Press for I'll Be Right There
Shin writes about longing and loneliness with the controlled passion one finds in classic Russian literature. Her characters rarely raise their voices. Instead, they tell stories, they walk and eat together. Above all, they remember.
Shin’s is the voice of a generation that perhaps expended its passion too young, and Sora Kim-Russell’s translation does a fine job of re-creating the quiet remains, which could easily be drowned out by the noise of the turbulent times Shin chooses to describe in I’ll Be Right There .
I’LL BE RIGHT THERE tells the evocative story of youth trying to find their place in the world. Shin’s contemplative narrative, expressed through letters, diaries, interior monologues and dialogue, captures both the preciousness of life and a constant intermingling sorrow.
Press for Familiar Things
Hwang observes what is most familiar to us, the mammoth accumulations of waste in our everyday lives, “the hell that we have created”. He challenges us to look back and reevaluate the cost of modernisation, and see what and whom we have left behind.
Sora Kim-Russell’s translation moves gracefully between gritty, whiffy realism and folk-tale spookiness. www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21723804-two-new-novels-show-murkier-corners-success-story-south-korea-youve-never