“The Sick Rose,” published in Samcheonli munhak (Three Thousand Li of Literature) in 1938, is the first of two short stories that Lee Hyoseok names using the title of a poem in English. This one, of course, is named after a poem by William Blake. The other is “Leaves of Grass” titled after Walt Whitman’s seminal collection. Both short stories borrow themes from the poems they are named after. In the case of “The Sick Rose” the theme is prostitution and the venereal disease that can accompany the practice. Typical of Lee’s later literature, this story uses the theme of sex as a means to critique what he saw as a hypocritical sense of morality in Korean society.
Set in 1940s colonial Korea and Japanese-occupied Manchuria, Endless Blue Sky tells the love story between Korean writer Ilma and Russian dancer Nadia. The novel is both a thrilling melodrama set in glamorous locations that would shortly be tragically ravaged by war, and a bold piece of writing espousing new ideas on love, marriage, and race. Reading this tale of cosmopolitan socialites finding their way in a new world of luxury hotels, racetracks, and cabarets, one gets a sense of the enthusiasm for the future that some felt in Korea at the time. Honford Star's edition of Endless Blue Sky, the first in English, includes an introduction and explanatory notes by translator Steven Capener.
Lee Hyoseok’s story “Wild Apricots” was published in the literary journal Jogwang in 1937. The work is noteworthy for its use of themes that pushed the limits of the social conventions of the times. The story involves infidelity, betrayal, female homoeroticism, and superstitious folk beliefs. In addition, Lee clearly mounts a critique of vested male privilege that he would develop more fully in later works. Interestingly, together with his critique of the backwardness of rural society, Lee also weaves a subtle critique of the increasingly oppressive nature of Japanese rule as the dark clouds of militarism and fascism spread across the horizon.
“Pomegranate” is one of Lee Hyoseok’s shorter pieces of fiction. It follows a plot pattern that became more evident in his later fiction (that written after 1935 or so) in that the protagonist is a woman who suffers from the patriarchal strictures of the Confucian culture of the times. It is implied that the protagonist Jaehee becomes pregnant at the hands of one of her schoolmates and later is pushed into marrying a man she doesn’t love because the union might help her father’s failing business. The man she marries turns out to be a swindler, and her father’s business fails even sooner as the result of his malfeasance. The plot also contains another of Lee’s consistent themes: an unrequited love.
“Harbin,” published in the literary magazine Munjang in October 1940, is the leading work from his later years and has recently attracted attention. On top of everything, this short story impressively reveals the problematic circumstances around the 1940s and Lee’s assessment of his own self-awareness. The dialogue between the protagonist who considers himself a skeptic and a cabaret worker, Eura, who says, “I always think I just want to die,” is the main storyline of this short story. This work effectively describes the desolate inner sentiments, feelings, and skepticism of the protagonist who travels to Harbin and the sorrowful sentimentality of the city. In addition, “Harbin” impressively portrays that the Second World War, which broke out in 1939, greatly influenced the city of Harbin, which was located in Northeast China at the time. This is evident especially in the lines describing the closed French and Dutch Consulates on Kitai Tverskaya, the main street of Harbin where Russian stores and Western style buildings are located. The theme of this work seems to be the sorrow of an intellect under colonization, feeling only fundamentally skeptical and depressed, even while conversing with a beautiful waitress at the exotic Harbin’s hotel, cabaret, and café where Tchaikovsky’s chamber music plays.
This story focuses on an agency whose only purpose is to offer apologies—for a fee—on behalf of its clients. This seemingly insignificant service leads us into an examination of sin, guilt, and the often irrational demands of society. A kaleidoscope of minor nuisances and major grievances, this novel heralds a new comic voice in Korean letters.
