be enjoyed easily without having to force the brain to imagine a single thing. Does anyone really need to read energy-inefficient books in this era of such captivating visual media? My answer to this question is, “Yes.” It’s like asking all of humankind, “Would you rather live as a well-fed pig? Or a hungry Socrates?”        Currently, the largest industry on the planet is the story industry. This story industry—extensively linked to the publishing, film, drama, game, animation, advertising, broadcasting, fashion, character, and many other industries—is much larger than the semiconductor industry and even larger than the defense and energy industries. It is an industry based on visual media and is set to grow even more in the future. However, as mentioned, in order for a system to be sustainable, it must be cyclical—for visual media to remain in its current golden age, it must be continuously supplied with fresh imaginative power.        I believe that literature is at the center of this vast story industry. And I believe that literature should be much more classically literary in form as opposed to being well suited to screenplay adaptations for movies or TV dramas. If some film director or producer reads a novel and thinks, “Hm, this would make a good movie,” they will fail because they clearly know nothing about novels or movies. That is not the role of fiction. If you’re looking for a textual source that can be used as a movie, you need to find a good screenplay rather than leaf through a novel. The novel doesn’t aim to pinpoint the best, definitive image out there, but to disperse itself and produce an infinite number of images in the minds of that one story’s readers. In contrast, a movie brings together directors, writers, actors, producers, cinematographers, and others to discuss, debate, and coordinate in order to create a unified body of work. In other words, in this enormous story industry, literature is tasked with differentiation, while visual media is tasked with integration. Literature and video neither assume a confrontational form in relation to each other nor are they absorbed into each other to become one and the same thing. Rather, they push and pull at each other, interacting in their own ways.        It is the power of imagination that has placed humankind in a special and unique position relative to other animals in the natural world. Imagination is not delusion, nor is it fantasy. It is thorough, intricate engineering that turns dreams into reality. Humanity has come this far with the power of the imagination, and we will reach the future we dream of on the strength of it. If we were to lose the power to imagine and reconstruct the world, we would begin to miss out on certain truths of life and fall apart from within. It is time, then, to pose a serious question about what we are losing while we are so dazzled by the flashy images of the twenty-first century.        “How will we recover our lost imaginations?” Translated by Paige Aniyah Morris  Kim Un-su won the Dong-A Ilbo New Writer’s Award in 2003 with his novella Breaking Up with Friday. His first novel Cabinet won the Munhakdongne Writer’s Award in 2006, and his 2010 novel The Plotters was selected by TIME magazine as one of the 100 Best Mystery and Thriller Books of All Time. His 2016 novel Hot Blood was made into a feature-length film, and a television series based on The Plotters is currently in production at Universal Studios. Kim’s works have been translated and published in thirty countries. 

  by Kim Un-su

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  [Cover Feature] Becoming Utterly Ordinary

  As soon as news broke that writer Han Kang had won the Nobel Prize in Literature last October, I searched for themes related to Korean literature that could be explored in a film magazine, then put together a special feature on media adaptations of Korean novels. The article, published later that month, covered eight novels, from Gu Byeong-mo’s The Old Woman with the Knife to Hye-young Pyun’s The Hole, although the total number of works considered for the piece exceeded ten. Several of these adaptations were released in 2024 alone. Troll Factory and Because I Hate Korea, both based on novels of the same name by Chang Kang-myoung, reached theaters in March and October, respectively; the Netflix original My Name Is Loh Kiwan, adapted from Cho Hae-jin’s novel I Met Loh Kiwan, was also released in March.        Yet it would be a stretch to regard film adaptations of novels as an industry trend. Webtoons and web novels have a firm grip on screen adaptations, and their influence is only growing stronger. (The Trauma Code: Heroes on Call, the hit Netflix series that aired over the Lunar New Year holidays, is also based on a web novel.) While covering this topic, I noticed an interesting distinction in what draws filmmakers to adapt literature as opposed to web-based content. While not a universal rule, the former tends to be driven by a desire to delve into the original work’s themes, whereas the latter is often motivated by the appeal of specific characters or scenes. For example, director Min Kyu-dong adapted The Old Woman with the Knife into a film, drawn to the rich cinematic potential he found in “the novel’s exploration of truth and falsehood, as well as its tension between past and present.” In contrast, director Lee Jang-hoon decided to take on a drama adaptation of Study Group, eager to “bring the webtoon’s charismatic protagonist to screen.”        So do adaptations of literature into films and dramas emerge when a visual storyteller encounters a work that reflects their own artistic themes? While production companies often initiate film rights, the most compelling content comes to life when a director channels their creative vision through a literary work that resonates with the story they wish to tell. This was precisely the case with the film and drama adaptations of Love in the Big City, released on October 1, 2024 and October 21, 2024, respectively. Both were based on Sang Young Park’s novel of the same name, with the film directed by Lee Eon-hee and the drama unconventionally helmed by four directors—Son Taegyeom, Hur Jinho, Hong Jiyeong, and Kim Sein—with each handling two episodes apiece in the eight-part series. The film adapts only “Jaehee,” the first of the four chapters of the novel, while the drama brings the entire book to the small screen. Although the two adaptations were developed independently, they happened to premiere in the same month last year, and like the novel, both stood out for their embrace of the ordinary. What defines this “ordinariness” within these works is their focus on people often seen as outsiders, oddballs, or misfits in Korean society. The directors peeled away layers of stigma, misunderstanding, and myth by meticulously capturing the characters’ quotidian lives.        The film version of Love in the Big City follows the friendship between Jaehee (Kim Go Eun) and Heungsoo (Noh Sang-hyun), two French literature majors who are considered the “ultimate outsiders” in their department. Their lives from the age of twenty to thirty-three unfold across familiar milestones—graduation, employment, romance, and marriage. As they navigate these experiences together, the outsider duo gradually comes to be seen as ordinary. What is key here is the “duo” element. While the novel’s original chapter “Jaehee” primarily focused on the queer literature student Young (renamed Heungsoo in the film), the adaptation significantly expands Jaehee’s role, reshaping the narrative into a story about both characters. This shift reinforces the film’s effort to highlight the ordinary characteristics of those on the outskirts of the mainstream. The decision to reframe the narrative with two equally central protagonists aligns with director Lee Eon-hee’s longstanding creative focus on one-on-one relationships. In an interview ahead of the film’s release, Lee revealed she has always been drawn to stories that “observe the dynamics between two people.” She chose to adapt “Jaehee” to “bring forward the charm of a female character who had remained in the background of a male protagonist’s narrative.” Lee’s filmography reflects a consistent interest in marginalized figures. From her debut film . . .ing, which centers on a girl born with a congenital hand deformity, to the mystery drama Missing, which portrays the lives of a single mother and a Chinese nanny, she has constantly turned her lens toward the vulnerable and marginalized. Given this, it is no surprise that Jaehee—an outsider among her peers—came into Lee’s line of sight.        The theme of ordinariness is reinforced in the film in various ways, letting it take root and expand. At its heart is the everyday life of Jaehee and Heungsoo, who, as the novel describes, at some point became “the closest and most comfortable people in the world to each other.” Their friendship, initially guarded, takes a turn during the summer they turn twenty, when Jaehee learns that Heungsoo is gay. Recognizing in each other an undeniable outsider trait and an equally insatiable appetite for nightlife, they become “inseparable overnight.” Their bond further deepens when a suspicious man starts lurking around Jaehee’s studio, prompting them to become roommates. The film brims with moments that capture their day-to-day intimacy—like the times they “fall asleep side by side with dried-up cosmetic masks  glued to their faces,” or “sharing quick meals of cold rice with old kimchi.” Scenes overflow with daily rituals: watching movies in their messy studio, swearing off alcohol only to break that promise in front of a bowl of hangover noodles cooked to perfection. Alongside the good times, the film confronts the more somber moments as well: Jaehee’s crushing disappointment as she questions whether Heungsoo values their friendship as deeply as she does, and the way their arguments, sparked by something as trivial as uncollected trash, quickly spiral out of control. The camera dwells on the spaces they occupy—the living room, the bathroom, their separate bedrooms—capturing the details of their daily life, from razors to cosmetics. None of these objects are remarkable. Their routines, the places they go, are all familiar and their emotions are relatable. Through carefully layered depictions of their everyday life, the protagonists seamlessly blend into “normal.” For Heungsoo, a gay man burdened by society’s judgment of him as abnormal, and Jaehee, labeled as promiscuous, this is the director’s gift—a sense of freedom.        In its latter half, the film makes another move to close the gap between the protagonists and the audience. It expands on a moment from the original story—when “in the first semester of senior year, Jaehee defied her (widely recognized) job market handicap of being a female humanities major and scored a job at a large electronics company”—by adding a layer of realism through an imagined detail: an inserted sequence shows Jaehee, once brimming with personality in both style and spirit, now attending job interviews in the same black suit as everyone else, followed by her struggles to adapt to corporate life. The portrayal of her early days as a working professional is tinged with sorrow. One of its most poignant scenes captures Jaehee on the subway, now an office worker, gazing with quiet resignation at another young woman across from her dressed in the same unremarkable trench coat and flats. The fear and despair creeping over her, the unsettling realization she might be losing herself, are emotions all too familiar to anyone who has already faded into the muted tones of corporate life. A similar current runs through Heungsoo’s time in the military. While the original novel presents this period lightheartedly, centering on Jaehee’s letters, the film is more pensive in mood, focusing on Heungsoo’s expressions, heavy with uncertainty about his future. Additionally, the film delves deeper into Heungsoo’s life before he becomes a novelist, depicting his struggles as a job seeker, making his journey feel more familiar. In summary, by leading both protagonists through the inevitable dulling of life that comes with the transition from youth to adulthood, the director further anchors their identity in the ordinary.        The drama series Love in the Big City stays closely connected to the novel—author Sang Young Park himself penned the script and the directors were committed to capturing the essence of the original work. However, in adapting to the conventions of television drama, it leans toward a coming-of-age narrative with clearer emotional highs and lows. The four directors, by directing two episodes each, create a natural four-part structure. Director Son Taegyeom’s “Miae” (episodes 1-2) explores protagonist Young’s friendship with Miae (Lee Sookyung) and his naive romance with Namgyu (Kwon Hyuk). Director Hur Jinho’s “A Bite of Rockfish, Taste the Universe” (episodes 3-4) delves into Young’s strained yet unbreakable relationship with his mother (Kim Sungryung) as well as his relationship with Youngsoo (Na Hyunwoo), his next lover after Namgyu. Director Hong Jiyeong’s “Love in the Big City” (episodes 5-6) focuses on Young’s central romantic interest, Gyuho (Jin Hoeun), while Director Kim Sein’s “Late Rainy Season Vacation” (episodes 7-8) follows Young as he reflects on his past with Gyuho while building a new relationship with Habibi (Kim Wonjoong). In essence, the drama charts Young’s journey from his early twenties to his early thirties as he navigates relationships and comes into his own.        Notably, Young’s growth isn’t confined to a coming-of-age tale about a sexual minority; rather, it extends to the broader experience of youth in general. The drama pulses with the protagonist’s youthful energy, depicting the pursuit of his dreams, the emotional highs and lows of love, family conflicts and reconciliations, and moments of wavering and doubt—all of which shape him as an ordinary young man. Thoughtfully woven with elements from the novel—what Young eats, sees, and passes by—the series preserves the evocative details: blueberries in the freezer, a furiously spinning ceiling fan, an autumn evening at Olympic Park. This delicate balance was made possible by the directors’ shared vision. Ahead of the drama’s release, lead actor Nam Yoonsu and the four directors discussed the story together and unanimously agreed that Love in the Big City, at its core, is a universal love story, with Young conveyed as an ordinary young Korean man. Though separated by generations, Son Taegyeom, Hur Jinho, Hong Jiyeong, and Kim Sein share a sensibility and talent for capturing contemporary lives with striking realism. Under their direction, the drama sidesteps the trope of “the special life of a queer artist in the big city” and instead becomes “the ordinary life of a young person navigating love and success in an expensive city like Seoul.”        One particularly interesting choice is the drama’s use of death as a thematic undercurrent to heighten its realism, something that the original work only subtly implied. The adaptation strips away romanticized notions of queerness, emphasizing that queer individuals, too, are simply human, bound by mortality like everyone else. This is powerfully reinforced through the drama’s funeral scenes. In the series, Young attends funerals for his first love, Namgyu, and his mother, who had been battling cancer. The novel only briefly mentions the death of Namgyu (referred to as “K3” in the novel) through a text message about his funeral and merely hints at his mother’s passing, whereas the drama brings these losses to the forefront. But the theme manifests itself even more directly through Young’s suicide attempt. After discovering that his second boyfriend, Youngsu, had deliberately approached him as part of his research on homosexuality—described in Youngsu’s own writing as “capitalism’s mental illness” (from his article as a researcher at the Institute of Ethnic and Social Culture)—and facing the sting of blatant rejection, Young is devastated. In despair, he overdoses. The scene, shot in a long take from a distance, lingers on Young as he swallows the pills one by one, gradually ratcheting up the tension (in the novel, he drinks pesticide). Even without pinpointing specific examples, death’s presence looms over the entire drama.        Episodes 3 and 4 revolve around Young caring for his ailing mother, while her funeral at the beginning of episode 5 sets the tone for the latter half of the series. “Kylie”—the name Young gives to the HIV he has contracted—plays a crucial role. The drama subtly threads his inner turmoil throughout, capturing both the enduring fear that death might come at any moment as well as his surrender to the idea that its timing no longer matters. Remarkably, this ever-present shadow of death paradoxically transforms him into someone who clings fiercely to life. Like light visible only against darkness, Young’s determination to love and write, despite death’s looming presence, radiates unmistakable vitality. This culminates in the final episode’s closing scene where he watches fireworks with friends and hope flares brightly within him. Essentially, the queer character in Love in the Big City, through confronting the extremity of death, and feeling, thinking, and growing in profound ways, evolves as an ordinary yet vividly living and breathing individual.        Revisiting these versions of Love in the Big City reminded me of Kelly Reichardt’s Showing Up, currently in theaters. While the film follows a sculptor preparing for an exhibition, its focus, surprisingly, lies in the everyday challenges she faces at home, such as a broken water heater that leaves her unable to shower for days or certain family issues that interfere with her work. Watching it, I came to understand that artists, too, are ordinary people. The abstractness I had always associated with them dissolved, making them feel more tangible. Artworks at exhibitions and artist residency programs resonated in a new, more relatable way. And this experience led to a realization: there needs to be more visual storytelling that conveys how those perceived as peculiar or strange in our society are, in reality, just like everyone else. When we feel a sense of closeness to someone, when we can envision their lives in intimate detail, discrimination and distortion naturally lose their grip. In this light, the film and drama adaptations of Love in the Big City mark a crucial first step. The directors have shaped the novel into a story about ordinary Korean youth who are outsiders, with a keen sense of realism. As a result, these adaptations serve as an essential bridge between those on the fringes and the broader audience.        Yet another significant achievement of these works is how they crack the media’s distorted representation of queer individuals. For too long, media portrayals, particularly of gay men, have relied on lazy stereotypes: flamboyant fashion, chatty high-pitched voices, and the raised pinky finger while drinking. These one-dimensional depictions have cemented the perception of queer people as distant, almost alien, beings. However, the film and drama adaptations of Love in the Big City have introduced characters free from these exaggerations to affirm that queer people are simply and undeniably human. In other words, these two works, which assert that queer individuals exist everywhere like everyone else, carry symbolic significance in the history of LGBTQ+ media representation, and 2024, the year of their joint release, will be recorded as a pivotal moment. Translated by Kim Soyoung  Lee Yoochae is a journalist for Cine21 film magazine.  Korean Works Mentioned:Sang Young Park, Love in the Big City (tr. Anton Hur, Tilted Axis, 2021)     박상영, 『대도시의 사랑법』 (창비, 2019) Gu Byeong-mo, The Old Woman with the Knife (tr. Chi-Young Kim, Canongate, 2022)구병모, 『파과』 (자음과모음, 2013)Hye-young Pyun, The Hole (tr. Sora Kim-Russell, Arcade Publishing, 2017)편혜영, 『홀』 (문학과지성사, 2016) Chang Kang-myoung, Troll Factory (EunHaeng NaMu, 2015), Because I Hate Korea (Minumsa, 2015)장강명, 『댓글부대』 (은행나무, 2015), 『한국이 싫어서』 (민음사, 2015)Cho Hae-jin, I Met Loh Kiwan (tr. Ji-Eun Lee, University of Hawai’i Press, 2019)조해진, 『로기완을 만났다』 (창비, 2011)

