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In his inimitable, recursive, meditative style that reads like a comedic zen koan but contains universes, Seven Samurai Swept Away in a River recounts Korean cult writer's Jung Young Moon’s time spent at an artist’s and writers residency in small-town Texas. In an attempt to understand what a “true Texan should know,” the author reflects on his outsider experiences in this most unique of places, learning to two-step, musing on cowboy hats and cowboy churches, blending his observations with a meditative rumination on the history of Texas and the events that shaped the state, from the first settlers to Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald. All the while, the author is asking what a novel is and must be, while accompanied by a fictional cast of seven samurai who the author invents and carries with him, silent companions in a pantomime of existential theater. Jung blends fact with imagination, humor with reflection, and meaning with meaninglessness, as his meanderings become an absorbing, engaging, quintessential novel of ideas.
Considered an eccentric in the traditional Korean literary world and often compared to Kafka, Jung Young-moon’s short stories have nonetheless won numerous readers both in Korea and abroad. Considered an eccentric in the traditional Korean literary world, Jung Young-moon’s short stories have nonetheless won numerous readers both in Korea and abroad, most often drawing comparisons to Kafka. Adopting strange, warped, unstable characters and drawing heavily on the literature of the absurd, Jung’s stories nonetheless do not wallow in darkness, despair, or negativity. Instead, we find a world in which the bizarre and terrifying are often put to comic use, even in direst of situations, and point toward a sort of redemption to be found precisely in the “weirdest” and most unsettling parts of life . . .
In four looping, maze-like novellas, eclectic cult favorite Jung Young Moon's interlinked novellas take the reader on a meticulous, rhythmic journey through a blend of real life, fiction, and ideas.
‘An ever-surprising and stylistically diverse anthology that will surely stand as the touchstone collection of Korean literature for decades to come’ Literary Review This eclectic, moving and wonderfully enjoyable collection is the essential introduction to Korean literature. Journeying through Korea's dramatic twentieth century, from the Japanese occupation and colonial era to the devastating war between North and South and the rapid, disorienting urbanization of later decades, The Penguin Book of Korean Short Stories captures a hundred years of Korea's vibrant short-story tradition. Here are peddlers and donkeys travelling across moonlit fields; artists drinking and debating in the tea...
A GUARDIAN 'ONE TO LOOK OUT FOR 2020' A RED MAGAZINE 'CAN'T WAIT TO READ' BOOK OF 2020 THE MULTI-MILLION-COPY SELLING SOUTH KOREAN SENSATION THAT HAS GOT THE WHOLE WORLD TALKING Kim Jiyoung is a girl born to a mother whose in-laws wanted a boy. Kim Jiyoung is a sister made to share a room while her brother gets one of his own. Kim Jiyoung is a female preyed upon by male teachers at school. Kim Jiyoung is a daughter whose father blames her when she is harassed late at night. Kim Jiyoung is a good student who doesn’t get put forward for internships. Kim Jiyoung is a model employee but gets overlooked for promotion. Kim Jiyoung is a wife who gives up her career and independence for a life of ...
An extraordinary memoir by a North Korean woman who defied the government to keep her family alive. Born in the 1970s, Lucia Jang grew up in a common, rural North Korean household—her parents worked hard, she bowed to a photo of Kim Il-Sung every night, and the family scraped by on rationed rice and a small garden. However, there is nothing common about Jang. She is a woman of great emotional depth, courage, and resilience. Happy to serve her country, Jang worked in a factory as a young woman. There, a man she thought was courting her raped her. Forced to marry him when she found herself pregnant, she continued to be abused by him. She managed to convince her family to let her return home,...
Acclaimed as one of the best works available on feminine psychology from the time it first appeared in 1933, The Way of All Women discusses topics such as work, marriage, motherhood, old age, and women's relationships with family, friends, and lovers. Dr. Harding, who was best known for her work with women and families, stresses the need for a woman to work toward her own wholeness and develop the many sides of her nature, and emphasizes the importance of unconscious processes.
Seventeen-year-old Rachel Kim confronts the dark underbelly of the K-pop world as she strives to become a K-pop star.
"Originally published in Korean as Nomudo ssulssurhan tangsin by Ch'angjak kwa Pip'yongsa, Seoul, 1998"--Title page verso.
A Chain of Dark Tales contains forty-five short stories. The phrase that most accurately describes this book would be The Great Quilt, a panoramic quilt with all possible, even impossible, thoughts and images and situations. Its as if he has laid out forty-five patches of unique materials, patterns, and colors in a public square and then calmly weaves them together, while anyone watching him would be at a lost for words to respond to his defiance of conventional expectations. But, nonetheless, no one would dare question or even think of stopping him, since Jung is too sincere in his childlike innocence, and they would also have to admit that what Jung is trying to say touches them deeply. Even though the books title seems to give us an idea of what kind of book it is and even though his stories contain dark, unstable, and unrealistic characters, these short stories do not wallow in darkness, despair, or negativity. Actually, the stories are often comically bizarre, even in dire situations.