Two women's lives and identities are intertwined—through World War II and the Korean War—revealing the harsh realities of class division in the early part of the 20th century. “Lee Geum-yi has a gift for taking little-known embers of history and transforming them into moving, compelling, and uplifting stories.” —Heather Morris, #1 New York Times bestselling author Can't I Go Instead follows the lives of the daughter of a Korean nobleman and her maidservant in the early 20th century. When the daughter’s suitor is arrested as a Korean Independence activist, and she is implicated during the investigation, she is quickly forced into marriage to one of her father’s Japanese employees and shipped off to the United States. At the same time, her maidservant is sent in her mistress's place to be a comfort woman to the Japanese Imperial army. Years of hardship, survival, and even happiness follows. In the aftermath of WWII, the women make their way home, where they must reckon with the tangled lives they've led, in an attempt to reclaim their identities, and find their place in an independent Korea. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
“Lee Geum-yi has a gift for taking little-known embers of history and transforming them into moving, compelling, and uplifting stories. The Picture Bride is the ultimate story of the power of friendship—a must read!” —Heather Morris, #1 New York Times bestselling author Download a FREE sneak peek today! “Your husband is a landowner,” they told her. “Food and clothing is so plentiful, it grows on trees.” “You will be able to go to school.” Of the three lies the matchmaker told Willow before she left home as a picture bride in 1918, the third hurt the most. Never one to be deterred, Willow does all that she can to make the best of her unexpected circumstance. But it isn't long before her dreams for this new life are shattered, first by a husband who never wanted to marry her in the first place, and then by the escalation of the Korean independence movements, unified in goal, but divergent in action, which threaten to split the Hawaiian Korean community and divide Willow's family and friends. Braving the rough waters of these tumultuous years, Willow forges ahead, creating new dreams through her own blood, sweat, and tears; working tirelessly toward a better life for her family and loved ones. “A beautiful testimony to those women bold and determined enough to leave behind all that was familiar, seeking a better life.” —Lisa Wingate, #1 New York Times bestselling author At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Spanning Korea and the United States, from the postwar era to contemporary times, the stories presented in "Drifting House" illuminate a people torn between the traumas of their collective past and the indignities and sorrows of their present.
Jung-Myung Lee's extraordinary The Investigation, translated by Chi-Young Kim, is set in a period of Korean history that isn't widely known in the West . . . a heart-wrenching novel with many unexpected twists.' – Sunday Times Longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize Fukuoka Prison, 1944. Beyond the prison walls the war rages; inside a man is found brutally murdered. Yuichi Watanabe, a young guard with a passion for reading, is ordered to investigate. The victim, Sugiyama – also a guard – was feared and despised throughout the prison and inquiries have barely begun when a powerful inmate confesses. But Watanabe is unconvinced; and as he interrogates both the suspect and Yun Dong-ju, a talented Korean poet, he begins to realize that the fearsome guard was not all he appeared to be . . . As Watanabe unravels Sugiyama's final months, he begins to discover what is really going on inside this dark and violent institution, which few inmates survive: a man who will stop at nothing to dig his way to freedom; a governor whose greed knows no limits; a little girl whose kite finds her an unlikely friend. And Yun Dong-ju – the poet whose works hold such beauty they can break the hardest of hearts. As the war moves towards its devastating close and bombs rain down upon the prison, Watanabe realizes that he must find a way to protect Yun Dong-ju, no matter what it takes. This decision will lead the young guard back to the investigation – where he will discover a devastating truth . . . At once a captivating mystery and an epic lament for lost freedom and humanity in the darkest of times, The Investigation – inspired by a true story – is a sweeping, gripping tale perfect for fans of The Shadow of the Wind. 'It's a thriller, and a war story, and so much more besides. I tore through the last 100 pages, my heart literally racing at times. An intense, captivating achievement, inspired by reality.' - Matt Haig, author of The Midnight Library
Winner of the Nautilus Award for Historical Fiction “Lee Geum-yi has a gift for taking little-known embers of history and transforming them into moving, compelling, and uplifting stories. The Picture Bride is the ultimate story of the power of friendship—a must read!” —Heather Morris, #1 New York Times bestselling author “Your husband is a landowner,” they told her. “Food and clothing is so plentiful, it grows on trees.” “You will be able to go to school.” Of the three lies the matchmaker told Willow before she left home as a picture bride in 1918, the third hurt the most. Never one to be deterred, Willow does all that she can to make the best of her unexpected circumstance. But it isn't long before her dreams for this new life are shattered, first by a husband who never wanted to marry her in the first place, and then by the escalation of the Korean independence movements, unified in goal, but divergent in action, which threaten to split the Hawaiian Korean community and divide Willow's family and friends. Braving the rough waters of these tumultuous years, Willow forges ahead, creating new dreams through her own blood, sweat, and tears; working