[KS] Park Wan-So

[Young-Key Kim-Renaud]

Hi Stephen,

That was a very moving tribute and a vivid description of the current mood
in Korea, where I wish I were, too. Thank you also for your own contribution
to making Pak Wan-so's literature known to the world! My students like her,
too!

Yours,
YK

2011/1/23 Stephen Epstein <Stephen.Epstein at vuw.ac.nz>

> 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/
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://koreanstudies.com/pipermail/koreanstudies_koreanstudies.com/attachments/20110124/a0a7f900/attachment.html>