A Feast of Reading

This year, Kim Hyesoon, our featured writer forthe autumn issue, received the International GriffinPoetry Prize. It was welcome news because it meantthat world readers had responded to utterancescoming from an Asian woman’s body. The winningcollection, Autobiography of Death, translated byDon Mee Choi, was originally published in Koreanin 2016. It is a collection of forty-nine poems basedon deaths in South Korean society, such as the SewolFerry tragedy and the MERS epidemic.The number forty-nine is significant inBuddhism. When a person dies, they spend fortynine days in the whirlpool of reincarnation, andtheir afterlife is determined by the meritorious deedsand virtues of their previous life. Their loved onescarry out rites seven times for seven days so thatthey can be reborn in a better life. The deceasedattains complete death only after forty-nine dayshave passed. Autobiography of Death can be said tobe a collection that churns out forty-nine deaths asif the poet who has personally experienced death isperforming services for the repose of the departedsouls.The Special Section of this issue is especiallydelectable. It focuses on the bapsang (literally, “ricetable”) or dining table in Korean literature. Intraditional Korean society where bap, or rice, is thestaple food, rice means more than just food, butlife itself. Transformed into foods like rice cakesand rice liquor, bap is involved in all rituals of lifefrom birth to death. The sang or traditional Koreantable is designed to be taken out and placed as andwhen needed instead of occupying a fixed place, anddepending on what the table setting is, its size, shape,and material can vary. For the dead, it’s a je-sangor sacrificial table; for a first birthday celebration,a dol-sang or birthday table; for drinking, sul-sangor drinking table. The family gathers around thebapsang for three meals a day. One word for familyin Korean is sik-gu (literally, “food-mouth”), whichderives from the idea of people dining at the sametable.Thus, to look at the bapsang in Korean literatureis to examine the family unit, and going further, thecommunity, society, culture, and political ideology.How has the life of Koreans changed over the years?How did the patriarchal family system becomeviolent? The table of this issue’s Special Section isset with excerpts from stories by Kim Soom, KimAe-ran, and, the doyen of Korean literature, ParkWansuh—mouthfuls of exploding flavors.Starting with this issue’s Bookmark section,we have published a short story in its entirety, asopposed to an excerpt, to better showcase the writerand the book. Now, instead of just a bite, you will beable to relish the entire dish.Bon appétit!

Cheon Un-yeong 

Writer