Search results for ""Author Sora Kim-Russell""

A retired wrestler struggles with amnesia and anxiety after he is invited to return to his home town for an event. Back in once-familiar surroundings, he wrestles to make sense of things as he is confronted by faces, scenes and smells recalled from a celebrated past.

Read more less

“Written in a beautifully rendered, nuanced language, Wolves is a window into a little-known world.” —Krys Lee - Author of How I Became a North Korean Sungtae’s short stories build a unique world through their consummate construction and firm roots in reality. With Mongolia as the physical background and through the perspectives of outsiders, Jeon’s imaginative tales mercilessly expose the hypocrisy and duality that lie within all of us. The stories address important issues including North-South Korean relations, migrant workers, capitalism in an era of neo-liberalism, and racially mixed families. Sora Kim-Russell, a Korean-American poet and translator originally from California, now lives and works in Seoul, South Korea.

Read more less

A vibrant and enchanting novel from one of Korea’s most celebrated writers. When 14-year-old Bugeye and his mother arrive at Flower Island — a vast landfill site on the outskirts of Seoul — they soon become part of the eclectic community of impoverished outsiders who make their living weeding recyclables from the rubbish. Then, one night, Bugeye notices mysterious lights dancing around the landfill … Could it be the island’s ancient spirits? Is his luck about to change? Familiar Things depicts a society on the edge of dizzying economic and social change. It is a haunting reminder to us all to be careful of what we throw away.

Read more less

Beauty Looks Down On Me is a collection of by turns sad and funny stories about the thwarted expectations of the young as they grow older. HeeKyung’s characters are misfits who by virtue of their bodies or their lack of social status are left to dream of momentous changes that will never come. Unsatisfied with work, with family, with friends, they lose themselves in diets, books, and blogs. Heekyung’s collection humorously but humanely depicts the loneliness and monotony found in many modern lives.

Read more less

In the evening of his life, a wealthy man begins to wonder if he might have missed the point. Park Minwoo is, by every measure, a success story. Born into poverty in a miserable neighbourhood of Seoul, he has ridden the wave of development in a rapidly modernising society. Now the director of a large architectural firm, his hard work and ambition have brought him triumph and satisfaction. But when his company is investigated for corruption, he’s forced to reconsider his role in the transformation of his country. At the same time, he receives an unexpected message from an old friend, Cha Soona, a woman that he had once loved, and then betrayed. As memories return unbidden, Minwoo recalls a world he thought had been left behind — a world he now understands that he has helped to destroy. In At Dusk, one of Korea's most renowned and respected authors continues his gentle yet urgent project of evaluating Korea’s past, and examining the things, and the people, that have been given up in a never-ending quest to move forward.

Read more less

From the Shirley Jackson Award–winning author of The Hole, a slow-burning thriller with a touch of horror and the uncanny A disappearance. A missing brother. A lawyer asking questions. And a vast forest in the mountains—the western woods—where the trees huddle close together emanating a crushing darkness and a chill dampness fills the air. The ranger, In-su Park, who lives nearby with his family, is a recovering alcoholic. He claims no knowledge of the man who disappeared, even though the missing man had worked as the ranger just before him. In the little village down the mountain, the shopkeepers will do the same and deny they ever saw or knew the man, though they’re less convincing; and his former supervisor at the Forestry Research Center, Professor Jin, dismisses his importance. But when an accident and a death derail the investigation and someone attempts to break into his office, In-su Park finds himself conducting his own inquiry into the goings-on deep in the heart of the western woods—spurred by the mysterious words he discovers on a piece of paper beneath his desk: “In the forest the owl cries.”The Owl Cries is a treat for fans of Stephen King, David Lynch, and the nightmare dystopias of Franz Kafka.

Read more less