[KS] Park Wan-So

[Stephen Epstein]

Dear Young-Key and colleagues,

Yesterday evening I visited Pak Wan-so's 빈소 with my wife and daughter to pay our respects, as we'd had the privilege of meeting her on several occasions. As Young-Key writes, she enriched the world with her literature and a beautiful character full of humanity. Her work has been a great source of pleasure to me both as a reader and a translator, and I've noticed regularly over the years how positively my students have responded to her work.

Although I don't usually invoke the pathetic fallacy, it did seem that nature too was showing its grief as a cold, grey day gave way to blizzard conditions, creating turmoil around the country and turning what should have been a 45 minute trip for us back to Seoul from Icheon, where we were visiting friends, into a 4.5 hour ordeal. But the time spent sitting in traffic in an intense snowstorm also gave me opportunity to reflect on Pak Wan-so's work and her life and to consider how insignificant our "ordeal" in getting back to Seoul was in comparison to the upheavals she experienced and which she wrote about with such feeling and insight. I thought, above all, of the harrowing last chapter of Who Ate Up All the Shinga, where she describes her attempted flight from Seoul with her family as North Korea recaptured the city during the Korean War and the hardships they went through. Our own troubles trying to get to the hospital also involved a lost cell phone and an unreliable GPS navigator, and I was reminded of how she, as much as any South Korean author here, has conveyed the disorienting and ambiguous effects of social and technological change and skewered the fetishization of material goods. All of this offered humbling food for thought, even as she had gone. I hope that our perseverance in finally making it there to pay our respects can at least partially reflect how much she meant to us.

Ms. Pak was a literary giant, but more importantly she was an exceptional human being. The outpouring of tributes here has been quite remarkable, more than I've seen for any other literary figure. She clearly struck a chord with a number of people and made an impact on their lives,  and she will be (is already) deeply missed.

Stephen
________________________________
From: koreanstudies-bounces at koreaweb.ws [koreanstudies-bounces at koreaweb.ws] On Behalf Of Young-Key Kim-Renaud [kimrenau at gwu.edu]
Sent: Sunday, January 23, 2011 9:41 AM
To: Brother Anthony; Korean Studies Discussion List
Cc: Hoagy Kim; Bonggi Kim; Hyun-key Kim Hogarth; hanmahlsook
Subject: Re: [KS] Park Wan-So

Dear Brother Anthony (and colleagues),

Thank you for letting us know the sad news. This is a terrible loss and such a surprise, too. I thought she was in good health and expected her to continue to be productive for many more years. Pak Wan-so was a close classmate of my aunt, Han Mahlsook, and at first knew my mother,Hahn Moo-Sook, as her friend's sister before she began her writing career. My mother and Pak formed a special bond through their shared tragic experience of losing a promising young son. During a colloquium commemorating Hahn Moo-Sook at GW, Pak said Hahn was one of the people that she felt very intensely about and wanted to create a work with a character modeled after her. Alas, that will never be done.

I am comforted by the fact that Pak has joined her son. The two mothers and their sons must certainly be enjoying the reunion in the place where they can never be separated again.

Pak Wan-so enriched this world with her jewel-like literature and with her own beautiful character full of humanity. May she enjoy eternal peace and may her legacy shine through the ages!

With deep sorrow,

Young-Key

Young-Key Kim-Renaud, Ph.D.
Chair, Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures
Professor of Korean Language and Culture and International Affairs
The George Washington University
801 22nd Street, N.W. (Academic Center, Rome Hall 452)
Washington, DC 20052
E-mail: kimrenau at gwu.edu<mailto:kimrenau at gwu.edu>
http://home.gwu.edu/~kimrenau
http://myprofile.cos.com/kimreny76
Tel: (O) 202-994-7107
Fax: (O) 202-994-1512

2011/1/22 Brother Anthony <ansonjae at sogang.ac.kr<mailto:ansonjae at sogang.ac.kr>>
Some members of the list might wish to know that the senior novelist Park Wan-So died today (Saturday) aged 80.

Brother Anthony
Sogang University, Seoul
http://hompi.sogang.ac.kr/anthony/