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Unspoken Voices: Selected Short Stories by Korean Women Writers
The stories in this collection are written by twelve Korean women writers whose experience, insight, and writing skill make them truly representative of Korean fiction at its best.
"The Rooster" is a comical revelation of an old man who accepts the truth that Man and Nature revolve around the same immutable natural law. In "The Fragment," refugees who flee to Pusan during the Korean War suffer the unspeakable squalor and despair when jammed in a warehouse. "The Young Elm Tree" tells the story of a high school girl who falls in love with the son of her mother's new husband. What all these twelve writers share in common is a keen eye that penetrates into the lives of Korean women from the early part of the 20th century to the present.
THE AUTHORS
Authors included fall into two groups-those born during the Japanese occupation of Korea (1910-1945) and those born after 1945. All the eight authors in the first group experienced the Second World War in childhood and the Korean War as adults. They saw pain, hardship, and death, but they observed courage, resilience, humor, and love even in the most dire times. The four younger writers are active creators of works that have won top literary awards. Their fresh new look at life, their bold experimental style, and their refreshing voices are a reflection of their generation.
THE TRANSLATOR
Dr. Jin-Young Choi is Professor of English at Chung-Ang University in Seoul. She has translated two novels, numerous short stories and tales. Her Saturday columns in The Korea Herald were collected into one volume form One Woman's Way. All of her translated short stories were published in Korean Literature Today.
"The Rooster" is a comical revelation of an old man who accepts the truth that Man and Nature revolve around the same immutable natural law. In "The Fragment," refugees who flee to Pusan during the Korean War suffer the unspeakable squalor and despair when jammed in a warehouse. "The Young Elm Tree" tells the story of a high school girl who falls in love with the son of her mother's new husband. What all these twelve writers share in common is a keen eye that penetrates into the lives of Korean women from the early part of the 20th century to the present.
THE AUTHORS
Authors included fall into two groups-those born during the Japanese occupation of Korea (1910-1945) and those born after 1945. All the eight authors in the first group experienced the Second World War in childhood and the Korean War as adults. They saw pain, hardship, and death, but they observed courage, resilience, humor, and love even in the most dire times. The four younger writers are active creators of works that have won top literary awards. Their fresh new look at life, their bold experimental style, and their refreshing voices are a reflection of their generation.
THE TRANSLATOR
Dr. Jin-Young Choi is Professor of English at Chung-Ang University in Seoul. She has translated two novels, numerous short stories and tales. Her Saturday columns in The Korea Herald were collected into one volume form One Woman's Way. All of her translated short stories were published in Korean Literature Today.
- GenresShort StoriesFiction
272 pages, Paperback
First published September 5, 2000
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About the author
Jin-Young Choi
8 books17 followersDr. Jin-Young Choi is Professor of English at Chung-Ang University in Seoul. She has translated two novels, numerous short stories and tales. Her Saturday columns in The Korea Herald were collected into one volume form One Woman’s Way. All of her translated short stories were published in Korean Literature Today.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 29, 2016
I had some trouble reading this collection of short stories and, for a while, I had some trouble figuring out why. I came to the conclusion that the issue was that of the translator. Each story is adequately translated, although some problematic phrasings or unnatural idiom are present. The main issue, I felt, was that each story - while written by very different authors with very different writing styles - read the same way.
I was pleased with the presence of (as far as I know) nothing but otherwise untranslated short stories. However, I do find myself curious by the translator's decision to translate THESE stories. While some authors are very representative of Korean women's literature, with the 1990s to be particularly well represented (Park Wansuh, Kong Jeeyoung, Un Heekyong, and Han Kang come to mind), others seemed to be picked for- well, the sake of variety, as opposed to their contribution to Korean literature. I would have liked to see Oh Junghee (widely considered one of the most important and influential Korean novelists in modern literature) and Kong Sunok (a personal favorite). I should also mention that authors like Choi Junghee, Kang Shinjae, and Park Kyongni - while women writers - are not necessarily considered to be writers of women's literature, although at least some of these authors were still writing at the same time.