tirelessly toward a better life for her family and loved ones. “A beautiful testimony to those women bold and determined enough to leave behind all that was familiar, seeking a better life.” —Lisa Wingate, #1 New York Times bestselling author At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Read an essay by Chang-rae Lee here. The bestselling, award-winning writer of Native Speaker, Aloft, and My Year Abroad returns with his biggest, most ambitious novel yet: a spellbinding story of how love and war echo through an entire lifetime. With his three critically acclaimed novels, Chang-rae Lee has established himself as one of the most talented writers of contemporary literary fiction. Now, with The Surrendered, Lee has created a book that amplifies everything we've seen in his previous works, and reads like nothing else. It is a brilliant, haunting, heartbreaking story about how love and war inalterably change the lives of those they touch. June Han was only a girl when the Korean War left her orphaned; Hector Brennan was a young GI who fled the petty tragedies of his small town to serve his country. When the war ended, their lives collided at a Korean orphanage where they vied for the attentions of Sylvie Tanner, the beautiful yet deeply damaged missionary wife whose elusive love seemed to transform everything. Thirty years later and on the other side of the world, June and Hector are reunited in a plot that will force them to come to terms with the mysterious secrets of their past, and the shocking acts of love and violence that bind them together. As Lee unfurls the stunning story of June, Hector, and Sylvie, he weaves a profound meditation on the nature of heroism and sacrifice, the power of love, and the possibilities for mercy, salvation, and surrendering oneself to another. Combining the complex themes of identity and belonging of Native Speaker and A Gesture Life with the broad range, energy, and pure storytelling gifts of Aloft, Chang-rae Lee has delivered his most ambitious, exciting, and unforgettable work yet. It is a mesmerizing novel, elegantly suspenseful and deeply affecting.
“This story of the unlikely meeting of two vulnerable women is a beautifully woven page turner. The battle-weary woman and the pin-up girl who meet, connect, separate: each changed by the brief union.” --Heather Morris, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Tattooist of Auschwitz A dazzling work of historical fiction, based on true events, about two women who seem the most unlikely to ever meet: Alice, a Korean war survivor and translator for the American forces in Seoul and Marilyn Monroe, who is visiting Korea on a four-day USO tour. February 1954. Although the Korean War armistice was signed a year ago, most citizens of Seoul still battle to return to some semblance of normalcy. Conditions are dismal. Children beg for food, and orphanages are teeming. Alice J. Kim, a Korean translator and typist for the American forces still sanctioned in the city, yearns for the life she used to live before her country was torn apart. Then Alice’s boss makes an announcement—the American movie star Marilyn Monroe will be visiting Korea on a four-day USO tour, and Alice has been chosen as her translator. Though intrigued, Alice has few expectations of the job—what could she and a beautiful actress at the peak of her fame possibly have to talk about? Yet the Marilyn she meets, while just as dazzling and sensual as Alice expected, is also surprisingly approachable. As Marilyn’s visit unfolds, Alice is forced into a reckoning with her own painful past. Moving and mesmerizing, The Starlet and the Spy is a beautiful portrayal of unexpected kinship between two very different women, and of the surprising connections that can change, or even save, a life.
A New York Times Top Ten Book of the Year and National Book Award finalist, Pachinko is an "extraordinary epic" of four generations of a poor Korean immigrant family as they fight to control their destiny in 20th-century Japan (San Francisco Chronicle). NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2017 * A USA TODAY TOP TEN OF 2017 * JULY PICK FOR THE PBS NEWSHOUR-NEW YORK TIMES BOOK CLUB NOW READ THIS * FINALIST FOR THE 2018DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE* WINNER OF THE MEDICI BOOK CLUB PRIZE Roxane Gay's Favorite Book of 2017, Washington Post NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * #1 BOSTON GLOBE BESTSELLER * USA TODAY BESTSELLER * WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER * WASHINGTON POST BESTSELLER "There could only be a few winners, and a lot of losers. And yet we played on, because we had hope that we might be the lucky ones." In the early 1900s, teenaged Sunja, the adored daughter of a crippled fisherman, falls for a wealthy stranger at the seashore near her home in Korea. He promises her the world, but when she discovers she is pregnant--and that her lover is married--she refuses to be bought. Instead, she accepts an offer of marriage from a gentle, sickly minister passing through on his way to Japan. But her decision to abandon her home, and to reject her son's powerful father, sets off a dramatic saga that will echo down through the generations. Richly told and profoundly moving, Pachinko is a story of love, sacrifice, ambition, and loyalty. From bustling street markets to the halls of Japan's finest universities to the pachinko parlors of the criminal underworld, Lee's complex and passionate characters--strong, stubborn women, devoted sisters and sons, fathers shaken by moral crisis--survive and thrive against the indifferent arc of history. *Includes reading group guide*
Franklin Hata, Korean by birth but raised in Japan, is an outsider in American society, but he embodies the values of the town he calls his own, he is polite and keeps himself to himself. The reasons for his solitude and self-control are laid bare as the mystery of Hata's wartime past is revealed.