  by Lee Yoochae

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  [Cover Feature] At the Boundary between Fiction and Film

  These days, countless movies from the early days of film, are circulating on YouTube, alongside YouTube shorts. I occasionally search and watch them, only to soon find that I am unable to tear myself away from the screen. I’m fascinated by how digital reproduction technology has continued to advance, enabling me to watch these old black-and-white films in vivid color. But above all, watching these films makes me feel at peace. Most of these films, shot between 1895 and the early 1900s, record panoramic views of cities like Paris and London. There is no narrative, no main character. Just people from the past, living their normal, everyday lives, passing through the square frame of the screen. In this world, free of danger or conflict, I find inner peace.        Today, films are often understood as “stories expressed through images,” but that’s because most of the films we come across are “drama films.” Before drama films became mainstream, films sought to capture everyday scenes and activities. The world’s first films were documentaries. In 1895, the Lumière brothers filmed and screened the world’s first film, The Arrival of a Train, which shows a train arriving at La Ciotat Station. Similarly for Korea, while the 1919 kino-drama The Righteous Revenge is known as Korea’s first film, another film was actually screened just before it—the documentary, Panoramic View of the Whole City of Gyeongseong. It’s quite interesting that a kino-drama is considered to be Korea’s first film, ignoring the documentary film that preceded it.        The Lumière brothers didn’t realize the commercial value of films at the time, but the people who did, moved swiftly. One of the most important directors of early film history, Georges Méliès, integrated narrative into films, demonstrating its commercial value and establishing the foundation for the current film industry. Meanwhile, Hollywood explored various editing and shooting techniques to make seamless, sophisticated, and systematically categorized narrative structures that drew the audience’s attention, creating what’s now known as the classic Hollywood narrative style. No one can deny that narrative played a key role in the birth of the film industry, at the same time demonstrating how closely tied narrative is to the commercial viability of film.        Drama films actively brought the myriad stories scattered around the world to the silver screen. These films drew on everything from the Bible to the myths and legends of different cultures. And of course there have also been many film adaptations of books. Many of Stephen King’s novels were adapted into big-screen movies, and J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series and J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series became major blockbuster hits. Such examples of book-to-film treatments are legion.        In my opinion, books that have the potential of becoming adapted for film share a few characteristics. First, the main character needs to be a human. This might sound a bit odd, but there are quite a few books where the main character is not human. Written stories can be narrated through the wind, or even objects, like a hat. Of course, it’s not impossible for films to have a non-human main character, but it’s less likely to be a box office hit without a star-studded cast. Second, it’s better if the book has a specific and clear plot. Books with a lot of internal narrative or wordplay or text-centric works are difficult to produce into films. For instance, novels like Samuel Beckett’s The Unnamable are challenging to translate into films and even if they were, the particular texture that can only be felt in the text would be lost.        But what’s most important is that the book must be popular and engaging. Major film studios require massive amounts of capital from investors, which means that generating profits is the number one priority. Films that have no chance at profitability are not even considered for development in the first place. Thus, books that have already been favorably received by readers are considered safer bets that help studios navigate the high seas of the film market towards the safe harbor of a box office hit. Even if success isn’t guaranteed, at the very least, it helps to get investors on board in reaching the development stage. Of course, it goes without saying that good novels don’t always become good films.        In recent years, there have been some eye-catching examples of films adapted from Korean novels: Kim Ji-young, Born 1982, Snowball, and Concerning My Daughter. These films were notable because they all showcased female characters that had largely been absent in mainstream Korean films. The adaptation of these books by Korean women writers left a significant mark on the landscape of the Korean film industry. Of course, I’m not suggesting that there were no screenplays featuring female leads prior to these films. Surely there must have been many great projects that were shelved during the development stage due to industry trends. However, I believe that the above films were realized because of the enthusiastic reception of young women in their twenties and thirties who make up the main pillar of Korea’s readers.        In addition to book-to-film adaptations, many films are being adapted from webtoons and comic books. On one hand, this reflects the desire to engage with entertaining works through different media, but on the other hand, it reflects heightened anxiety around issues of box office success and capital recovery. This is because it’s difficult to gauge what the public’s reaction will be to original scripts written by a scriptwriter or a director. Given that the scale of production has gotten larger while the film market has contracted, studios can’t help but select works that have already proven to be successful.        Around the time I was a middle-school student, I recall searching “How to become a movie director” on an online Naver forum. This was the answer I found: Read a lot of books. You need to know how to write good stories. I was devastated. Not only was I not a bookworm, but I also didn’t find reading or writing to be particularly interesting. Yet I couldn’t give up on my movie director dreams so easily.        One by one, I started to read the original books that the movies I’d seen were based on. It was then that I realized a wide array of books had been turned into films— from classic, old movies to recent, popular ones. Sometimes the films were better, and sometimes the original books were better, but later I came to think that comparing the two was pointless. The enjoyment I felt reading books was completely different from the enjoyment I felt from watching movies. I suddenly became curious. Why did that person on Naver say to read a lot of books when they were so different from films? Why books and not screenplays? In high school, I started to write story arcs for all of the films I watched. Of course, it was difficult to clearly grasp the story structure for art films or experimental films. However, the genre films screened at the multiplex followed a formulaic storyline, and even if there were slight variations, they didn’t deviate greatly from the overall structure. I was incredibly proud to have come to this realization. I thought that if I could just familiarize myself with these structures, I’d be able to write good stories myself. But soon after, this faith evaporated. I no longer found watching films entertaining. I could predict how a film would progress and no plot twist shocked me. Even without looking at my watch, I could tell where we were in the running time based on the story arc. Was that it? Was that all there was to a movie? I understood then that an entertaining narrative was not the only thing that made up a film. I began to explore the different methods employed to express narrative—the movements of the characters or the camera; the various ways to show a space; the tension between each shot; the pacing of the edits; the colors and lighting, atmosphere and texture, etc. This led to a broader enjoyment of films, which made me very happy. And it also led to a clearer understanding of films taking root within me.        For me, films have always been about the image. Not the narrative, but the way it is expressed. In fact, I dreamed of making films where images were not the vehicle or means for conveying narrative, but were narratives in and of themselves. Even if it was difficult to ascertain their exact meaning, films that pushed forward on the strength of their images felt more “cinematic” to me. Not only do films use audiovisual imagery to stimulate the senses, but this imagery is an art form that can penetrate deep into the unconscious mind, awakening parts of ourselves that we never even knew existed.        I began to question the assumption that “a good story makes a good film.” In college, this was repeated among film students as fact, but I was always a bit suspicious. Did a good story automatically make for a good film? Even though films were more than stories?After a few years, I began to write books for the first time because someone had told me long ago that I had to write and read a lot of good stories to become a film director, and also because countless books had been adapted to film. Of course, I already intellectually understood the difference between the two, but I was excited by the possibility that by directly writing a textual narrative, new perspectives might arise. In essence, I wanted to feel the difference in how visual language and textual language handled narrative. That’s why I began writing stories—and now it’s already been seven years.        After becoming a writer, I’ve gotten mostly two types of questions from people: How did you become a writer after graduating with a film degree? How does writing books differ from making movies? I’ll share just a few of the many insights I’ve gained over the years. Sentences and Shots When I first write a story, I think of each sentence as a film shot. A shot includes visual elements like the actual filming itself, the lighting, props, and the actors’ facial expressions. These elements determine the emotion and ambiance of the scene, and even the function of the shot. The sentence plays the same role in a story. Within a sentence there is a structure, and within that structure there are words. Depending on what structure you choose and where you place certain words, the meaning and nuance of the sentence changes. I compose each sentence the way I would compose a shot. If composing a shot means deploying the visual elements within it, composing a sentence means arranging the words within. How the sentence is composed, and how the sentences are connected, will determine the story’s atmosphere and tone. The Camera’s Perspective and the Character’s First-Person Perspective There are several things to keep in mind when writing a screenplay. These are not absolute rules, but they are generally followed. First, screenplays should be written in present progressive, and only audiovisual cues should be included.  Adjectives and adverbs should be avoided as much as possible, and the character’s state of mind should be communicated through their actions and dialogue, not internal narration. The biggest difference is that it’s impossible to narrate solely from the first person point-of-view in film. For example, a sentence like, “Yesterday, I fell asleep feeling so tired and sick; it felt like my body would crumble into a million pieces” wouldn’t work well.        Because of this, when I first started writing, the word “I” took on special meaning. “I” am speaking. “I” can speak. Of course, point-of-view shots can be used, or voiceovers employed for internal narratives, but for the most part, films are shot from the camera’s “view.” In films, the world is perceived through the camera’s gaze, but in books written in the first person, the world is perceived through the narrator’s perspective. Thus, I came to believe that the first-person perspective was “novelistic,” and barring certain exceptions, it made me want to continue writing stories in the first person. Watching vs. Reading Before I started writing myself, I thought that one “read” books and “watched” movies. But since I became a writer, I’ve started to feel that the shape of the Korean alphabet and the sequence of the sentences are a type of image. If you really think about it, we’re already “reading” when watching films. I was always reading subtitles without thinking twice, as well as the title and the ending credits. It was so obvious that I’d never noticed it before.        This realization brought the films of Jean-Luc Godard to mind. As a director, he had already noticed the interesting things happening in the space between watching and reading, and deployed typography in an intentional manner. This also led me to think of directors like Wim Wenders, Quentin Tarantino, and Hong Sang-soo. Their films, starting with the font of their titles, showcase the unique touch of a writer. Through directors like these, I learned that watching and reading have only been categorized differently, and actually the boundary between them is quite vague.        In writing stories, I’ve explored the difference in these two mediums and very much enjoyed experiencing the tension between them. I’ve come to realize that writing a book requires deep contemplation of text and language. Otherwise, it’s like trying to film a movie without a camera. Translated by Hannah Kim  Seo Ije majored in film and made her literary debut in 2018 after winning the New Writer’s Award from Literature and Society. She has three short story collections, Towards 0%, Low Resolution, and Along With the Light that Passes Through the Window and has co-authored an essay “The Scene I Loved Made its Way to Me.”  She has also won the Young Writer’s Award, Today’s Writer Award and the Kim Man-jung Literary Award.  Korean Work Mentioned:•   Cho Nam-joo, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 (tr. Jamie Chang, Liveright, 2020)    조남주, 『82년생 김지영』 (민음사, 2016)•   Lim Solah, The Best Life (Munhakdongne, 2024)    임솔아, 『최선의 삶』 (문학동네, 2024) •   Kim Hye-jin, Concerning My Daughter (tr. Jamie Chang, Restless Books, 2022)    김혜진, 『딸에 대하여』 (민음사, 2017)

