The Land of the Banished

Cho, Chong-Rae

Jimoondang Publishing Company

Three Days in That Autumn is a novella that delves into the grim irony of women's life-giving capacity. A gynecologist facing retirement must reckon with the legacy of her traumatic past. Herself a victim of a rape during the Korean War who had to undergo an abortion, the doctor devotes her career to freeing women from the agony of carrying an unwanted baby. Paradoxically, her obsessive devotion to aborting unplanned pregnancies actually functions as a tool for perpetuating sex as a trade, and her own emotional dysfunction even allows her to find the sardonic pleasure of retaliation in the decrepitude of the women she services. In her final three days of work, however, she comes to recognize her sublimated longing for self-healing and redemption in her sudden inexplicable need to deliver a living life to be loved and cared for.

Three Days in That Autumn

Pak, Wanseo

Shamanism has more or less disappeared, even in Siberia where the word 'Shaman' originated. However, in Korea, a newly-industrialized nation-state, shamanism has not merely survived, but is enjoying a revival as a uniquely Korean cultural heritage to be cherished. 
In this book, the author attempts to unravel its mystery through analyzing historical documents and her own field data. She concludes that the survival of Korean shamanism is linked to the global phenomenon of the revival of ethnicity and cultural nationalism. 
The author, a Korean-born British social anthropologist, provides the reader with not only a wealth of knowledge on Korean shamanism, but also the rationale for its great significance to the Korean people.

Korean Shamanism and Cultural Nationalism

Politics & Social Sciences

Hogarth, Hyun-key Kim

Politics & Government

The three stories gathered in this volume display Yi, Sang's inventive manipulation of autobiographical elements, a method which expands his intensely private narratives into broader meditations on love, life, and death. "The Wings," a dark allegory of infidelity and self-deception, probes the ambiguities of perception and language through an unreliable narrator who bears an uncanny resemblance to the author himself. "Encounters and Departures," a tale of ill-fated love revolving around erotic passion and physical illness as metaphors presents a female protagonist modelled on the woman who was, in real life, the author's muse and femme fatale. Similarly, in "Deathly Child," Yi, Sang offers a witty, incisive examination of sexual mores through a fictional reenactment of his ambivalent feelings toward the woman he married toward the end of his life.

The Wings

Yi, Sang

The Camellias

Kim, Yu-jeong

"With Her Oil Lamp On, That Night" is a fine example of Lim's short stories. Through the death of an innocent lad, it poignantly depicts the nature of the Korean War, putting its arbitrary division of enemy and ally into question. Written in poetic prose that makes the ironic contrast between the peaceful yet awesome beauty of nature and the homicidal necessity of the war more conspicuous, it artistically excels Lim's other better-known stories. With a small countryside train station as its setting, "Sapyong Station" examines various aspects of underprivileged life illuminated by the passengers waiting for a snow-delayed train. The passengers gathered at the station - farmers, street peddlers, a country girl turned to a bar-maid, a criminal just released from the prison, an expelled student - are themselves like the forgotten station bypassed by the express trains and lead a grim life under the shadow of the military regime and rapid industrialization. However, rather than questioning the social causes of this dire reality, the story leads the reader to dwell on the meaning of life itself without sentimentality.

With Her Oil Lamp On, That Night

Lim, Chul-Woo

The Wounded

Yi, Chongjun

The Rainy Spell

Yun, Heung-gil

A dwarf named Kim Bu-ri lives with his family in a poor neighborhood of Seoul. When the neighborhood is redeveloped by the government, Kim's house is demolished. Author Cho Se-hui writes about the tragedies the family members face through the points of view of the dwarf's three children. The work depicts the political oppression and economic contradictions of 1970s South Korea. 88 pages.

The Portable Library of Korean Literature Short Fiction 2 A Dwarf Launches a Little Ball

Cho, Se-hŭi

My Innocent Uncle

Ch'ae, Man-shik

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Books by Jimoondang Publishing Company