After the attack of Pearl Harbor in 1945, Korea divided into North and South. War in 1950 forces many families to flee Seoul for Pusan. Bokhea falls in love with an American, but when the family returns to the city, she becomes engaged instead to a businessman. When his mother dies suddenly, both families pressure her to move in to care for his household. Unwed, Bokhea bears him a daughter. She then plots to get her daughter away in secret and bring her to America. This is the story of two wars, two cultures, and the endurance of love.
With this striking novel, Edward Jae-Suk Lee delivers the beautifully and poignantly told story of Gabriel Cuttman, an aging Korean War veteran--a good man who has done bad things and is struggling with a terrible secret.
Born in what is now North Korea, Lee Ho-Chul makes use of an astonishing variety of literary styles to offer a panoramic view of the devastating impact authoritarian rule, draconian anticommunism, and particularly national division have had on the everyday lives of Koreans in the latter half of the twentieth century.
A “moving and captivating” (Cathy Park Hong, New York Times bestselling author of Minor Feelings) novel following a Korean immigrant pursuing the American dream who must confront the secrets of the past or risk watching the world he’s worked so hard to build come crumbling down. Dr. Yungman Kwak is in the twilight of his life. Every day for the last fifty years, he has brushed his teeth, slipped on his shoes, and headed to Horse Breath’s General Hospital, where, as an obstetrician, he treats the women and babies of the small rural Minnesota town he chose to call home. This was the life he longed for. The so-called American dream. He immigrated from Korea after the Korean War, forced to leave his family, ancestors, village, and all that he knew behind. But his life is built on a lie. And one day, a letter arrives that threatens to expose it. Yungman’s life is thrown into chaos—the hospital abruptly closes, his wife refuses to spend time with him, and his son is busy investing in a struggling health start-up. Yungman faces a choice—he must choose to hide his secret from his family and friends or confess and potentially lose all he’s built. He begins to question the very assumptions on which his life is built—the so-called American dream, with the abject failure of its healthcare system, patients and neighbors who perpetuate racism, a town flawed with infrastructure, and a history that doesn’t see him in it. Toggling between the past and the present, Korea and America, Evening Hero is a “soulful, melodic, rhapsodic novel” (The New York Times) about a man looking back at his life and asking big questions about what is lost and what is gained when immigrants leave home for new shores.
“The Sick Rose,” published in Samcheonli munhak (Three Thousand Li of Literature) in 1938, is the first of two short stories that Lee Hyoseok names using the title of a poem in English. This one, of course, is named after a poem by William Blake. The other is “Leaves of Grass” titled after Walt Whitman’s seminal collection. Both short stories borrow themes from the poems they are named after. In the case of “The Sick Rose” the theme is prostitution and the venereal disease that can accompany the practice. Typical of Lee’s later literature, this story uses the theme of sex as a means to critique what he saw as a hypocritical sense of morality in Korean society.
Set in 1940s colonial Korea and Japanese-occupied Manchuria, Endless Blue Sky tells the love story between Korean writer Ilma and Russian dancer Nadia. The novel is both a thrilling melodrama set in glamorous locations that would shortly be tragically ravaged by war, and a bold piece of writing espousing new ideas on love, marriage, and race. Reading this tale of cosmopolitan socialites finding their way in a new world of luxury hotels, racetracks, and cabarets, one gets a sense of the enthusiasm for the future that some felt in Korea at the time. Honford Star's edition of Endless Blue Sky, the first in English, includes an introduction and explanatory notes by translator Steven Capener.
In the ancient Korean city of Hanyang, a gisaeng slave girl is forced to turn spy for a shadowy organisation with dangerous intentions. In return she wants only one thing. Yet it is not her freedom Seorin so desperately desires, it is something far more precious ... and she will face anything, even death, to gain it.