  by Seo Ije

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  [Cover Feature] Don’t Ask Me When the Script Will Be Ready; I Don’t Have an Answer for You

  Some writers seem to have all the luck. Loved by tens of thousands, if not millions, of readers, they sometimes appeal not only to publishers but also to broadcasting networks; they land screen adaptation rights, along with a handsome advance. Exciting news for the writer and the publisher alike. If they show potential, some of these lucky writers are invited to write the script themselves. I happen to be one of them.        A year after signing the scriptwriting contract, however, I sit at my desk, face grim, stomach churning with acid reflux, asking myself the question: am I really lucky to be writing my own script?        To be honest, I thought I’d get it done in no time. I considered my writing popular. Of course, in an era flooded with short-form content, my choice to write books, one of the oldest forms of media, may not have been the most popular choice. Nevertheless, at least in print, my writing worked—my books sold. But the reports of declining print readership continued to haunt me every year, and with it, the question of whether I could sustain a livelihood just by writing books. Even if my books appealed to the masses, if the act of reading itself was becoming unpopular, it felt very necessary to consider alternatives, which included opening a banchan store. “Writer” is a job title, not a lifetime guarantee of employment.        I broadly categorize my fellow writers into “literary writers” and “literary-literary writers.” “Literary writers” write to negotiate the distance between themselves and the world. Even if they write about feeling alienated from the world, they write toward the world. In this effort, they sometimes revise their book titles to something that will help drive up their sales or agree to have their faces appear on the cover of their books. But “literary-literary writers” allow no such negotiation. They live in their own artistic realm. They do not allow their faces to appear anywhere on their books; they don’t consider it a failure if the reader doesn’t get the point of their works. They choose not to publish at all if it means having to change their chosen titles; they loathe clichéd phrases, rebel against capitalism, patriarchy, heteronormativity, anthropocentrism, ableism, and many other problematic -isms of the world, indifferent to stories that go viral or draw the attention of the masses. They are the most literary of the literary writers.        I said yes to writing my own script because I’m a literary writer. I too have issues with the world, but perhaps due to my mild temperament, I could never become that radical. Instead, I’m good at compromising and mediating conflicts. So, on the one hand, I remain flexible and open; on the other, I’m a coward. If I were a literary-literary writer, I would not have responded positively to being invited to the world of TV in any capacity. Literary-literary writers don’t even watch that much Korean TV. Many of them are my good friends. In a sense, I turned my back on my admirable, principled best friends, and took broad, confident steps toward a compromise that would bring me closer to the masses. It happened in the summer of 2023.        The truth dawned on me shortly after: I knew nothing about scriptwriting. Writing for TV, at first glance, seems easy. TV shows are meant for everyone, how difficult could it be? But that was exactly the point: I had to write something that could appeal to everyone. It’s easy to dissect and criticize TV shows, but it’s so freaking difficult to write, edit, and complete one. Very few manage to do so at all, let alone successfully. Think again before shouting “I could have written that!” at that scene full of clichés. TV writing has turned out to be a completely different beast from book writing. The Difference in Scale If writing my novel The Age of Filiarchy was like planting three trees in my backyard, adapting it for TV felt like building an entire forest. And I had to start by tearing down a mountain that stood there before. “I have to amplify the conflict by this much? And add this many subplots?!” To my stunned face, the producers and the network director nodded yes as if I were asking the dumbest questions. I was writing a twelve-part series; each episode had to carry its own weight. That meant I had to add conflict and plot twists that didn’t exist in the original novel; I had to create more characters, new love interests, add backstories about the main character’s family, define the heroine’s desires as well as what keeps her from achieving them. I can’t be too specific here since the script is still in progress, but it’s fair to say I have written it as a completely new work. The general essence of the original novel, as well as some well-known lines from it, has stayed, but the rest had to be rewritten from the ground up. Reader vs. ViewerReaders read with caution. They savor their books slowly before deciding if they are good or not. They choose to leave the clamor of the world behind and dive into the pages, and I love them for it. But TV viewers vastly outnumber book readers. It broke my heart to learn how minuscule my book sales figures were in comparison to TV show viewers. Still, no time for heartbreak. Once a writer decides to work for the small screen, there’s no time to feel sorry for oneself. Your audience is now a viewer, not a reader. A viewer does not have time for you. The average human attention span for visual content is less than 15 seconds. People choose to watch even the most celebrated masterpieces in edited summaries. To hold the attention of a dopamine-addicted viewer, you have to write something that keeps them on their toes.        The viewer who is completely different from my reader; the viewer who has no qualms about never reading any book at all; the viewer who comes home tired from work and watches YouTube on their phone; the viewer who turns on Netflix while unpacking their takeout meal; the viewer who may not even know the word “patriarchy”, let alone “filiarchy”; the viewer who’s likely a stranger to me, though they have the potential to become my friend. That’s the viewer I am writing the script for. I watch people on the bus, on the subway, on the street, asking: what do you want to watch? What moves you? How can I reach you? How can I convince you that my story can be yours, too? As a prose writer, I struggled to define my style. As a script writer, I struggle to understand the people I live among. The secret is for me to understand the viewer. The Plot Thickens. . . through VerbsIn my novel, there’s not much of a plot. A self-made woman hires her parents to work for her and reigns as a filiarch. This is the premise of the novel, and things happen around it—quiet, everyday things. When it comes to writing, how it’s written can carry the story, not what happens. The language itself can make the whole book. In dealing with language, I sensed my talent. But in constructing a scene for TV, I felt lost. My ability to investigate the inner lives of characters through language? Useless! I had to lose beautiful adjectives and adverbs. I had to lose the well-constructed narration. Scriptwriting is an art of verbs. I had to make sure everything was written clearly so that the dozens of staff reading it could understand and follow directions. It took me a year to lose all the frills and ribbons of my language. I also wasn’t good at creating comprehensive plots that continued to evolve, keeping the viewer hooked. Most of my plots were short episodes that didn’t have the strength to develop themselves throughout the entire season. I had to learn to do this while acquiring other basic principles of scriptwriting. But it was fine. I like learning. The most valuable principle I learned about plots? It’s not a plot if you’re not curious to see how it develops.Edit, Re-Edit, Then Edit Some MoreIn publishing, manuscripts go through edits. I usually look forward to developing a manuscript with my editor and going through multiple editing rounds with them. However, I quickly discovered that feedback in publishing is the polite, gentle kind. TV, not so much. TV people are direct, practical, and will not hesitate to tell you when the script isn’t working. It takes the work of many sailors to keep the ship afloat. The writer may write the script, but feedback comes from all directions from all those involved. The scope and the frequency of edits in TV shows far surpass those in publishing. I wrote a tremendous amount over the past year and a half—between 10 to 45 pages every week. I had to write more than usual because so much of what I wrote was rejected. And for good reasons, too. . . or so I tell myself (let me take a moment here to wipe away my tears).        Editing also takes place with the producers and the network director. I trust them as my coworkers and teachers. But it’s not easy work. The personnel may vary according to each production company, but the women on my team are all pros at diagnosing issues in a manuscript. They’ve watched way too much TV. They can categorize and summarize most plots within ten seconds. If prompted, they can recite all the clichés ever uttered in the history of television. They’ve been on all kinds of production sites. They’ve dealt with countless writers and yelled at them, too. To these pros, my very first attempts at scriptwriting must have seemed laughable, and for that I feel bad. But after receiving negative comments one after another for the whole year and feeling my stomach churn each time, I finally had to tell them: “Please try to say one nice comment for every ten negative ones. That will really help me keep going.” Perhaps they took pity on me, but they now include a positive comment or two in their feedback. It makes me so happy. While I take note of their comments, the director (who has been working in TV for twenty-one years) slides in, even bringing a tasty pastry the following week as if giving me a special treat. I gobble it down like the hungry child that I am as she silently watches me with a look that says, “Good girl. . .” To sum up, no matter how many books I’ve sold or literary accolades I’ve collected, I’m nothing but a red-faced infant just delivered into a completely new world. Money MattersThe relative freedom and respect I had while writing books were tied to the costs that hinged on the process. Producing a TV show often costs 100 or even 1,000 times more than producing a book. The number of people involved is also many times larger. A TV production unfolds across a much longer span of time, as it involves securing larger capital, major networks, and well-known actors. At its fastest, a show is completed at least two years after the script contract is signed; at other times, it can take up to three, four years, and sometimes even longer. I’m used to publishing two books a year. This extended timeline felt foreign. “When does your show air?” “Has the cast been announced?” “When will it launch?” Each time these questions come my way, I avert my eyes.I simply don’t know. I am working on my script day and night; but it is beyond the writer to know when the show will see the light of day.        While I struggled with this new experience, my literary-literary friends finished their books and sent them my way. I would open the package, hold the book in my hand, turn a few pages, then close it shortly after. There were beautiful words. The literary quality of their writing, the beauty of their language, almost gnawed at me. The books seemed to whisper: Don’t forget, we are your home. Come back, come back to us. I had to shake my head, stack the books in a corner, and turn back toward another pile of how-to-write-for-the-screen books with my own script next to it. I’ve read Robert McKee, Blake Snyder, Ronald Tobias, No Hee-kyung, Kim Eun-sook, Park Hae-young, Lim Sang-choon, Song Jae-jeong, Moon Ji-won, Park Chan-wook, Bong Joon-ho, Jeong Seo-kyeong, Lee Jong-beom, Seongsu Park, Ki-hwan Oh. . . I took notes religiously from masters in film and TV writing, as well as in webtoon writing. Having done this, I’ve now come to admire all the TV shows in the world. Even if they don’t seem like much, the fact that they’ve been written, produced and aired, leaves me in awe.        I now watch every TV show while kneeling to show my deepest respect.        My dream is to become a writer who has completed a full TV script.        I hope I get a lot of negative feedback when my show airs. I am afraid of writing something that gets none at all. That would mean that no one has watched it.        I’m a writer of books through and through, and I won’t lose that part of myself. But I do want a second life as a scriptwriter. I want to experience the thrill of watching how my sentences construct a scene on screen. When The Age of Filiarchy wraps, I will have learned to do it better. If I’m given a chance to write another one, I’m sure I can do it so much better!        The desire to do better—this stays the same, be it for books or for TV. It wakes me up at 5 a.m. I go up to my study as if possessed by a spirit and continue to write and rewrite. I have been lifting weights so I can keep up with my writing routine better. I lift heavier and heavier weights as the days go by. I wouldn’t be able to go through hundreds of editorial rounds without physical strength and endurance. I don’t drink coffee or alcohol. I don’t smoke. Like my grandma, I go to bed at 10 p.m. and wake up at 6 a.m.        When I’m up too early, I go hiking on the mountain in my neighborhood. When I’m there, I hug a tree. When I find a handsome tree, I hug it and pray: Please let me finish my script. The tree spirit looks down upon the newbie scriptwriter, stuck between the masterpiece she yearns to write someday and what she is capable of writing at the moment. The writer who stands on the long road of transition into a full-fledged scriptwriter, steadily becoming a better writer in the process.        When the show airs, I will thank the trees.Translated by Dasom Yang  YSRA is a writer, publisher, and scriptwriter. She writes essays, columns, interviews, and song lyrics and is the author of more than thirteen books, including Body and Mind Training, Pure Reverence, and An Awesome Life. She placed first in the YES24 Young Writers Award in 2023. She is currently working on the screen adaptation of her novel The Age of Filiarchy.  Korean Work Mentioned:The Age of Filiarchy (Promunhak, 2022)  『가녀장의 시대』 (이야기장수, 2022)

  by YSRA

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  [Cover Feature] Aging and Death Attuned to Ecological Hospitality

