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Secrets the Woods Tell: They Went to the Forest in the West by Pyun Hye-Young scrap

by Yang Yun-euigo link October 26, 2014

Author Bio 작가 소개

편혜영

Pyun Hye-young

Pyun Hye-young completed her BA in creative writing and MA in Korean literature from Hanyang University. Her novel The Hole was the winner of the 2017 Shirley Jackson Award, and City of Ash and Red was an NPR Great Read. Her works in English include Evening Proposal (Dalkey Archive, 2016), The Hole (Arcade Publishing, 2017), City of Ash and Red (Arcade Publishing, 2018), and The Law of Lines (Arcade Publishing, 2020). Her short stories have been published in the New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, and Words Without Borders. She currently teaches creative writing at Myongji University.

They Went to the Forest in the West is a story about people who walked into a labyrinth symbolized by a forest. One day, Yi Gyeong-in, a forest manager, disappears into the forest and his younger brother Yi Ha-in, who is a lawyer, begins to search for him. As he follows Gyeong-in’s steps, he discovers that his brother’s successor, villagers, and all the employees at the forestry research center deny Gyeong-in’s existence completely. However, by doing so, they end up exposing a secret that exists between them.

Around this time, Yi Ha-in dies of a hit and run accident. While part one consists mainly of the search for the missing brother, part two and three show how the search is postponed indefinitely. This is because the truth of the event is wrapped in mystery and circumstances take place where the characters cannot be sure of their actions.

The person at the center of this uncertainty is Yi Gyeong-in’s successor and the main character of the novel, Park In-su. He is an alcoholic who has been cast out by society and an incompetent father cut off by his family. As his addiction gets worse working at the forest and as he begins to hear things, his family loses faith in him and leaves him. In-su trembles in fear because of the unknown noise that seems to come from the forest. The secret of the forest seems to be unveiled when it is revealed that Mr. Jin at the research center and his retired friends have been carrying out large-scale illegal lumbering.

However, one secret leads to a bigger secret, with the forest sealing the secret at the end. 

Writer 필자 소개

Yang Yun-eui

Yang Yun-eui

Yang Yun-eui began her career in criticism after winning the 2006 Joongang New Literature Prize for Criticism. She has published several collected works of criticism, including Pose and Propose (Munhakdongne, 2013), Alice’s Gramophone (Minumsa, 2020), and Literature is Dangerous (Minumsa, 2019) (co-authored). She currently works as a professor in the Center for Liberal Arts Education at Korea University.

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