Margins
Divorce book cover
Divorce
2019
First Published
3.95
Average Rating
40
Number of Pages

Part of Series

A poet reflects on the lives of the different generations of women around her as she contemplates her own divorce from a socially-engaged photographer; her feelings are complicated by the ethics of public/private, art/life divisions, as well as the country’s contemporary history. The story reveals the raw complexity of gender dynamics in a society still hobbled by the demands forced on its people through war and ideology and rapid modernization; it is a good reminder of the different feminisms that do and must exist. From the Yeoyu collection, a selection of eight short stories translated from Korean, in collaboration with publisher-activist and translation trailblazer, Deborah Smith, and featuring writers such as Han Kang and Bae Suah, among others less familiar to an English-speaking audience. ​여유, Yeoyu, means something like 'scope' and/or 'relaxed' in English; scope to be yourself, to follow your own interests. In some ways it means the opposite of being constrained by convention, more to be unbounded in such a way. In a sense, it means to be oneself but with enough 'left over' — for others, maybe. It is intended to capture the diverse range of themes and styles the series, and Korean literature far more widely, has to offer the curious reader and also to say something figurative and fun about the act and process of translation.

Avg Rating
3.95
Number of Ratings
92
5 STARS
20%
4 STARS
59%
3 STARS
18%
2 STARS
3%
1 STARS
0%
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Author

Kim Soom
Author · 2 books
김숨 (Kim Soom) was born in 1974, and debuted as a writer when her stories were selected for publications by Daejeon Ilbo in 1997 and Munhakdongne in 1998. A prolific writer, she has published numerous short story collections and novels to date, including the most recent collection Your Saviour, and the novels One Person, L's Sneakers, and The Flowing Letter. She is the recipient of the Hyundae Munhak Prize, the Daesan Literature Prize, Yi Sang Prize, and Dongri Literature Prize.
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