  From 2008 to 2017, I worked as a geriatric social worker, caring for poor, elderly people who, in terms of health, were in their middle- to late stages of life. For the past fifteen years, I have been working with twenty to thirty elderly individuals of various classes, genders, and regions to record their life histories through oral accounts. I published a book titled Farewell Diary that closely documented the last three years of a wealthy elderly woman’s life until her death at the age of eighty-seven. In the last five years, I have focused primarily on being on the ground supporting the homeless around Seoul Station, where I have witnessed firsthand the aging and passing of those considered to be on the “lowest rung” of society. Through my interactions with these individuals, I have had a preview of the physical aspects of my own eventual aging and death, which in turn prompted me to engage in extensive research and inquiry. At sixty-eight, I myself have also entered old age, and the changes in my body, sentiments, and thoughts are interesting subjects of study. Despite a similar trajectory, experiences, memories, feelings, and interpretations of aging and death vary greatly among individuals depending on their attitudes and perspectives, whether it concerns themselves or others. What is it that makes us fear death?All sorts of doubts about things considered “ordinary,” including feelings and emotions that people say naturally permeate us such as sadness or joy, are the driving force behind my thoughts, writings, and life. One such example is the question, “Why do people fear death?” Death is everywhere around us, and everyone knows that we all die. In fact, for the person concerned, death is a complete disappearance that allows for an eternal escape from all pain and problems—a perfect exit. The fact that all living beings perish is the ultimate consolation for those in the process of dying. Concern for the people left behind may be a reason for fearing death, but with death, even that concern ends, and the rest becomes the business of the living.      These days, I often think, “I might not wake up” before going to bed and “I’m still alive” when I wake up in the morning. If I had died, my life would have ended with me being the only one unaware of my demise, while everyone else would know about it. The same goes for other deaths. Although one may sense the end approaching, at the moment of passing, they are the only one unaware of their own death. Of course, in the sense that those left behind must handle the deceased’s affairs, an individual’s death is not the end from a societal perspective. Whether in life or death, every individual is intertwined with society. Thus, it is understandable to talk about regret or sadness—but invoking “fear,” no matter how much I think about it, seems unwarranted. It is as if we were being deceived by someone and then, caught up in that deception, inadvertently deceive ourselves.      Aging and death are matters of time and beyond human control. When it comes to fearing and confronting something, we need to be clear about what we are dealing with—poverty, isolation, inequality, or excessive medical care that are prevalent in the process of aging and dying. Money and capitalism, and our attitude toward them, are the real matters. If we let disorienting rumors frighten us into believing our enemies over ourselves, irrational fears will seize us. Without a chance to fight back, we’ll drown in a deep well of our own making, pulled under by imaginary ghosts. One way I challenge disturbing common beliefs is by weighing who benefits and who loses from them. “When it comes to the pervasive fear of death, who stands to gain and who loses?” This question also translates to, “Who is fueling this fear?” The first groups that come to mind are the superfluous medical, pharmaceutical, and sports industries, as well as the industries related to old age, death, and religion. They form a conveyor belt plastered with “Nothing’s more important than health,” a slogan that is so widespread it has become an ideology. The consumers, of course, are the ones who suffer the loss. Fear surrounding aging and death is an outrageous rumor, a manipulated ideology, and the flip side of it is aversion. Neoliberalism attaches abnormality, uselessness, and even the notion of “sin and punishment” to death—the destination of life—as well as to aging, illness, and disability, then pushes away and abhors these realities. Finally, when someone dies, we are presented with a range of products and services that urge us to pray for the deceased’s blessing in the afterlife. This neoliberal ideology is the very source of such rumors.      To avoid being deceived by such potent rumors, clarifying one’s stance on aging and dying is a must. This stance is rooted in a person’s outlook on life itself. Thus, the questions to continually ask are, “What makes me happy?” and “Why do I live?” There is no point in discussing likes or dislikes regarding aging and death, as these are inevitable aspects of life that everyone must face. If aging and death are something that cannot be avoided, the course of action should be to enjoy them to the fullest. If this is not possible, then one must just accept and endure life as it comes. The future is uncertain anyway, and pulling out all sorts of variables and getting anxious about them early on only makes life chaotic. Not all preparations are useless, as some do have value, but the most crucial preparation is to establish one’s attitude. In my case, “a life of self-sufficiency, conviction, and shared practice” is what ultimately makes me happy, both then and now. Living simply, with just enough materials to uphold self-respect, is both a way to live frugally and to reinforce these principles. Should I continue to live the way I do now, I will age with the passing of time, and old age, illness, and disability will follow and shape me. If death does not arrive before the moment where my body and mind can no longer sustain themselves, I intend to take death into my own hands. What comes after is not my concern. I am neither curious about life after death nor the remaining time I have in this world. I plan to live as it comes. When the body and mind feel like “this is it,” some people open the door to death themselves; some offer their bodies to beings in the mountains, the sea, and the air. The manner of death is also each person’s responsibility. My life, from beginning to end, is solely and uniquely mine, and I desire a free death. I have serious doubts on views that regard choosing one’s own death as a sin. For the people remaining in this world who will be hurt by my choice, I leave my convictions about free death in speech and writing whenever I have the chance.      I often hear people around me, both young and old, expressing that they cannot bear life and wish to die. Hearing these words so frequently is what I find truly unbearable. Sometimes, to those who have the capacity to grasp the meaning of my words, I offer a blunt response: “Living and dying are nothing extraordinary. This world and life itself are absurd, after all. The life or death of a person is a matter of utmost significance only to the individual concerned and a source of sorrow for close acquaintances, but it has little social consequence and can even be a positive thing from an ecological perspective. The decision to live or die is yours to make; if you choose death, then see it through. However, if you choose to live, you must clearly define the kind of life you will lead regardless of all the absurdities, contradictions, and hardships life holds. Then live the way you desire and that serves the common good of society until your final breath.”      People often say that the fear of pain in the process of decline is greater than the fear of death itself. This sentiment holds more truth than simply stating a fear of death. The future, however, is an extension of the past and present, and it steadily approaches with each passing moment. Aging and illness generally do not strike suddenly; the deterioration happens so stealthily that you might not even notice it yourself. Only acquaintances you haven’t seen in a while might catch the changes. On rare occasions, you may be suddenly hit with such changes but that is something to accept as “my turn.” If there is consciousness left at the moment of passing and you can think to yourself, “I lived a decent life,” that in itself is sufficient. In case you lose your mental faculties first, it would be wise to prepare for things like refusing life-sustaining treatment. The process of resistance, resignation, and acceptance: “I want to die not knowing this!” Aging is a process of repeatedly resisting, resigning to, and accepting the gradually increasing losses and impossibilities, saying, “Okay, I accept!” and then planning the next step. It involves passing through phases, at times navigating periods of confusion and depression, while strategizing “selection and concentration” that fits the new version of oneself. Since time continues to slip away, aging calls for categorizing what to do and what not to do, focusing first on what you really want to accomplish. The Lower Village that I have been frequenting lately is a venue for a night school for the homeless run by homeless individuals and volunteer teachers. I have been teaching the “speaking and writing class” there for four years. The roughly twenty or so teachers are mostly in their twenties to forties, and I am the only “old person” among them. When faced with tasks that take a long time for me to learn or are headache-inducing, such as installing Google Drive or creating web posters, I sometimes shamelessly say, “I want to die not knowing this. Let the young people who will continue using it handle it!” I take advantage of my “old age” as an excuse, indirectly informing others what it is like to be old and suggesting a division of roles. In the rapidly evolving material world we live in, the “cultural aging” of the elderly is inevitable. To avoid being alienated from a civilization that seems beyond reach, cooperation and division of roles between generations become necessary. It is fine to live and die without mastering certain technologies or cultural trends that are difficult to grasp. You can discern what you would like to learn, even if it is just to get a general sense and even late in life, and then find enjoyment in making use of it. You can also determine what you want to give up learning and ask someone else for help after weighing the cost-effectiveness between the degree of use and the remaining time, and what you do not feel like learning at all. After figuring that out, you can let things be and focus on living with ease. The elderly should steer clear of exerting too much effort on matters that aren’t truly important to them.      As I age, I feel that although my physical strength and memory have declined, my insight and ability to form relationships have significantly improved. I experience ongoing progressive symptoms such as farsightedness and arthritis, so I make sure to take care of my eyes and joints by doing eye and muscle exercises whenever I find time in my daily life. My curiosity and desires remain the same, and as always, the challenge lies in making choices. I have significantly cut back on learning new topics of discourse, as I am already well-versed in enough discourse to engage with the people I want to meet. For the studies that are more essential, I rely on talented young activists or professionals, following their work and finding pleasure in learning from it. However, I sometimes find myself hopelessly drawn to settings that stir my instincts, or to study topics that ignite my curiosity—things that bring a thrill, even to an old person! I do not agree with the saying, “If you cannot go all the way, it is better not to go at all,” since you can still enjoy the journey as far as you are able to go. After all, are not most things in life pursuits without a true end, no matter how far you go? Differences and discrimination in aging and death What should be problematized are discrimination and inequality rooted in differences of class, gender, identity, and culture throughout the journey of aging and living. In this sense, while aging and dying are deeply personal matters, they are also political and social agendas. In a society driven by wealth, the aversion toward the elderly is often an emotion directed more towards poverty than aging itself. Old people collecting waste paper on the streets evoke discomfort or, at most, fleeting sympathy. This sympathy and aversion carry an underlying anxiety that in a society with a fragile safety net, one’s own old age could end up like this with just a single misstep. On the other hand, wealthy elders are favored by the state, corporations, and younger generations alike.       The deaths of the poor are often simple and swift compared to those who prolong their lives with money. Having resigned themselves to their fate early on, their minds are less conflicted, allowing them to reach a sense of freedom sooner. As someone unlikely to become a wealthy elder, I feel I have secured the best possible outcome in advance, exchanging the time, emotions, and costs associated with the aging and dying process for a “life and death true to myself.” I reject the gaze that labels the simple and swift way the elderly poor prepare for their departure—both mentally and physically—with words such as “miserable” or “forlorn.” While their lives may have been challenging and their acceptance of death painful, this straightforward and quick process reflects an approach to aging and dying that embodies ecological hospitality.      Many of my acquaintances belong to social minorities, including sexual minorities, so I often hear about the deaths of young people who have taken their own lives. These deaths, largely due to stigma and hatred, can be seen as a form of social murder. Whether someone dies by suicide, illness, or the natural process of aging and decline, I do not express sadness in front of others. As someone without religious beliefs, I also refrain from using common expressions like “in a good place” or “bless your soul.” Instead, for those who lived with too little means or endured too much suffering, I conceal my heart’s celebration of their reaching death by simply saying, “You have gone through a lot. Now you can rest.” Whenever I witness people in power who could not confront their life’s errors or shame and escaped them through suicide, I consider myself fortunate not to have such power.      For me, mourning is a process of reflecting on and interpreting the life of someone who has reached death, and as opportunities or needs arise, examining the positives and negatives, achievements and limitations of the deceased’s life, so that it can serve as a mirror for the living. I desire my own funeral to be as simple as possible. Rather than focusing on the ceremony, I hope that the detailed aspects of my life will spark ongoing debates and controversies. My wish is for the living to sharply and faithfully reinterpret the context, meaning, and limitations of my existence.      My interest extends only up to my own death. Funerals are irrelevant to the deceased; as soon as one passes, everything becomes a ritual and I believe that all rituals contain a significant amount of deception. Funerals are for the living, events that showcase the power and resources of those left behind. They cover up the deceased’s struggles, joys, and sorrows in life with packaging and polite words, turning the matter into a business disguised as “human duty.” This business mobilizes not just blood relatives and acquaintances, but even people who never met the deceased while they were alive. The funeral industry assigns a quality level and price tag to all the products and services down to the smallest item, and employs funeral workers at near minimum wage, all while profiting behind the scenes. I rarely attend funerals, except for public ones for so-called “unclaimed” deaths, such as those of the homeless. However, on the rare occasions when I find myself in a funeral hall connected to a large hospital, the atmosphere evokes the image of a vending machine.      Old age is a messy chapter in life, making it an opportune time to fight until the moment of cessation. When fear seeps in, whether it stems from aging, death, poverty, illness, or alienation, the first step is to face yourself head-on. Only by confronting yourself squarely can you effectively challenge the multitude of rumors that circulate this world.  Translated by Kim Soyoung KOREAN WORK MENTIONED:Choi Hyunsook, Farewell Diary (Humanitas, 2019) 최현숙, 『작별 일기』 (후마니타스, 2019)  Choi Hyunsook has worked as a caregiver and life manager for elderly individuals living alone while also conducting oral history projects. She has published works such as Is the Difference Really So Big Between Heaven and Hell?, Just When You Think It’s a Dead End a Narrow Path Appears, The Life of Grandpas, The Life of Grandmas, The Origin of Determination, the essay collections Facing Life Head-On and Farewell Diary, and the novel The Case of the Missing Old Man Hwang. 

