Bi-lingual Modern series features bilingual (Korean-English) editions of texts by the most interesting authors from South Korea, which make up the modern canon of the country’s literature. The editors emphasize that the selection of the best stories is crucial for them – but everything in these books is enjoyable: careful editing, aesthetics or an interesting study in the form of a commentary/essay offered after the main text.
Oh Jung-hee is an author who has already wowed us with her short story collection River of Fire and Other Stories. Chinatown, also translated by two outstanding translators of Korean literature, Bruce and Juchan Fulton, is one of her most famous works. The story – as you learn from the attached essay – is strongly autobiographical. It is a story of a large family from the social sphere, who comes from the countryside to the city. The story takes place in the 1950s, just after the Korean War. The guide is a resourceful nine-year-old girl. It is through her eyes that you watch the lives of younger and older residents of the Chinatown area in Incheon (the author’s family moved there at the same time, also with many children, when Jung-hee herself was several years old.)
Chinatown is an example of a perfect short story, in which seemingly little happens, but it is bursting with everyday events; fascinating characters that appear only for a moment; barely outlined but intriguing episodes. Oh Jung-hee recorded a fragment of a certain time and place on the pages of the book. And the readers can even now have a look inside and discover the Korean Chinatown community.
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