[KS] There a Petal Silently Falls

[Theodore Hughes]

Dear list members,

For anyone who might be in the New York City area in early May, the  
Korea Society is holding a book launch for Ch'oe Yun's short story  
collection There a Petal Silently Falls: Three Stories by Ch'oe Yun,  
translated by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton. Ch'oe Yun and the translators  
will speak at the book launch on May 9. There a Petal Silently Falls  
is the first single-authored collection of stories by a Korean writer  
published by Columbia University Press. For more
information on the upcoming event, please visit  
http://www.koreasociety.org/contemporary_issues/contemporary_issues/book_cafe_there_a_petal_silently_falls.html and/or see the descriptions of the text  
below.

Sincerely,

Ted Hughes

 From Publishers Weekly:

There a Petal Silently Falls: Three Stories by Ch'oe Yun Ch'oe Yun,  
trans. from the Korean by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton. Columbia Univ.,  
$24.50 (208p) ISBN 978-0-231-14296-0

Stories within stories unfold in the title novella: a brother  
?disappears,? a mother grieves, a daughter witnesses her mother's  
death; consequent traumatic events leave the daughter  
self-destructive. The novella is haunting, painful and affirming, full  
of illusions and hallucinations while rooted in the graphically  
physical. In ?Whisper Yet,? a woman's thoughts about her daughter  
alternate with a story from her own childhood that she's never told  
anyone before, a device through which three generations and two Koreas  
coexist. In ?The Thirteen-Scent Flower,? the world is one that slides  
deftly from fable to satire as a truck driver who dreams of becoming  
?a denizen of the Arctic? crosses paths with a suicidal teenage girl  
with a preternaturally green thumb. Everything about Yun's work is  
brilliant. (May)

 From Columbia University Press:

There a Petal Silently Falls: Three Stories by Ch'oe Yun, translated
by Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton

Ch'oe Yun is a Korean author known for her breathtaking versatility,
subversion of authority, and bold exploration of the inner life.
Readers celebrate her creative play with fantasy and admire her deep
engagement with trauma, history, and the vagaries of remembrance.

In this collection's title work, There a Petal Silently Falls, Ch'oe
explores both the genesis and the aftershocks of historical outrages
such as the Kwangju Massacre of 1980, in which a reported 2,000
civilians were killed for protesting government military rule. The
novella follows the wanderings of a girl traumatized by her mother's
murder and strikes home the injustice of state-sanctioned violence
against men and especially women. "Whisper Yet" illuminates the harsh
treatment of leftist intellectuals during the years of national
division, at the same time offering the hope of reconciliation between
ideological enemies. The third story, "The Thirteen-Scent Flower,"
satirizes consumerism and academic rivalries by focusing on a young
man and woman who engender an exotic flower that is coveted far and
wide for its various fragrances.

Elegantly crafted and quietly moving, Ch'oe Yun's stories are among
the most incisive portrayals of the psychological and spiritual
reality of post-World War II Korea. Her fiction, which began to appear
in the late 1980s, represents a turn toward a more experimental,
deconstructionist, and postmodern Korean style of writing, and offers
a new focus on the role of gender in the making of Korean history.