  by Choi Hyunsook

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  [Cover Feature] Aging in Remembrance of the Future

  Mawe is an elderly man in his seventies living in the neighborhood of Yeonhui-dong. As soon as he turned twenty, he left his hometown in the remote mountains of North Gyeongsang Province and boarded a train bound for Seoul. Watching as the familiar sights of his hometown slipped further into the distance, he found himself lost in the scattered thoughts of everything he was leaving behind and all that was to come. He couldn’t help but cry when he thought of his first love, who left him with nothing but the hazy memory of her retreating figure and the sting of a refused proposal to run away together to Seoul. As he wiped his tears, he vowed to make something of himself and return one day. But life in Seoul was unforgiving; with no education and nothing to his name, he only had the will of his own body to rely on. He got his start hauling goods in and around a corner of the bustling Dongdaemun Market, continuing for a few years until he caught the attention of a store owner who came from the same hometown. The man, old enough to be his father, hired him to work in his store where Mawe learned the ropes of running a business before eventually opening his own in his mid-thirties. He came to realize that whenever he chased after money like a madman, it constantly evaded him, disappearing like a mirage on the horizon. But whenever he decided to cast his greater ambitions aside and settle into the lull of simply making a living, wealth began to pour in from unexpected places. While others copied the designs of high-end clothing brands, he made and sold tracksuits that stretched out after a single wash. He had nothing else in mind besides making small profits and quick returns.      Fortunately for him, a fitness boom had taken over the nation and his products flew off the shelves as people looked to keep up with the latest trend of dressing in comfortable yet slouchy athletic wear. Runners along the riverside trails wore his clothes, as did teens who raced through the night streets on their motorcycles. You could even catch glimpses of it being worn in the background of news clips and variety shows. With the factory running around the clock, it still wasn’t enough to keep up with the sheer number of orders that were pouring in. He had struck gold overnight. The tracksuit craze wasn’t quick to fade either and even the slightest tweak to his design, whether in fabric or style, immediately made it a bestseller before eventually solidifying it as another staple of his store. But as the money flooded in, Mawe was unexpectedly gripped by fear. In the decades he spent at Dongdaemun Market, he had witnessed countless business owners ride the rollercoaster of life’s ups and downs. He recalled the men who, after cashing their cheques, bought foreign cars, gambled, and paraded their girlfriends on their arms, only to return haggard and in search of money within the year. He couldn’t shake the image of his own face becoming one with their desperate expressions. There was no way he was going to let that happen. With more money than he had ever had to his name, Mawe bought a two-story brick house with a quaint garden in Yeonhui-dong. What was it about Yeonhui-dong that set it apart from the rest? For one, it was the very same prime location that two former presidents once called home. In his younger years, when he would pass through on his delivery route, Mawe often caught sight of the dense treetops that towered over the high boundary walls of the gated properties that filled Yeonhui-dong. It was a refined neighbourhood, its sophistication teased through those fleeting glimpses. What sort of happiness lived within those neatly painted walls? He wanted to see for himself. After setting up his own store and getting married, he had become a father to a son and a daughter. His family of four created a picture-perfect life in their two-story brick home in Yeonhui-dong. It was a portrait complete with a fairy-tale home and garden, not to mention, a lovely wife and children. He had become a man who turned his dreams into reality and no longer shed tears over all he left behind.      As time passed, his little store grew into a full-fledged business and he went from being a store owner to the head of a company. And rather than being the rollercoaster ride he once feared it would be, his business operated smoothly and steadily. He never demanded too much from his children and they, in return, grew up without causing much trouble. His booksmart son managed to pass the civil service exam early and by all accounts seemed to have settled into a secure path in life. While his daughter was not as academically inclined as her older brother, she possessed a knack for business and ultimately took over the day-to-day operations from her father. With the existing setup they had in place, she took it a step further by putting their products online well ahead of their competitors and launched three online businesses focused on men’s and women’s apparel, as well as athletic wear.       After his daughter moved to the Gangnam district and his son relocated to Sejong City, only he and his wife remained in the picture-perfect two-story house in Yeonhui-dong. His wife, being the more sociable one of the two, joined a local meet-up group and travelled around the country, even going abroad from time to time. She regularly went to the community and senior learning centers where she learned ballroom dancing, singing, and English. Their house grew quiet. The neighborhood of Yeonhui-dong was changing too. What was once a sleepy middle-class neighborhood suddenly became a trendy hotspot. As elderly residents struggled to maintain their homes, many of them sold their houses to move into smaller apartments while the remaining properties became cafés, restaurants, and wine bars. Some of the bigger houses were converted into publishing firms or photography studios. A guesthouse with walls painted a vibrant shade of yellow and the unfamiliar sight of something known as an espresso bar also opened in the alley right where Mawe’s house stood.       In retirement, Mawe struggled to fill the seemingly endless amount of free time on his hands. He tried going to the community center with his wife and even paid a visit to the senior learning center, but he found it hard to adjust to the active energy that filled the air. He was better suited to doing things on his own rather than activities that required working with others. One afternoon on his walk, he found himself on a side street he didn’t normally take. Right in the middle of the alley, he spotted a house under construction. It was a worn-down, quaint, two-story house, and by the look of how its surrounding walls were being torn down, it was likely being remodelled as a commercial property rather than a home. After that first day, he decided to pass by every time he took his daily lap around the neighborhood. Where a tall wall once stood, a low iron fence took its place. It wrapped around a small garden, one side of which was filled with camellias, crape myrtles, and a persimmon tree. The walls of the first floor were all but gone, revealing a new spacious studio with large glass windows. Judging by the tables and chairs that were being arranged inside, it was sure to be a café. He pictured himself drinking a cup of coffee as he stared at the bright red camellia blossoms through the glass windows. He could see himself there, taking in the sight of the crape myrtles as he escaped the summer heat, or smiling contentedly as he looked up at the orange persimmons hanging from the tree in the heart of autumn. When he caught himself hoping for the coffee to be good, he couldn’t help but chuckle sheepishly at the realization that he was looking forward to something for the first time in a while.       A season came and went, and at last, a signboard was hung outside the finished building—it read: Yeonhui Banggeul Studio. He studied the tiny letters above the low entrance for a long time. “Yeonhui” was obviously for the neighborhood, but what did “Banggeul Studio” mean? Could it be bang for room and geul for writing? Room Writing Studio? If it was a studio, didn’t that make it a place for photography? The thought that it might not be a café struck him with a brief pang of disappointment. His deflated expression was clear across his face as he continued to stare up at the sign until a young woman around his daughter’s age came out and greeted him. Excitedly, she urged him to come inside for some celebratory grand opening rice cakes and to learn more about the new space.       Yeonhui Banggeul Studio was a place he had never encountered before in the decades he spent living in the neighborhood. Everything about it seemed so foreign that he wondered if he could even call it a store. But seeing that it wasn’t a place for living, he decided it could be called one after all. According to the woman, the studio was essentially a writing center. The first floor would be run as a café on weekday afternoons while various writing classes would take place in the evenings throughout the week. There were classes on writing poetry, fiction, essays, and journals, as well as reading groups dedicated to the very same genres and more. The center was run by a handful of writers who earned money from the lesson fees they received and the profits from the café, with the second floor serving as their personal workspace and office.      “So, it’s basically a writing school,” Mawe said.      The woman responded, “Rather than a school, I hope it becomes a place of gathering. A place where everyone can read, write, and share their thoughts freely.”      He had already felt a sense of relief when he learned that it was going to be run as a café, but now that he knew its true purpose as a writing center, his heart leapt in his chest. The excitement he felt was a strange emotion, one that even he couldn’t understand.      In the early spring, he enrolled in the journaling class. While he would never have dreamed of trying his hand at poetry or fiction, he figured that he could at least give journaling a shot. The instructor introduced himself as a novelist who had made his literary debut through an annual spring literary contest held by a newspaper outlet before projecting the class materials onto the screen.       Write about your life—to write is to meet, and only through meeting can you finally part      “What exactly are we parting with?” a young male student asked.       “With the version of myself that I’ve recorded; the me that is trapped within my own words. With the version of myself that continues to wander through memories of the past.” The words came spilling out of the impassioned instructor’s mouth before he fell silent. Mawe felt goosebumps trail down his arms. After a brief pause, the instructor continued,  “If there are memories you want to part with, write them down. All shame becomes bearable once they’ve been transformed into words.”       To protect everyone’s privacy, the instructor proposed that they use nicknames in class rather than their real names. He began by asking the students to call him “Shado,” explaining to them that he wanted to shrink the size of his own shadow. The young couple requested to be called “Hedge” and “Hog,” after the pet hedgehog they were raising together. A middle-aged woman who hardly ever smiled or spoke wanted to go plainly by “S”. When someone asked why, she replied, “Because it’s somehow shaped like a person who’d be able to walk without stumbling.” Mawe was the last to speak. He initially asked to be called “My Way,” inspired by the title of his favorite song. But the young male student insisted that they should all keep their names to a single letter or word, suggesting that he could condense it into something like “Mawe.” The young man’s boldness left him grumbling but as he repeated the name over in his head—it finally clicked. It had a nice ring to it, almost like the name of some wealthy Chinese tycoon. From that day on, he became Mawe.      Once a week, he took on this new identity at Yeonhui Banggeul Studio. He wrote his journal entries and found himself being drawn to books he would never have given a second glance before. He even started stopping by the public library every now and then on his walks. When he found out that they hosted poetry readings and book talks every few months, he figured they weren’t the type of events that suited him and so he let them pass unnoticed. That was until he saw a poster for a poetry reading by a male poet who looked to be around the same age as he was. He signed himself up with a mix of curiosity and apprehension. The session was titled “Goodbye Spring,” and the poet would be reading not only from his own works but also from other famous poems centered around the theme of spring. One poem in particular that day resonated deeply with Mawe— The Waste Land by the poet T.S. Eliot:        April is the cruellest month, breeding       Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing       Memory and desire, stirring       Dull roots with spring rain.       Winter kept us warm, covering       Earth in forgetful snow, feeding      A little life with dried tubers.        The poem was long but as soon as he heard the first line, Mawe’s mind went hazy in shock. He felt as if he knew exactly why the beautiful month of April, known for its seasonal flowers, was the cruellest month of all. It was as if this poet provided the key to the deep depressive spells he had fallen into every spring since reaching his mid-sixties. Somewhere along the way, he began to feel an overwhelming urge to cry whenever he was met with the beautiful sight of cherry blossoms fluttering in the wind. He was madly consumed by a deep jealousy over their eternally untouched beauty, leaving him riddled with age spots and withered by time. Spring was the cruellest, as Eliot said, for mixing memory with desire and ultimately stirring the dull roots. All winter long, he convinced himself he had lived enough and that it was time to accept the aging and death that awaited him. But spring kept shaking him, reigniting his desire to live just awhile longer. Spring made him feel ugly. He wanted to argue with the heavens: why must life end in a single instance when the seasons always return if you wait long enough? The ever-changing seasons were always beautiful, yet life felt endlessly bleak and sordid. Every spring, he wept over his insignificance.      Pouring these feelings into his journal, he shared them with his instructor and fellow students, who offered kinder words than usual. Even S, who had little to say and kept to herself most of the time, gave a lengthy response to Mawe’s words that day. S spoke of poems that compared life to the seasons, specifically of a song she learned from her grandmother as a young girl. She explained that “The Song of Four Seasons” compared youth to spring and old age to winter, mourning the fleeting nature of life but that its final verse offered a sense of hope and resolve. To everyone’s surprise, she asked if she could sing it for them, to which the room responded with applause.        Flowers bloom from this mountain to the next, surely it must be spring       Spring has sprung yet the ways of the world remain unkind      I too was in the springtime of my youth just yesterday, but now, humbled by      time, I am old and gray      My youth, which has hopelessly abandoned me,      What good is there in welcoming the spring, knowing it will come and go?       Spring, if you are to leave, just go!        A song that began with such resentment towards spring ended on a note very different from The Waste Land.       Friends, gather around       and drink another glass! And though we may say we’re done,       let’s revel and enjoy the fun!  By the time S finished her song, they all cheered and clapped. Mawe felt his eyes wet with tears. Shado, their instructor, was the first to speak.       “It seems like this song suggests that aging can be done in remembrance of the future.”       “What do you mean by remembering the future?” asked the young woman they called Hedge.       Shado replied, “Instead of waiting around for the future you want, why not create it for yourself? Couldn’t we call that the very act of remembering?”       For the first time that night, Mawe bought a round of drinks for Shado and the other students. They all made their way to a newly opened bar in the alley next to Yeonhui Banggeul Studio, where they all shared different types of local makgeolli. The younger ones knew much more about makgeolli than an old man like him. And as he listened to them describe each region’s flavors and specialties, he found himself delighting in the realization that there was still so much left to learn at his age. When he promised himself that they would do this again next week, sharing more stories over drinks yet to be tasted, he felt a sense of relief at having something to look forward to. As the night came to a close, they all headed in the direction of the bus stop on the main street. Cherry tree branches, peppered with buds, extended beyond the yard, reaching over the high walls with the promise of bursting into bloom. Mawe pointed out they were sure to be in full blossom by next week. Hearing his comment, someone marveled, “You sure have an impressive gift for remembering the future!” Even though he was eager to get home to write his next journal entry, Mawe only wished that this nighttime stroll would last just a while longer. It was a spring night—cruel and electrifying.  Translated by Nicole Lin KOREAN WORK MENTIONED:Lee Juhye, The Seasons are Short, But Memories are Forever  (Changbi Publishers, 2023) 이주혜, 『계절은 짧고 기억은 영영』 (창비, 2023) Author’s Note:This is an essay written in the form of a novel. Mawe, a choric character in the novel The Seasons are Short, But Memories are Forever, laments the process of aging by likening it to the seasons. By further interrogating this question of aging, the character of Mawe will be brought into greater focus.  Lee Juhye reads, writes, and translates. She is the author of works including Plum, The Cat’s Name is Long, Whose Spot, The Seasons are Short, But Memories are Forever, and The Room with the Chinese Parrot. She has translated various titles, including Adrienne Rich’s When We Dead Awaken: writing as Re-Vision, Lydia Davis’s  Can’t and Won’t, and Maggie Doherty’s The Equivalents.

  by Lee Juhye

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  [Cover Feature] In Search of Aging's Light

  Toward the end of Proust’s Time Regained (volume 7 of his novel In Search of Lost Time), Marcel, the narrator, upon returning from the sanatorium in Paris where he spent several years, is invited to an afternoon reception at the home of the Duc de Guermantes. Marcel is astonished to be reunited with people he hasn’t seen in ages, as everyone, including the master of the house, looks completely changed, made up with “generally powdered” faces as though they’re taking part in a play or a masked ball. The “mask” is the face of old age, a consequence of time. “The heads have been in the making for a long time without their wishing it and cannot be got rid of by toilet operations when the party is over.”¹      Passing time, or the years we live through, inevitably leaves its mark on us. In his novel, Proust metaphorically translates time, which can’t be seen with the eyes or felt with the hands, through the physical reality of the body. That is the notion of the “embodiment of Time” stressed by the author on the last page. In other words, the times past, through which we have lived, stay accumulated in our bodies, never taken from us—“after death Time leaves the body.” Proust translates the way time is internalized in our bodies in terms of depth and height, not width and volume.      Amid the “masked ball,” Marcel hears the sound of the bell he heard decades before as a child—the “metallic, shrill, fresh echo of the little bell” on the gate at the end of the yard in his old home in Combray, which rang as Marcel’s parents showed out Mr. Swan, a neighbor, finally leaving after a long evening of conversation. Decades and countless events stand between that moment and the day of the party at the home of the Duc de Guermantes, but the sound remains unchanged. To hear it more clearly, more closely, Marcel must make an effort to withdraw from the conversations among the “masks” around him and “plunge into” himself to grasp the vivid memories they bring forth. The sound, then, exists deep inside his body, intact as ever, and all the past moments that lie between the moment the sound was heard and the present moment exist in that deep space within. So all he has to do to recapture the past moment, or return to it, is plunge “more deeply into” himself. Marcel says, “I had a feeling of intense fatigue when I realized that all this span of time had not only been lived, thought, secreted by me uninterruptedly, that it was my life, that it was myself, but more still because I had at every moment to keep it attached to myself, that it bore me up, that I was poised on its dizzy summit, that I could not move without taking it with me . . . I was giddy at seeing so many years below and in me as though I were leagues high.”      The giddiness he feels at the pinnacle of time takes on a more concrete form in the person of the aged Duc de Guermantes.       “I now understood why the Duc de Guermantes, whom I admired when he was seated because he had aged so little although he had so many more years under him than I, had tottered when he got up and wanted to stand erect—like those old Archbishops surrounded by acolytes, whose only solid part is their metal cross—and had moved, trembling like a leaf on the hardly approachable summit of his eighty-three years, as though men were perched upon living stilts which keep on growing, reaching the height of church-towers, until walking becomes difficult and dangerous and, at last, they fall.”      “Eighty-three.” Yes. This year, I turned the same age as the Duc de Guermantes or the old Archbishops as described by Proust. I’m as old as U.S. President Joe Biden, the former Korean President Lee Myung-bak, the deceased Lee Kun-hee, former chairman of Samsung, and Kim Jong Il, the also deceased former leader of North Korea. President Biden, who tripped and fell in front of the eyes of the world, conceded his candidacy for a second term to the younger Vice President Kamala Harris in the end.      I, too, who had been confident of my relatively good health, recently slipped on hard cement ground while on a long walk along the banks of the Han River and slightly injured my tailbone. Anyone well into old age eventually faces a moment when they reel from vertigo, as if standing on stilts, clumsily trying to look down at the ground. Two days ago, I returned from a trip overseas, during which I walked for six hours along a 20-kilometer wooden path over a swamp surrounded by yellow autumn grass.  * At what age do people belong to the “aged” group? This is a highly subjective judgment, but also a social issue in communities, in which people are seen through an “objective” standard. In today’s industrial society, most working people over age 65 are considered “old” and forced to retire. This is the age at which senior citizens in Korea become officially eligible for free subway rides, a benefit provided by the government. In general, human motor nerves are most sensitive and quick to respond around age 25. After age 30, however, the body’s structure begins to degenerate. On a personal level, my physical deterioration was detected early on, as I’ve suffered from myopia and astigmatism since my youth, and had to deal with diminished hearing, tooth wear, and memory loss beginning in my late 60s. Such decline is inevitable for all who are born into life, for it has been our fate at all points of history.      The advancement of medicine and technology, however, has made it possible to correct deficiencies in physical function, thanks to which I have been able to carry on with daily life and work even after my retirement at 65 without too much trouble. One day, I got on a subway train and the young woman sitting in front of me jumped to her feet and yielded her seat, saying, “Sir!” For the first time in my life, I became objectively aware of my old age; it was long after I had retired from work.      The “2023 Survey on the Aged,” conducted by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, reveals surprising results. Based on the responses of 10,078 citizens over age 65, it showed that the average age at which people saw themselves as old was 71.6—1.1 years older than the 70.5 reported in 2020. Thirty-nine percent of senior citizens seek to continue working after retirement, and the proportion of such people increases each year. This shift relates to the phenomenon of longer life expectancy. According to the population mortality table released by Statistics Korea, the average life expectancy of people in Korea in 2022 was 79.9 for men and 85.6 for women. By the UN’s count, however, the life expectancy of South Korean babies born in 2023 was 84.33 on average for both males and females, ranking it among top three among 210 countries around the world, an eight-level increase compared to the life expectancy in 2022 (82.73, 11th in ranking).       If life expectancy is a quantitative indicator of good health, healthy life expectancy is qualitative. Healthy life expectancy, which excludes years of inactivity due to disease or injury, indicates how long a person is expected to live in good health. The average healthy life expectancy for Koreans has increased by 5.9 years, from 66.6 in 2000 to 72.5 in 2021—a positive development for individuals. But for society, this increase, driven by low birth rates and a rapidly aging population, presents a heavy burden. A report by Korea Development Institute predicts that if the legal age for senior citizens remains unchanged at 65, the elderly care expenses in Korea will be the highest among OECD nations by 2054. Elderly people over age 65 make up 19.2 percent of Korea’s total population of 51 million, or roughly 10 million people. In South Jeolla and North Gyeongsang provinces, the aged account for 25-26 percent of the total population. As Simone de Beauvoir somberly pointed out half a century ago in her book, Old Age: “The insouciance hiding itself behind sundry myths of increase and abundance treats the aged as the lowest class of people. France has the highest old age population in the world, with 12 percent of the total population being 65 or older. And yet the aged have been sentenced to poverty, loneliness, disability, and despair.” Fifty years later, then, with the elderly population twice as high, what fate are the aged in Korea sentenced to?      François Mauriac, the novelist, has stated: “Old age is great, what a pity it ends so badly!” The end he refers to is aging and death. “Old age. It’s the only disease that you don’t look forward to being cured of,” said Orson Welles. Humans, strictly speaking, are all prisoners sentenced to death. We just don’t know when the sentence will be executed. On a social level, aging and death call up the issues of senior care and funeral arrangements. A recent news report indicated that as a result of a low birth rate and aging, facilities like nurseries, preschools, and even postnatal care centers are turning into centers for the elderly, such as long-term care facilities. Around the same time, the same newspaper ran an article titled “Crematoriums Keeping the Country from Turning into a Cemetery Filled to Capacity . . . Ashes Scattered over Mountains and Sea.” As funeral customs in Korea began to change in the mid-90s, with more and more people opting for cremation (93 percent of all funeral options chosen today), memorial parks equipped with enshrinement facilities like charnel houses have been on the increase. Such facilities, however, come with contract expiration dates—15, 30, or 45 years at the longest—meaning that even the deceased may need to “move out” once a lease expires and find a new place of enshrinement. * So many things have changed, indeed. I grew up thinking that a funeral consisted of courteous visits by relatives, neighbors, and acquaintances at the home of the deceased, a long funeral march with a bier carrying the corpse to be buried in the family burial grounds. In my life, the funerals of my parents and grandparents were conducted in this manner. But caring for family gravesites became increasingly difficult with the passing of time and people growing used to life in big cities. The challenge now is to deal with these changes. A matter of similar import is my own funeral. The most important principle is my attitude on my own life and death. My life has been one of learning, reading, and writing, which has allowed me plenty of time to ponder life and death. But I have yet to know what death is. I have only seen and felt and thought about the death of others, outside of my own body and mind. I can’t experience my own death or attend my own funeral. I can, however, imagine the final moment leading up to death.      Michel Tournier contemplated two ways of dealing with death: “In the past, someone facing death knew that he was dying. He would call his family to his bedside and tell them something meaningful, like La Fontaine’s fables. Today, when someone is approaching death, he is carried to the hospital and placed in a glass box for a long time at the order of people in white gowns, barely maintaining his existence through rubber hoses and syringes” (Petites proses). Today, I dare not hope for the good fortune of a death like one in La Fontaine’s fables; it’s far more likely my end will follow the course of the latter. My father, however, died one day while I was living abroad, as he made ready to leave the house and stepped out onto the wood maru. The cause was a heart attack. A large Chinese character, 雪, meaning “snow,” was written in thin, shaky strokes on the day’s page of the desk calendar on the chest of drawers in his room. Hong Yunsuk, a poet and my mother-in-law, went to bed at night as usual and passed away quietly the next morning. On that sunny autumn morning, her caregiver had unexpectedly called me: “She’s not breathing.” How wonderful it would be if my last moment were so simple! After age gives way to death, the only traces of a person left in the world are the tomb and the tombstone. Nothing remains, of course, after the ashes are scattered over a mountain or sea. I wouldn’t mind if, one day, my own ashes were scattered to the wind, leaving nothing behind. I’ve seen countless tombs and tombstones as I traveled around the world. I’ve passed by those of my ancestors in the mountains back home, and those of renowned writers such as Paul Valéry, the author of “The Graveyard by the Sea,” in Sète in the South of France. The one that’s stayed with me the longest is the unadorned tombstone of the poet W. B. Yeats, which I came upon in a churchyard in Ireland. The pithy words engraved thereon admonished me to be on my way: “Cast a cold eye on life, on death. Horseman, pass by!” The small and simple granite stone of Albert Camus’s tomb, in a graveyard in the little town of Lourmarin in Provence, showed nothing but the writer’s name and the dates of his birth and death.      When Michel Tournier, born in 1924, was asked, “What will be the most important event to take place in 2000?” he replied without hesitation, “My death.” Then he explained why: “Because I’ll be 76. My father died at that age. Just as his father did. It’s a good age to die. You can avoid the pain and disgrace of old age, without losing your good fortune and reason. And damn, wouldn’t it have been a long enough life?” He had his epitaph written out in advance: “Michel Tournier (1924-2000). I adored you, and you returned my love a hundredfold. Life, I thank you!” (Petites proses). Two years later, in March 2002, I paid him a visit at his home in Choiseul, a village near Paris. He was still on the panel of judges for Prix Goncourt. At 78, he had a face full of wrinkles and walked with a limp. I subtly congratulated him on already reaching his second year beyond the age he was supposed to leave this world. He replied, “Oh, good heavens! I missed my own death!” On January 18, 2016, he died at his home in Choiseul, aged 92. He’d always praised Victor Hugo in his old age and loved to recite one of Hugo’s poems, “Boaz Asleep”:             Life’s primal source, unchangeable and bright,             The old man entereth, the day eterne;             And in the young man’s eye a flame may burn,             But in the old man’s eye one seeth light.               Translated by Yewon Jung Kim Hwa-Young is a literary critic, translator of French literature, and recipient of the Palbong Literary Criticism Award and Inchon Award. He has published more than twenty books of criticism, including A Study on Literary Imagination, On the Poems of Midang Seo Jeong-ju, The Shock of Happiness, and A Walk with French Literature. He has translated more than 110 works, including The Stranger, Madame Bovary, Fruits of the Earth, and Strait Is the Gate.  [1] The version quoted in this essay is the translation by Terence Kilmartin (Jovian Press, 2018).  