“Harbin,” published in the literary magazine Munjang in October 1940, is the leading work from his later years and has recently attracted attention. On top of everything, this short story impressively reveals the problematic circumstances around the 1940s and Lee’s assessment of his own self-awareness. The dialogue between the protagonist who considers himself a skeptic and a cabaret worker, Eura, who says, “I always think I just want to die,” is the main storyline of this short story. This work effectively describes the desolate inner sentiments, feelings, and skepticism of the protagonist who travels to Harbin and the sorrowful sentimentality of the city. In addition, “Harbin” impressively portrays that the Second World War, which broke out in 1939, greatly influenced the city of Harbin, which was located in Northeast China at the time. This is evident especially in the lines describing the closed French and Dutch Consulates on Kitai Tverskaya, the main street of Harbin where Russian stores and Western style buildings are located. The theme of this work seems to be the sorrow of an intellect under colonization, feeling only fundamentally skeptical and depressed, even while conversing with a beautiful waitress at the exotic Harbin’s hotel, cabaret, and café where Tchaikovsky’s chamber music plays.
“Pomegranate” is one of Lee Hyoseok’s shorter pieces of fiction. It follows a plot pattern that became more evident in his later fiction (that written after 1935 or so) in that the protagonist is a woman who suffers from the patriarchal strictures of the Confucian culture of the times. It is implied that the protagonist Jaehee becomes pregnant at the hands of one of her schoolmates and later is pushed into marrying a man she doesn’t love because the union might help her father’s failing business. The man she marries turns out to be a swindler, and her father’s business fails even sooner as the result of his malfeasance. The plot also contains another of Lee’s consistent themes: an unrequited love.
BOOK ONE OF THE JOSEON DETECTIVE SERIESA missing woman. A frozen body.A damo slave girl, determined to solve the mystery.Joseon Dynasty, Korea, 1590.At the foot of a jagged mountain range, an isolated village lies in muddy snow and a young noblewoman vanishes from her bed in the dead of night. Rumours of a fearsome ghost with no face echo in her wake. Dan Ji arrives into the long winding valley with her own ghosts, determined to prove her worth as an investigator and solve the mystery. She is a damo, a tea servant of the police force, tasked with cooking and cleaning for her superiors and sometimes, with performing undercover police work.With only the officer in charge on her side - a hard young man with a bloody past and secrets of his own ¬- Dan Ji must convince the local Magistrate and his provincial policemen to trust her judgement. Yet with mistrust brewing, the investigation slowly grinds to a halt. Until a frozen body is unearthed from the deep snows of the mountain range.As a damo of Joseon's police force, it is not within Dan Ji's nature to leave a mystery unsolved.The threads run far and wide.A dark historical mystery set in old Korea.
Past Lives ....Found Love....Present Danger! Operation Dangun is a riveting fantasy time-travel novel teeming with the most powerful Korean legend-- Dangun . Pursuing the intertwined fates of a legendary god, ancient evils, and everlasting love. In the year 108 B.C., Dangun, the founder and god-king of the first Korean kingdom, has returned to the world through a mysterious time portal to defend the sacred temple of his people. In a land engulfed by war, he encounters the woman who will capture his heart, Mina. But Mina is the object of obsession by Dangun's most dangerous foe, General Kang Dae, and in a fit of madness he murders her in the temple. In a desperate gamble to save Mina, Dangun carries her through the time portal which transports them both far into the future, and separated to be reborn into new lives far apart. But their spirits, now embodied in the modern world, are destined to find each other again. In his new incarnation, Dangun, now known as Kim Dan, is reunited by chance with Mina and the flame of love is instantly rekindled. But destiny has brought their most terrible enemy through time as well. As fate drew Kim Dan and Mina together again, it also resumed the unfinished conflict with General Kang Dae. Kang Dae plots to assume a level of power that could bring the world to the edge of destruction, and the sight of Mina and Kim Dan together brings his memory of past centuries flooding back. It reignites his jealousy and rage. He will do everything in his power to destroy their love, and conquer the world. Kim Dan must do what he couldn't do before, avert the disaster of General Kang Dae's revenge, and save the love of his life. Operation Dangun explores the depth of love and identity that never fade, regardless of the centuries that pass, and the relentless pull of fulfilling one's destiny.
Lee Hyoseok’s story “Wild Apricots” was published in the literary journal Jogwang in 1937. The work is noteworthy for its use of themes that pushed the limits of the social conventions of the times. The story involves infidelity, betrayal, female homoeroticism, and superstitious folk beliefs. In addition, Lee clearly mounts a critique of vested male privilege that he would develop more fully in later works. Interestingly, together with his critique of the backwardness of rural society, Lee also weaves a subtle critique of the increasingly oppressive nature of Japanese rule as the dark clouds of militarism and fascism spread across the horizon.
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