The Future of Silence: Fiction by Korean Women
These nine stories span half a century of contemporary writing in Korea (1970s–2010s), bringing together some of the most famous twentieth-century women writers with a new generation of young, bold voices. Their work explores a world not often seen in the West, taking us into the homes, families, lives and psyches of Korean women, men, and children.
In the earliest of the stories, Pak Wan-so, considered the elder stateswoman of contemporary Korean fiction, opens the door into two "Identical Apartments" where sisters-in-law, bound as much by competition as love, struggle to live with their noisy, extended families. O Chong-hui, who has been compared to Joyce Carol Oates and Alice Munro, examines a day in the life of a woman after she is released from a mental institution, while younger writers, such as Kim Sagwa, Han Yujoo and Ch'on Un-yong explore violence, biracial childhood, and literary experimentation. These stories will sometimes disturb and sometimes delight, as they illuminate complex issues in Korean life and literature.
Internationally acclaimed translators Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton have won several awards and fellowships for the numerous works of Korean literature they have translated into English.
Featuring these authors and stories:
Pak Wan-so: "Identical Apartments" Kim Chi-won: "Almaden" So Yong-un: "Dear Distant Love" O Chong-hui: "Wayfarer" Kong Son-ok: "The Flowering of Our Lives" Kim Ae-ran: "The Future of Silence" Han Yujoo: "I Am the Scribe—Or Am I" Kim Sagwa: "Today Is One of Those The-More-You-Move-the-Stranger-It-Gets Days, and It's Simply Amazing" Ch'on Un-yong: "Ali Skips Rope"
Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton are the translators of numerous volumes of modern Korean fiction, including the award-winning women’s anthology Words of Farewell: Stories by Korean Women Writers (Seal Press, 1989), and with Marshall R. Pihl, Land of Exile: Contemporary Korean Fiction, rev. and exp. ed. (M.E. Sharpe, 2007). Their most recent translations are River of Fire: Stories by O Chonghui (Columbia University Press, 2012) and How in Heaven’s Name: A Novel of World War II by Cho Chongnae (MerwinAsia 2012). The Fultons have received several awards and fellowships for their translations, including a National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellowship, the first ever given for a translation from Korean; and a residency at the Banff International Literary Translation Centre, the first ever awarded to translators from any Asian language. Bruce Fulton is the inaugural holder of the Young-Bin Min Chair in Korean Literature and Literary Translation, Department of Asian Studies, University of British Columbia. He is co-editor, with Youngmin Kwon, of Modern Korean Fiction: An Anthology (Columbia University Press, 2005) and editor of Waxen Wings: The Acta Koreana Anthology of Short Fiction From Korea (Koryo Press, 2011).