  by Kim Hwa-Young

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  [Essay] Love at Once: On the Poetry of Jin Eun-young

  Jin Eun-young’s poetry is “beautiful and political.” This expression comes from the poet’s own considerations over the schism that emerges between social engagement and engaged poetry—when we raise our voice at society through poetry, can that voice avoid falling into cliché? If so, can we ensure the words spoken in that voice remain political?—but it is now used by most as a description of the poetic oeuvre she herself has built. Perhaps at some point we’ve simply come to think of it as the proper description of her poetry. Since the entrenchment of neoliberalism in Korean society during the 2000s, whenever there has been a political struggle or societal tragedy, and literature has not shrunk from the moment but bravely engaged  in literary fashion, Jin Eun-young’s poetry has been there to speak. When her poem “Seven Word Dictionary” established the poet as a figure who composes a dictionary of their own and defined “Capitalism” as a “darkness of all shapes and colors” offering no way to “make it through alone,” we as readers felt the intense power of “beautiful and political” poetry.      But think about it. How does this curious phrase, which may seem almost oxymoronic to some, become possible in poetry? What gives rise to poetry that is at once beautiful and political? Here we must always be wary of rhetoric. What I’d like to discuss is how Jin Eun-young’s poetry works ceaselessly to write the “beautiful and political” site of struggle, how it refuses to give up on passion for a better world even as it stomachs an aching life, how it can say that after “blood, sweat, death” comes “song,” as in her poem “As Always.”      The core of the phrase “beautiful and political” is and—the realization of beauty and politics at once. This “and” links the seemingly distant realms of aesthetics and politics, autonomy and engagement , folding them together in a single place. A poetry which is charged with poetic language in and of itself and which reminds the reader of social realities and leads them to picture the next reality at once. A poetry which makes a radical political argument and which exerts aesthetic power, a grip on beauty, to political effect at once. Jin Eun-young’s poetry extends in the temporal setting of at once. Perhaps we could also say that poetry itself only forms when an A and B of utterly disparate aspects are present at once. The poem thereby intimates that A and B were perhaps never so different after all.      In “The Truth” we see that “the water” is at once a place of “unmoving stars” and moving “stillness.” The silence fallen over the world holds a secret which can’t be kept silent. Poetry begins by telling us that no probable situation in this world can be read in only one way, that a line once written is overlain with other meanings. In this poem, we find the truth that “there was a child who fell in the water” alongside the truth that “the child still skips safely across the hearts of loved ones / Like steppingstones across the water.” Because there is no “reason why that person had to die,” the reason also sounds “like a wandering song.” The truths that surround us do not present themselves clearly in a single visage. Rather, the truths of “the living, the dead” are there, each coexisting in the same world.      Readers long familiar with Jin’s poems will remember “every facial expression” that is there hiding somewhere, even when we close our eyes and try not to look at the world in the poem “All Gone,” the first in her first collection Seven Word Dictionary. Or the speaker who claims there are times when “all we can do is say there is” about an “unverifiable presence” in the poem, “There is,” the first from her third collection, Stolen Song. By the time we arrive at the poem “The Truth” in her fourth collection, I Love You Like an Old Street, it seems as if the poet is imparting to us that even things which have crossed over the border into the unseen are in this world, that some truths wander the world forever, kept secret in the darkness. Poetry tells. It tells us that the unseen hold their place within us in their most intense form precisely because they are unseen. That the stories we don’t want to tell, precisely because we don’t want to tell them, are placed within this world in their most intense telling, which must eventually be told. That our lives are full of things that are at once, despite having utterly disparate meanings. That sometimes this truth consoles us, and sometimes it assails us.      The temporality of at once is also expressed in the powerful impression exuded by images which coexist despite not going together or feeling right for each other. In “The Pianist of Fate,” the “morning” of “each and every day” brings hope for the unfurling of a new everyday life, but it approaches with the “black feathers plucked from its bright naked body,” shivering in the cold. In “A Field of Red Four-Leaf Clover,” we hear “the train’s wheels screech,” the sad sound of things which must come to a stop, alongside the complaint “Can I be hopeless even though I’m old?” This tells us that the sadness of someone who has just realized that “forever” is nothing more than a made-up word is always bound to intersect with the sigh of someone who has just realized that, in this life, some things are forever after all. How about the poem “Feels Right for You”? Here we find a scene of “you” keeping the “childhood secrets” of a “blood-soaked afternoon,” embracing a crumpled hope and an all-too-short sadness in your heart as you “swim through darkness and walk through light,” “hand in hand” with “me.” Those who couldn’t walk alongside others in the past begin to walk together. In short, Jin Eun-young’s poetry is to be discovered in the unfamiliar juxtapositions of which life consists.      Let’s think about “In Houyhnhnmland.” Taking the fictional ideal society of Gulliver’s Travels as its title, this poem turns the ideal into something peculiar. Here, the ideal society is a place which takes pride in the attitude that “We can always watch death / Close by as well” because “We can just imagine—it’s so far away.” A place that leaves us with an uneasy feeling, where the ideal permits the strange.[1]  In other words, whenever the here and now provides a sense of comfort, as in Houyhnhnmland, we must vigilantly remind ourselves where we are. The heat of a “campfire” may be “warm” to some, but to those who have recognized the “long-vanished” “screams” it covers up, it is something much more terrifying. Such unfamiliar juxtaposition is a method which places two completely different things side by side at once to convey the ambivalence of our lives, a form which contains the truth of a world in which we live always with something out of place that doesn’t feel right.      In “Mom,” it is “like paying taxes,” doing a civic duty, for the poet to visit her mother. She wonders what it’s like for her mother, but she doesn’t ask. She only guesses that her mother would say it was “like giving alms, her whole body trembling with devotion.” Some love points our eyes far beyond the beloved in a relation of obligation and devotion toward each other. One side feels an obligation without even knowing what the other wants, and the other side offers devotion without thinking how the other feels. Some relationships lean disjointedly upon each other even while persisting over a long period of time. This poem tells a story that wouldn’t be out of place in any mother–daughter relationship in this world. Or, we could put it another way. A person can love a certain world while that world doesn’t love them in the same way—these two things can coexist. The ambiguity of poetic language is written by those who have noticed life’s ambivalence.      As a woman and a poet, Jin Eun-young is particularly sensitive to the ambivalence of life. For those who are too easily cast out of this world, the visceral experience of life itself is a series of unfamiliar juxtapositions. In order not to neglect this condition as it is, in order to draw up life-saving song from the gaps of disjunction, poetry is essential. Poetry teaches a different way of interpreting the pain that seeps out when life’s ambivalences make themselves felt. For instance, “Like the patients / Sitting […] in the waiting room’s / Folding chairs / Hearing the nurse call their name” and “pass[ing] through the doors” in the poem “Someday, After You,” some live a life of waiting to be pronounced the next to die, but poetry whispers to them the possibility that they “sit in the chair of being,” that standing up from this chair is to “offer the seat” not to death, but to the beginning of something else. This offers those who must live as if they are “soon to stand and offer the seat” a way to replenish the substance of their lives.      Thus, as in “There is Paper,” poetry is written whenever “the most disappointing creation[s]” are confidently brought into use on “thin” paper. Or should we say poetry is written on paper which is itself the “most disappointing creation” where so many countless things come to pass—“Always eating and drinking, love burning with abandon,” “White ash scattering in the empty mouth of the wind.” Or is poetry written on paper so easily engulfed in flame so that “the heat of the things turned to ash” inside “a fresh urn” can be written there, or so thin that “reality” easily “crumples like fantasy” and can “best be described” there? On this subject, this essay offers only the following: Poetry is born when completely different things are all there at once.      Completely different things coming together. This is also the fundamental principle of love. When one person walks with another, when they follow the same path despite stumbling out of step with each other, love finds its beginning. And love persists tenaciously, undestroyed even amid a world of unceasing war, disaster, tragedy, and violence. When the world wears us out and torments us to no end, we continue to love at one and the same time. Even through our tears, we read and write poetry.      Once long ago, I stood in a cold street and watched, amid a protest of irregular workers who shouted out demands to overturn their wrongful dismissal, as Jin Eun-young recited word by word, in a voice trembling but clear, a poem evoking Kafka’s hunger artist. The poem was not composed of lines to right the wrong of the situation, but to draw out another, different meaning from it. I think it was then that I had the faint realization that some love begins from an instance of discord with the world, at one and the same time. Jin Eun-young’s poetry is beautiful and political at once. Holding that double tension and weight, it defends the dignity of poetry to the bitter end. Translated by Seth Chandler Kyung Eon Yang debuted as a literary critic in the pages of Contemporary Literature in 2011. Her works include the collection of critical essays How to Say Hello. She has been awarded the Shin Dong-yup Literary Award. [1] Translator’s Note: This line relies upon a pun between the word for “ideal” and the word for “strange, peculiar, abnormal,” which are homophones in Korean. The connotations of “strange” should be taken as “disturbing, uncanny, grotesque.”   

  by Yang Kyung Eon

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  [Essay] The Compassion of History: On Han Kang’s Nobel Prize in Literature

  I think it’s fair to say that few people expected Han Kang to win this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature. Based on its recent turn toward rectifying both geographic and gender imbalances, the Academy was widely expected to select a female Asian laureate, but the frontrunner was China’s Can Xue. Han was on the oddsmakers’ lists, but of the Korean candidates mentioned, the seventy-year-old poet Kim Hyesoon seemed a more likely choice. (One Nobel prediction blog dismissed Han’s chances, stating, “she is on the younger side, but will most likely be considered a serious contender in the next seven or eight years.”) Han is the first Korean winner, the first female Asian laureate in literature, and the fifth-youngest recipient of the literature prize; and once we were over our surprise, those of us who have read and admired Han could delight in her selection and consider what it might mean for the author, and Korean literary culture in general, in the international literary world.    Her relative youth notwithstanding, Han fits the conventional Nobel profile well. Although her work first appeared in English barely a decade ago, she published her first short story collection in 1995 and has been a major literary figure in her country for over twenty-five years. She has won multiple major international prizes, including the (frequent Nobel-predictor) Man Booker International Prize and Prix Médicis étranger, and has been translated into over thirty languages. And with her sensitivity to the human element of historical events, her work displays the “idealistic tendency” stipulated in Alfred Nobel’s will. Indeed, Han declined to hold a press conference or otherwise celebrate her Nobel on the grounds that celebration was inappropriate during the wars in Ukraine and Palestine.    This compassion and empathy for the suffering of others informs Han’s work. The Swedish Academy’s citation commended “her intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life.” In deploying that lyrical style to expose the governmental brutality (and subsequent coverups) at the heart of Human Acts and We Do Not Part, Han reveals not only the harsh truth of these atrocities but the universality of the suffering they perpetuated. And her delicate portrayals of intimate personal relationships in Greek Lessons and The White Book provide further evidence of the necessity of compassion and love in the face of unbearable loss.    In the Anglophone world, Han is probably best known for her first book in English translation, the subversive and unsettling The Vegetarian. The tale of an enigmatic woman who spurns her husband to embrace a plant-based diet, the novel was variously interpreted as a critique of Korean society, a parable of conformity, and a manifesto for female agency. A financial and critical success, winning the 2016 Man Booker International Prize and landing on best-seller lists, The Vegetarian paved the way for Han’s subsequent English-language publications and, ultimately, the Nobel. Yet that book appeared in English eight years after its original Korean publication, and only thanks to the passion and persistence of translator Deborah Smith. (Other countries have been quicker to pick up some of Han’s other works—We Do Not Part, for example, forthcoming in English in 2025, appeared in French in August 2023 with the title Impossibles Adieux.)    In the ten years since Han’s debut in English, Korean literature’s international profile has greatly increased. Support from LTI Korea and other granting agencies has facilitated translations of Han and many other South Korean writers, as well as publisher trips and author appearances at book fairs and festivals, all of which have contributed immensely to Korean literature’s expansion in the international market. The Anglophone media has been quick to link this growth to the success of BTS and other figures of K-Pop, film, and television, but the true drivers are the many dedicated literary translators from Korean. With their fervent promotion of and advocacy for South Korean writers, this new generation of translators performs an invaluable service as mediators, interpreting not only the texts but the contexts and essences of these books. Translators of contemporary Korean literature—including Janet Hong, Soje, Sora Kim-Russell, and Anton Hur, among others—are powering not only the increasing number of titles, but also the corresponding expansion of genres and topics, such as the fantastic universe of Bora Chung and the gritty gay cityscapes of Sang Young Park. Translation into English is vital for true international success: it is the universal language of publishing, and books must be available in English for their fullest dissemination.    Ten short years after her own work made that leap, Han Kang now joins the Nobel pantheon. Literary prizes are arbitrary and deeply flawed, and the Nobel is no exception; many great writers were never recognized, while other laureates have (mercifully, in some cases) faded into obscurity. The effect of the prize on Han’s reception and future production remains to be seen. One of the most significant parts of Han’s Nobel, though, is its timing. Most previous laureates have been recognized near or at the end of their productivity, but Han’s award comes at the probable midpoint of hers. Even with the lag between original publication and availability of translations, we may have another twenty-five years of Han’s work to look forward to with the near-guarantee of its swift availability—and promotion—in English.    Han Kang’s anointment as laureate confirms her status as an international writer and ensures that her future work will be published, translated, reviewed, discussed, and read around the world. It is an inflection point in both her own career and the international exposure of Korean literature, and a truly celebratory moment. Susan Harris is the editorial director of Words Without Borders and the co-editor, with Ilya Kaminsky, of The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry.

  by Susan Harris

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  [Essay] Words That Bestow Life: In Honor of Han Kang’s 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature

  Here, in offering these remarks on Han Kang’s 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature, I speak not as a critic so much as a contemporary reader of her works. Distanced from both the writer she writes about and the reader who reads her criticism, the critic tosses her gaze down at both. Her language moves in one direction; her critical utterance expresses her superior specialist knowledge about the writer. The contemporary reader, on the other hand, dwells communally among unknown fellow readers in that imaginative space built by the books of their time. Those who cohabitate in this space of contemporary literature are linked together by chance encounters, candid admissions, and the desire to touch one another by sharing the writers and books they love best. In this safe space they may exchange without embarrassment their most intimate feelings about or most trivial experiences with a book.    On Thursday, October 10, 2024, I was in a meeting with several other people. While paying due attention to the serious discussion taking place around the table, I nonetheless found a part of myself wandering off, wondering who would receive this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature. Had I been among my literary cohort, we surely would have made a festive time of the moments before the announcement. These literary friends of mine—oddballs who do not hesitate to buy piles of books, no matter how old or new, that they proceed to stack on shelves already filled to overflowing, and to read with mad delight—had already placed their bets on their favorite authors: Can Xue, Yoko Tawada, Anne Carson, Ali Smith, and Margaret Atwood. But on October 10, I was not among them. At eight o’clock sharp, curiosity got the better of me. I quietly reached for the cellphone in my bag to check the news. And when I did, my heart stopped. The news that I had been so certain would arrive one day was already in my hands.     On the way back home that night, I felt gravity had lost its pull; my heart was bursting, my head reeling. Over the next few days, this feeling of weightlessness persisted, even as I exchanged words of joy with my literary friends, students, and fellow writers. “Our beloved writer has won a great prize.” “What great happiness.” “We must celebrate together.” Why is it, then, that even as we congratulated each other in that moment of indubitable, heartstopping joy, we found ourselves strangely unable to laugh out loud? Why did our voices falter? And why did we turn our damp eyes away from each other’s gaze?    It was only later, during a phone conversation with a friend I had not talked to lately, that the tears finally came. It happens that way sometimes. Some kinds of happiness do not evoke laughter but rather a complex, cathartic grief. At times, it is flowing tears that can best express the happiness we feel. I know there were others beside me who, caught in feelings too difficult to express, also found themselves in tears after the announcement. “I burst out crying when I heard.” “I cried, too.” “The moment it was announced, we all cried. We were hugging one another and crying.”    The reason we embraced and wept is because, for some years now, even decades, we have been suffering. Budgets for books, publishing, and culture have been slashed. People working in the cultural sphere are fast losing the means to foster creative knowledge and critical thinking. Both online and offline, discrimination and crimes of hate are greatly on the rise, leaving women, disabled persons, the elderly, children, teens, and LGBTQ people increasingly at risk. Those who ceaselessly deny and distort the history of state violence have turned to stigmatizing the victims and their bereaved families rather than consoling them and offering reparation. In recent years, we have lost both the eager spirit and the material means to forge a better today and a better tomorrow. One by one, we have sunk into silence and isolation, hurt by words and images of hate, cynicism, lethargy, and base vulgarity.    So the tears that sprang from our eyes when we heard that Han Kang had won the Nobel Prize in Literature were not tears of national pride. We did not weep because our national literature finally had arrived at a level we had been long aiming for, or because we finally had received the international recognition we deserved. Rather, we wept because we remembered literature had kept us company through all those brutal and violent years, giving us the strength to continue living—literature that faithfully pieced together historical truth, literature that kept beauty and dignity alive. We wept because we, who are so worn out and weary of words of hate and violence, know that there are words that bestow life rather than death. We wept that these words had been given to us as a gift. The joy that bursts from the wellsprings of a deeply repressed pain must sound like a cry rather than laughter. Think of the first sounds that emerge from the newly born baby embracing the world and expressing the sensation of life with all its body. Think of that stupendous cry.    This is why we do not hesitate to say the news of Han’s Nobel award must have given new life to someone wasting away, depleted and alone, in some unobserved corner of the world. In Han’s writings, we often come across this theme of a human being deprived of bodily function, language, and willpower, being pushed to the utmost limit of existence. In that very moment when the human being in extremis reaches this limit, a powerful life force reasserts itself. This is why, in those moments when I feel most depleted of energy, the following passage from Han’s early short story “Evening Light” comes back to me. It is a passage that occurs at the very end of the story.      A darkness both of sky and earth, heavy as a boulder, was crushing Jaein’s body. His flesh rumpled. His spine wilted.  His collarbone, rib cage, knee joints and talus bones came crumbling down in one heap with a loud clatter like tumbling wooden blocks. His muscles and innards burst furiously in all directions into the air.      This is a story about two young half-brothers. The older brother, a painter, lives alone by the sea. One day, he boards a fishing boat and is lost at sea. Jaein arrives at the shore just as the sun is sinking beneath the sea that has swallowed his half-brother. He pours libations into the sea. Soon after this gesture of mourning, his body undergoes a startling transformation. The onslaught of darkness takes on formidable, supernatural power as it presses down upon the small, fragile body of a grieving human being. The scene is too fantastic to be real, yet is narrated with such anatomical precision that we cannot brush it off as mere illusion. Step by step, with cool accuracy, the narrator depicts the body crumbling down. It is as if Jaein’s body, for unknown reasons, is shattered before the narrator who watches with unflinching eyes. In this scene, Jaein is destroyed as an individual, but he joins the vast flows of life energy operating at planetary and cosmic levels. This deserves to be called a metamorphosis beyond the realm of death into another dimension of life.    Han’s novels narrate such moments of transformation when a human being, confronted with the final paralysis of death, manages to rekindle the will to live by tapping into an inner strength, or comes face to face with an overwhelming life force. The waves of energy circulating between word and word, sentence and sentence, page and page, reach out and touch the reader. The reader’s body accepts and absorbs the bursts of life energy emanating from Han’s works. The reader is shaken and shattered by her powerful language, yet through this very process, is reborn.    In Han’s work it is not only the individual that passes through death to reach a new life. The human community, too, survives destructive violence to arrive at a new existence. Her works do not merely testify to the continuing human cost of political violence in modern Korean history. They confer dignity on the dead and enact consolation. In Human Acts, Han wrote about the Gwangju Democratic Uprising of May 1980, a democratic struggle against the military dictatorship, in which many civilians lost their lives. In We Do Not Part, she testified to the state violence perpetrated against the people of Jeju Island in 1947-1954. Han’s writings, based on meticulous archival research, interviews with survivors and their families, and visits to the sites in question, vividly represent such locations of violence. Her work dignifies those who were willing to lay down their lives as well as those who were innocently sacrificed. Her semi-autobiographical The White Book, set in Warsaw, similarly remembers and commemorates a dark moment in Polish history. During a brief sojourn in this city, which was almost completely razed to the ground by the Nazis after the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, the narrator repeatedly comes face to face with the sight of new walls raised above the preserved ruins of the old. These walls built on the fragments of the bombed-out walls of the past testify to the deliberate choice made by the people of Warsaw not to erase the traces of past violence. Instead of forgetting, they chose simultaneously to preserve and reconstruct.    This is an image—and a lesson—the narrator takes home with her. The acts of mourning and reconstruction are the means by which human beings who have experienced near annihilation hold fast to life and history. The writer performs these acts through writing. By reading Han Kang’s works, we share in the work of honoring the dead. And we gain the strength to continue our lives in their wake. Translated by Min Eun Kyung Kyung Hee Youn is an author, translator, and literary critic. She has written Wunderkammer (2021) and Shadows and Dawn (2022), and translated Anne Carson’s Nox into Korean. She teaches at Korea National University of Arts.

  by Kyung Hee Youn