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English(English) Article

Alienation Without Pity: No One Writes Back by Jang Eun-jin | LIST

About the Article

Article
http://list.or.kr/node/1068
Journal
list_Books from Korea
Issued Date
-
Page
-
Language
English(English)
Country
SOUTH KOREA
City
Seoul
Book
No One Writes Back
Writer
Jang Eun-Jin
Translator
Jung Yewon

About the Author

  • Jang Eun-Jin
  • Birth : 1976 ~ -
  • Occupation : Novelist
  • First Name : Eun-Jin
  • Family Name : Jang
  • Korean Name : 장은진
  • ISNI : 0000000114536699
  • Works : 5
Descriptions - 1 Languages
  • English(English)

Alienation Without Pity: No One Writes Back by Jang Eun-jin   By Philip Gowman on Nov 16 2014 11:12:26 Vol.24 Summer 2014   No One Writes Back Jang Eun-jin Jung Yewon Illinois Dalkey Archive Press 2013 199pp. ISBN 9781564789600 I can’t remember having cried at the end of a novel before, particularly one in which nothing much happens. No One Writes Back is a beautiful gem that works its slow magic on you over the course of 152 numbered paragraphs of which the shortest is only three words, at least in the English translation. The blurb on the back of the book rather undersells it, pitching Jang’s writing as “…this sly update of the picaresque novel.” I had to look up what a picaresque novel was, and still have no idea why it might need a sly update. This novel can in fact easily stand on its own without being put in a particular literary context. And unusually for many Korean novels and short stories that have made it into an English translation, No One Writes Back can speak to a world audience without the need for a Korean primer. There are only two terms, White Day and Chuseok, that might lead a person with limited contact with Korean culture to head for a search engine, but both words and their significance are perfectly well explained on Wikipedia, and maybe these days do not need a footnote anyway. Otherwise, this poignant novel, in which nothing much happens but which talks about human communication and family relationships, speaks to people regardless of language and nationality. It is a fine choice to be included in Dalkey Archive’s first set of translations in their Library of Korean Literature. It deserves to stand well on its own as a novel, not as something to be studied as world literature.     Share. Twitter Face

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