Details

ISBN-10: 0231160674
ISBN-13: 9780231160674
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Publish Date: 08/15/2016
Dimensions: 7.70" L, 5.10" W, 0.70" H

River of Fire and Other Stories

Translator: Bruce Fulton
Translator: Ju-Chan Fulton

Paperback

Price: $23.00

Overview

O Chonghui crafts historically-rooted yet timeless tales imagining core human experiences from a female point of view. Since her debut in 1968, she has formed a powerful challenge to the patriarchal literary establishment in Korea, and her work has invited rich comparisons with the achievements of Joyce Carol Oates, Alice Munro, and Virginia Woolf.

These nine stories range from O Chonghui’s first published work, in 1968, to one of her last publications, in 1994. Her early stories are compact, often chilling accounts of family dysfunction, reflecting the decline of traditional, agrarian economics and the rise of urban, industrial living. Later stories are more expansive, weaving eloquent, occasionally wistful reflections on lost love and tradition together with provocative explorations of sexuality and gender. O Chonghui makes use of flashbacks, interior monologues, and stream-of-consciousness in her narratives, developing themes of abandonment and loneliness in a carefully cultivated, dispassionate tone.

O Chonghui’s narrators stand in for the average individual, struggling to cope with emotional rootlessness and a yearning for permanence in family and society. Arguably the first female Korean fiction writer to follow Woolf’s dictum to do away with the egoless, self-sacrificing “angel in the house,” O Chonghui is a crucial figure in the history of modern Korean literature, one of the most astute observers of Korean society and the place of tradition within it.

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Reviews
River of Fire and Other Stories tracks the career of one of South Korea's most consummate writers, subtly suggesting the violent undertones of life under military dictatorship and the malaise of urban life, and coming to a close with a moving meditation upon aging. The themes here are universal, yet their expression is unique to the controlled precision and delicate interior description that are so characteristic of O Chonghui's style. A highly enjoyable read.–Janet Poole, University of Toronto
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Details

ISBN-10: 0231160674
ISBN-13: 9780231160674
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Publish Date: 08/15/2016
Dimensions: 7.70" L, 5.10" W, 0.70" H
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