Author Bio 작가 소개
Bae Suah (born 1965) is a South Korean writer and translator.1. Life Bae was born in Seoul and graduated from Ewha Womans University with a degree in Chemistry. She made her literary debut in 1993, publishing “Cheongubaekpalsibpalnyeonui eoduunbang” (천구백팔십팔년의 어두운 방 A Dark Room in 1988) in the quarterly Fiction and Philosophy. At the time, she was a government employee working behind the embarkation/disembarkation desk at Gimpo Airport. Since then, she has published 13 novels including Allyeojiji aneun bamgwa haru (알려지지 않은 밤과 하루 Untold Night and Day), 11 collections of short stories and novellas including Pureun sagwaga inneun gukdo (푸른 사과가 있는 국도 Highway with Green Apples) and Cheolsu (철수 Nowhere to Be Found), and a number of essay collections. In 2004, she began translating German literature into Korean, and has since published around 30 works including those of Hesse, Kafka, W. G. Sebald, and Peter Handke. She has also translated the works of Fernando Pessoa and Clarice Lispector, working from the German translations.2. Writing Bae is known for her use of abrupt shifts in tense and perspective, sensitive yet straightforward expressions, and seemingly non sequitur sentences to unsettle and distance her readers. Bae’s works offer neither the reassurance of moral conventions upheld, nor the consolation of adversities rendered meaningful. Most of her characters harbor traumatic memories from which they may never fully emerge, and their families, shown to be in various stages of disintegration, only add to the sense of loneliness and gloom dominating their lives. A conversation between friends shatters the idealized vision of love; verbal abuse constitutes a family interaction; and masochistic self-loathing fills internal monologues. Her early novels such as Raepsodi in beullu (랩소디 인 블루 Rhapsody in Blue) and Naneun ije niga jigyeowo (나는 이제 니가 지겨워 I’m Sick of You Now) feature such protagonists who meander along the margins of society. Eseiseuteuui chaeksang (에세이스트의 책상 A Greater Music) is the novel that represents the turning point in Bae Suah’s literature. Aside from the main character’s sojourn in Berlin and studying a foreign language, the book has no real story line and goes back and forth between the main character’s daily life and memories of a character named “M”. The protagonist house-sits her friend’s dog, reads books, listens to music, and kills time by going on walks. The only thing that seems to satisfy her is listening to music, which makes up a significant part of the novel. In this work, the desire to write appears as the will to endure alienation and deprivation and to justify voluntary isolation. Bae's ninth collection of short stories, Baemgwa mul (뱀과 물 Snake and Water), tells the stories of young girls who encounter death or loss in a dream-like fantasy setting. Though the unique difficulty of Bae’s works is heightened with this work, the author's message is conveyed throughout the novel via repeated characters, images, and expressions. The collection was praised for showing a turning point in the author's awareness and acceptance that our current being is comprised of the death that follows from every moment in the past.
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