A Most Ambiguous Sunday and Other Stories

A Most Ambiguous Sunday and Other Stories PDF Author: Jung Young-moon
Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing
ISBN: 1564789519
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
Considered an eccentric in the traditional Korean literary world, Jung Young-moon's short stories have nonetheless won numerous readers both in Korea and abroad, most often drawing comparisons to Kafka. Adopting strange, warped, unstable characters and drawing heavily on the literature of the absurd, Jung's stories nonetheless do not wallow in darkness, despair, or negativity. Instead, we find a world in which the bizarre and terrifying are often put to comic use, even in direst of situations, and point toward a sort of redemption to be found precisely in the "weirdest" and most unsettling parts of life . . .

A Most Ambiguous Sunday and Other Stories

A Most Ambiguous Sunday and Other Stories PDF Author: Jung Young-moon
Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing
ISBN: 1564789519
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Get Book Here

Book Description
Considered an eccentric in the traditional Korean literary world, Jung Young-moon's short stories have nonetheless won numerous readers both in Korea and abroad, most often drawing comparisons to Kafka. Adopting strange, warped, unstable characters and drawing heavily on the literature of the absurd, Jung's stories nonetheless do not wallow in darkness, despair, or negativity. Instead, we find a world in which the bizarre and terrifying are often put to comic use, even in direst of situations, and point toward a sort of redemption to be found precisely in the "weirdest" and most unsettling parts of life . . .

Vaseline Buddha

Vaseline Buddha PDF Author: Jung Young Moon
Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing
ISBN: 1941920357
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
"If someone in the future asks in frustration, 'What has Korean literature been up to?' we can quietly hand them Vaseline Buddha."—Pak Mingyu "One enters into a kind of serenity when we delve into this book. I find that eccentrics like Jung are needed in literature."—Achim Stanislawski Our sleepless narrator thwarts a would-be thief outside his moonlit window, then delves into his subconscious imagination to explore the very nature of reality. Jung Young Moon, 2005 alum of Iowa's International Writing Program, is one of South Korea's most award-winning, eccentric, and handsome authors, often compared to Kafka and Beckett.

Koreana - Spring 2014 (English)

Koreana - Spring 2014 (English) PDF Author: The Korea Foundation
Publisher: 한국국제교류재단
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
Koreana is a full-color quarterly on Korean culture and arts, including traditional heritage as well as modern and contemporary activities. Each issue includes in-depth coverage of a selected theme, followed by an array of articles on artists and artisans, historic and cultural landmarks, natural attractions, reviews of stage performances and exhibitions, literary pieces, and today’s lifestyles. Published since 1987, the magazine can also be accessed at (www.koreana.or.kr).

Stingray

Stingray PDF Author: Kim Joo-Young
Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing
ISBN: 1564789934
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 137

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Book Description
Hailed by critics, Stingray has been described by its author as "a critical biography of my loving mother." With his father having abandoned his family for another woman, Se-young and his mother are forced to subsist on their own in the harsh environment of a small Korean farming village in the 1950s. Determined to wait for her husband's return, Se-young's mother hangs a dried stingray on the kitchen doorjamb; to her, it's a reminder of the fact that she still has a husband, and that she must behave as a married woman would, despite all. Also, she claims, when the family is reunited, the fish will be their first, celebratory meal together. But when a beggar girl, Sam-rae, sneaks into their house during a blizzard, the first thing she does is eat the stingray, and what follows is a struggle, at once sentimental and ideological, for the soul of the household.

My Son's Girlfriend

My Son's Girlfriend PDF Author: Jung Mi Kyung
Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing
ISBN: 1564789454
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
At once an ironic portrayal of contemporary Korea and an intimate exploration of heartache, alienation, and nostalgia, this collection of seven short stories has earned the author widespread critical acclaim. With empathy and an overarching melancholy that is at times tinged with sarcasm but always deeply meaningful, Jung explores the ambition and chaos of urban life, the lives of the lost and damaged souls it creates, and the subtle shades of love found between them.

At Least We Can Apologize

At Least We Can Apologize PDF Author: Lee Ki-ho
Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing
ISBN: 1564789543
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 186

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Book Description
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.

Seven Samurai Swept Away in a River

Seven Samurai Swept Away in a River PDF Author: Jung Young Moon
Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing
ISBN: 1941920861
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 76

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Book Description
In his inimitable, recursive, meditative style that reads like a comedic zen koan but contains universes, Seven Samurai Swept Away in a River recounts Korean cult writer's Jung Young Moon’s time spent at an artist’s and writers residency in small-town Texas. In an attempt to understand what a “true Texan should know,” the author reflects on his outsider experiences in this most unique of places, learning to two-step, musing on cowboy hats and cowboy churches, blending his observations with a meditative rumination on the history of Texas and the events that shaped the state, from the first settlers to Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald. All the while, the author is asking what a novel is and must be, while accompanied by a fictional cast of seven samurai who the author invents and carries with him, silent companions in a pantomime of existential theater. Jung blends fact with imagination, humor with reflection, and meaning with meaninglessness, as his meanderings become an absorbing, engaging, quintessential novel of ideas.

The Soil

The Soil PDF Author: Yi Kwang-su
Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing
ISBN: 1564789462
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 502

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Book Description
A major, never before translated novel by the author of Mujông / The Heartless—often called the first modern Korean novel—The Soil tells the story of an idealist dedicating his life to helping the inhabitants of the rural community in which he was raised. Striving to influence the poor farmers of the time to improve their lots, become self-reliant, and thus indirectly change the reality of colonial life on the Korean peninsula, The Soil was vitally important to the social movements of the time, echoing the effects and reception of such English-language novels as Upton Sinclair's The Jungle.

Lonesome You

Lonesome You PDF Author: Park Wan-suh
Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing
ISBN: 1564789446
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
Well before her death in 2011, Park Wan-Suh had established herself as a canonical figure in Korean literature. Her work—often based upon her own personal experiences, and showing keen insight into divisive social issues from the Korean partition to the position of women in Korean society—has touched readers for over forty years. In this collection, meditations upon life in old age come to the fore—at its best, accompanied by great beauty and compassion; at its worst by a cynicism that nonetheless turns a bitter smile upon the changing world.

House with a Sunken Courtyard

House with a Sunken Courtyard PDF Author: Kim Won-il
Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing
ISBN: 1564789489
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
An occasionally terrifying and always vivid portrayal of what it was like to live as a refugee immediately after the end of the Korean War. This novel is based on the author's own experience in his early teens in Daegu, in 1954, and depicts six families that survive the hard times together in the same house, weathering the tiny conflicts of interest and rivalries that spring up in such close quarters, but nonetheless offering one another sympathy and encouragement as fellow sufferers of the same national misfortune: brothers and sisters in privation.