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The white and red sails touching the sky beyond the watery horizon seemed lost and alone like a pine tree clinging to a windy cliff. The waves relentlessly crash against the rocks. ÌýAgain and again ... like humanity’s very struggle for survival ...

But this crop that the farmer had devoted their life to would be stolen come autumn and there would be a spoonful of millet for the family. ÌýThey were like cows at a ranch. ÌýLike sheep, like pigs. ÌýThey lived to be exploited by the richer class. ÌýThey lived to provide fur, milk and meat. ÌýÌý
from the story Break the Strings

The recently founded publisher Honford Star's stated mission is to publish the best literature from East Asia, be it classic or contemporary. We believe there are many important East Asian authors and books yet to be read by English-language readers, so we aim to make these works as accessible as possible. By working with talented translators and exciting local artists (and paying everyone fairly), we hope to see more bookshelves containing beautiful editions of the East Asian literature we love.

The talented translator here is Anton Hur (), an exciting new addition to the Korean-to-English translation scene, and who also translated Shin Kyung-Sook's The Court Dancer published this year. See for an interview with him.

And as the publisher's mission statement implies, great care is also taken on the cover illustration, here a striking work commissioned from the exciting Korean artist Dal Sang (see for more of her work.)

The book itself is a collection of short fiction by 강경� (Kang Kyeong-ae), a Korean female author active in the 1930s. The title story The Underground Village was previously available in another translation - although Anton Hur's version breathes new life into the tale - but much of the work was previously unavailable to the English speaker.

The book comes with a helpful introduction from Lee Sang-Kyung and a passionate translator's commentary from Anton Hur which begins:

I came to translate Kang Kyeong-ae partly because she reminded me of my mother: fierce, independent, empathetic and descended from people in what is now North Korea. Ìý

The introduction explains the uniqueness of Kang's writing, as, unlike the main literary scene centered in Seoul, she lived in and wrote about the Jindao area in Manchuria, China, the nexus of an armed struggle to overthrow Japanese colonial rule.

However, her focus is not on politics at a national level, but much more the effect of the times on the poor, particularly (but certainly not exclusively) women, exploited as much by their fellow Korean landowners as by the colonial powers.

The language used by Kang and successfully conveyed by Anton Hur is highly tactile (although he notes the much richer variety of onomatopoeia in Korean and the inability of English to successfully render this) and she vividly portrays the sheer struggle for survival, the sacrifices made by those supporting the cause of independence but often simply trying to keep their families alive through another poor harvest, and, it must be said, stirs in some slightly didactic Marxist class consciousness. As Hur notes in his afterword:

Her stories are so simple in plot and her endings so perfunctory that the appeal for her in writing these sketches must have lain in characterization and description.

And, of course, in the constant urging to wake up, smell the class struggle and do something about it: Why do you let other people push you around. Ìý

Overall, a powerful and vividly rendered collection and an important addition to the canon of Korean literature available in English. As a reader, I am thankful to Anton Hur for his heart-felt translation, English Pen for their support and to Honford Star for making this book possible.

See also Books and Bao for another review: