Book Reviews1

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  [Featured Review] On the Eve of the Uprising

  Hwang Jungeun debuted in the mid-aughts when South Korean literature was undergoing a profound change. Influenced by postmodernism, younger writers were jettisoning conventional ways of making fiction feel realistic. InPak Min-gyuandHye-young Pyun’s fiction, a video game raccoon came to life in a bathhouse, and ghoulish spirits loomed larger than living characters. Korean writers were also grappling with social upheaval more specific to the homeland in the long wake of the Asian Financial Crisis: the IMF bailout, neoliberal restructuring, and new forms of state violence in the post-authoritarian era. And as the government ramped up its efforts to promote Korean literature abroad, the postmillennial generation found itself balancing cosmopolitan aspirations with attention to local conditions. Hwang’s first novel,One Hundred Shadows(tr. Yewon Jung, 2010), admirably met these challenges by fusing fanciful fabulism with the everyday conditions of marginalized lives. The story begins with a woman who is chasing her own shadow into the woods. The novel also contains lovingly detailed descriptions of a semi-derelict electronics market facing demolition.One Hundred Shadowswas written in response to the Yongsan tragedy, in which residents occupied a building to protest plans to demolish and gentrify the district. The clash with the police led to six deaths and many more injuries. The incident became a defining example of how, even after the authoritarian era had ended, coercive power was being deployed to further enrich the economic elites. dd’s Umbrella, which is Hwang’s seventh collection of fiction—comprising two novellas—also explores marginalization and dislocation in the face of redevelopment, but with an emphasis on the lives of sexual minorities. It notably lacks any fabulist conceit. The book was a response to another watershed event, tracing the tumultuous days leading up to the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye. In the first novella, titled “d,” the eponymous protagonist mourns the passing of their partner dd from a traffic accident. “d” begins with how they became a couple: During a storm, while still students, d lent dd an umbrella. At a reunion years later, dd lent d their umbrella. Through this ritual of reciprocity, their love was solidified. While d’s loss is profound, grief enlivens them to social energies. Their illiterate landlord shares harrowing stories of terror, violence, and sorrow from the Korean War. d tries first to get rid of dd’s vinyl collection, then honors their memory by listening to the records on full blast. The second novella’s title “There is Nothing That Needs to Be Said” alludes to Osip Mandelstam’s poem of the same name, which questions the meaning of speech under tyranny. It is narrated by Kim Soyoung and set on the day the Constitutional Court will rule on the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye in 2016. We are shown intimate glimpses of Soyoung and their partner Sookyung’s relationship, from the latter’s schooldays as a budding track star to their fateful reunion against the backdrop of the 1996 August Yonsei University incident, when students clashed with riot police to protest the government’s prohibition of their activities. The novella also doubles as a bibliophile’s love letter. Hwang nests her reflections on the materiality of books within a chapter largely about protest, thereby foregrounding the political possibilities inherent in writing and reading. The novella also unfolds Soyoung’s relationship with sister Sori and nephew Jung Jinwon. It is through the character of young Jinwon, who “adores pink” but parrots his teacher’s statement that “girls can’t marry girls,” that Hwang poses the question of how this momentous day will be remembered. Some readers may find the novel’s overall mood of melancholy and dread stifling. But Hwang also highlights possibilities of regeneration that won’t collapse into fantasies of fascist renewal. The Roland Barthes quote, “to live . . . is to receive theformsof life of the sentences that preexist us,” appears twice in the novel—likely a commentary on Marx’s critique of how capitalism has shaped our instrumentalist approach to life. Under capitalism, life is reduced to a way of maintaining one’s life. But the Barthes quote is suggesting that what also crucially sustains us are words (and LPs and umbrellas), which act as transformative agents of reciprocity and revitalization. Translation also lends newformto our lives. e. yaewon, who has emerged as a prolific and judicious practitioner of the craft, renders Hwang’s style in a register quiet yet direct, contemplative yet of the heart, and immersive yet defamiliarized.dd’s Umbrellaposes an unusual challenge with its non-binary pronouns and sections that insist on gender neutrality—easier to handle in Korean. Some may find the repetition of the characters’ full names stilted. The effect is somewhat strange in Korean too, but intentional; Soyoung is unsettling our hierarchical ideas about family relations by referring to their father or nephew by their legal name. In the first novella, the third-person narrative, as it slips into another character’s perspective, calls for a soft touch (“Listen, d heard one of the women say, the first time I saw people being slaughtered was in June of 1950 . . . I opened up the blanket and saw the child’s scalp was scorched”). Such elegiac moments are reminiscent of works by W. G. Sebald and Teju Cole in the best way, allowing the reader to slip dreamily between everyday experiences and historical trauma. When I was in the fifth grade, a teacher once lowered her voice because the class had gotten too loud. As her voice grew quieter, so did the kids, whose attention she now commanded. Something similar happens to the reader immersed in e. yaewon and Hwang Jungeun’s prose. Its unassuming poise pulls you from the din of our hyperconnected present, not only for refuge or escape but for vital forms of life that are more than just means to life.

  2026-02-09

  by Jae Won Edward Chung

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  Women in translation month: August 2024

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Related Resources13 See More

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  English(English) Document

  For the Weak, the Frail, and the Precarious: dd’s Umbrella by Hwang Jungeun
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  KLN Vol. 55 Special Section Excerpt from Nameless by Hwang Jungeun
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  Caregiving, Family, and the Days of Hope and Disappointment