Now, the reason I keep harping on about women's literature is because it's essentially a movement in modern Korean literature, starting in roughly the 1970s. Additionally, if one were to look at the bestsellers in Korea, most famous authors today are women. (Well, the Korean writers of fiction are, at any write. Most bestsellers these days tend to be foreign translations.) While this book is subtitled "Selected Short Stories by Korean Women Writers," and I certainly understand the decision to focus on Korean women writers, it may have been a better decision to focus on works from the women's literature movement instead. Keep a few of the earlier stories (Choi Junghee, Kang Shinjae, Park Kyongni) as examples of works leading up to the movement, add in a few more authors from the 70s, 80s, and 90s, and you'd have it. This would have been a good idea because, in my opinion, the best stories from this collection came from the movement itself.
These were the stories in the compilation:
- The Rooster by Choi Junghee (1948)
- The Fragment by Han Musook (1951)
- The Young Elm Tree by Kang Shinjae (1960)
- Youngju and the Cat by Park Kyongni (1957)
- The Jade Ring by Lee Sukbong (1969)
- The Woman in Search of an Illusion by Lee Jungho (1969)
- Division by Song Wonhee (1967)
- The Dreaming Incubator by Park Wansuh (1991)
- At the Sundown by Yoon Jungsun (1991)
- My Wife's Boxes by Un Heekyong (1997)
- The Unbearable Sadness of Being by Kong Jeeyoung (1997)
- Nostalgic Journey by Han Kang (1994)
(Note: now that I've written it down, I find it disappointing that these stories were both not in chronological order and that the 1970s and 1980s were completely skipped. Not a single story from the 70s or 80s? In a compilation on Korean modern literature?! That's just ridiculous, honestly.
Standouts included Han Musook's The Fragment, which is a sort of character study of refugees from the Korean War in Busan. Not much really happens, but it's an interesting story about an interesting time. Song Wonhee's Division, about a woman who finds herself jealous of her husband's family remaining in North Korea and the young woman he sponsors. While I'm not always a fan of Park Wansuh, I do find that her short stories are often very confronting, in a good way- The Dreaming Incubator focuses on the issue of abortion and the desire for boy children instead of girls. A truly fascinating story. Un Heekyong's My Wife's Boxes is the final story I consider to be a true standout; from the perspective of a seemingly mentally ill woman's husband, it describes their relationship and is a good example of an unreliable narrator (or is he?).
Finally, I think it's interesting to note that one common theme in these stories is that of mental illness. Depression, narcissism, schizophrenia, compulsive lying; I'd say over half of these stories deal with mental illness is some way, which is a rather fascinating theme, and one that is actually fairly common in Korean literature (although it is often not necessarily critically examined, as far as I recall). This ties into what I said about Un's My Wife's Boxes; the idea of an unreliable narrator. Unreliable or dishonest narrators and characters, or otherwise slow reveals of important information is also quite common in these stories. I'm not certain if this is a common motif in women's literature as a whole, or just with these stories, but it's an interesting thought to ponder.
I would say... read this collection for the stories you can't find elsewhere. Also read it because there just isn't a lot of Korean literature that's been translated. that being said, don't expect too much out of it. There are other, better collections available. (A Ready-Made Life, Waxen Wings, and Modern Korean Fiction are three of them.)
I was pleased with the presence of (as far as I know) nothing but otherwise untranslated short stories. However, I do find myself curious by the translator's decision to translate THESE stories. While some authors are very representative of Korean women's literature, with the 1990s to be particularly well represented (Park Wansuh, Kong Jeeyoung, Un Heekyong, and Han Kang come to mind), others seemed to be picked for- well, the sake of variety, as opposed to their contribution to Korean literature. I would have liked to see Oh Junghee (widely considered one of the most important and influential Korean novelists in modern literature) and Kong Sunok (a personal favorite). I should also mention that authors like Choi Junghee, Kang Shinjae, and Park Kyongni - while women writers - are not necessarily considered to be writers of women's literature, although at least some of these authors were still writing at the same time.
Now, the reason I keep harping on about women's literature is because it's essentially a movement in modern Korean literature, starting in roughly the 1970s. Additionally, if one were to look at the bestsellers in Korea, most famous authors today are women. (Well, the Korean writers of fiction are, at any write. Most bestsellers these days tend to be foreign translations.) While this book is subtitled "Selected Short Stories by Korean Women Writers," and I certainly understand the decision to focus on Korean women writers, it may have been a better decision to focus on works from the women's literature movement instead. Keep a few of the earlier stories (Choi Junghee, Kang Shinjae, Park Kyongni) as examples of works leading up to the movement, add in a few more authors from the 70s, 80s, and 90s, and you'd have it. This would have been a good idea because, in my opinion, the best stories from this collection came from the movement itself.
These were the stories in the compilation:
- The Rooster by Choi Junghee (1948)
- The Fragment by Han Musook (1951)
- The Young Elm Tree by Kang Shinjae (1960)
- Youngju and the Cat by Park Kyongni (1957)
- The Jade Ring by Lee Sukbong (1969)
- The Woman in Search of an Illusion by Lee Jungho (1969)
- Division by Song Wonhee (1967)
- The Dreaming Incubator by Park Wansuh (1991)
- At the Sundown by Yoon Jungsun (1991)
- My Wife's Boxes by Un Heekyong (1997)
- The Unbearable Sadness of Being by Kong Jeeyoung (1997)
- Nostalgic Journey by Han Kang (1994)
(Note: now that I've written it down, I find it disappointing that these stories were both not in chronological order and that the 1970s and 1980s were completely skipped. Not a single story from the 70s or 80s? In a compilation on Korean modern literature?! That's just ridiculous, honestly.
Standouts included Han Musook's The Fragment, which is a sort of character study of refugees from the Korean War in Busan. Not much really happens, but it's an interesting story about an interesting time. Song Wonhee's Division, about a woman who finds herself jealous of her husband's family remaining in North Korea and the young woman he sponsors. While I'm not always a fan of Park Wansuh, I do find that her short stories are often very confronting, in a good way- The Dreaming Incubator focuses on the issue of abortion and the desire for boy children instead of girls. A truly fascinating story. Un Heekyong's My Wife's Boxes is the final story I consider to be a true standout; from the perspective of a seemingly mentally ill woman's husband, it describes their relationship and is a good example of an unreliable narrator (or is he?).
Finally, I think it's interesting to note that one common theme in these stories is that of mental illness. Depression, narcissism, schizophrenia, compulsive lying; I'd say over half of these stories deal with mental illness is some way, which is a rather fascinating theme, and one that is actually fairly common in Korean literature (although it is often not necessarily critically examined, as far as I recall). This ties into what I said about Un's My Wife's Boxes; the idea of an unreliable narrator. Unreliable or dishonest narrators and characters, or otherwise slow reveals of important information is also quite common in these stories. I'm not certain if this is a common motif in women's literature as a whole, or just with these stories, but it's an interesting thought to ponder.
I would say... read this collection for the stories you can't find elsewhere. Also read it because there just isn't a lot of Korean literature that's been translated. that being said, don't expect too much out of it. There are other, better collections available. (A Ready-Made Life, Waxen Wings, and Modern Korean Fiction are three of them.)
April 1, 2025
Såg den här boken på Carolina Rediviva vid hyllan där de visade upp böcker av olika koreanska författare i samband med Hang Kangs böcker. Jag tyckte den såg intressant ut och jag läser ocskså väldigt sällan noveller.
Novellerna behandlade olika teman om familj, sorg, längtan, ilska osv. så det var kul att det fanns en varietet. 'Ibland blev det lite segt, men det blev ändå en trevlig läsning.
Novellerna behandlade olika teman om familj, sorg, längtan, ilska osv. så det var kul att det fanns en varietet. 'Ibland blev det lite segt, men det blev ändå en trevlig läsning.
April 25, 2021
The Young Elm Tree is the only disappointing story in this collection, only because the paint-by-numbers plot doesn’t rise to the level of the intriguing first line. The rest of the stories more than make up for it, however, telling about homes, families, and relationships ruined by war and/or death, growing distance between individuals and the other, death and trauma, different ways to view acceptance of fate, and more. The styles and tones vary from comic to realistic to dreamlike, and eleven out of twelve of these tiny masterpieces stand alone as great and unique works all their own. This is the best kind of translated collection: the kind that makes me wish for more from at least most of these authors.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews