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Hwang Sok-yong's Baridaegi Published in France scrap

by Jean-Noël Juttetgo link November 9, 2014

Author Bio 작가 소개

황석영

Hwang Sok-yong

Hwang Sok-yong was born in Changchun, Manchuria in 1943. After the liberation from Japanese occupation, he moved to his mother’s hometown Pyongyang, where he lived with his mother’s side of the family. In 1947, his family moved to the South and he grew up in Yeongdeungpo. Hwang left Kyungbok High School in 1962 and left home to wander the southern provinces. He returned home in October, and in November of that year he won the New Author Literary Prize from the magazine Sasanggye for his short story, “Near the Marking Stone.” Hwang lived life as a drifter, taking up manual labor and temple jobs until 1970 when his short story “The Pagoda” won the Chosun Ilbo New Writer’s Contest and he began his writing career in earnest. He also participated in the Vietnam War. Throughout the 1970s, Hwang Sok-yong published a continuous stream of works that became well known such as “Far from Home,” “Mr. Han’s Chronicle,”“The Road to Sampo,” and “A Dream of Good Fortune,” becoming a foremost author in the Korean literary world. For the duration of the seventies, he went undercover working at the Guro Industrial Complex and took part in the resistance movement through his membership in the Association of Writers for Actualized Freedom while penning his epic novel, Jang Gilsan. In the 1980s, Hwang completed his full-length novel, The Shadow of Arms, which shines light on the capitalistic world system during the Vietnam War. He did this all while working tirelessly to organize the fight to spread the truth about the Gwangju Democratization Movement as well as a variety of other resistance movements. After visiting North Korea in March 1989, Hwang was unable to return to South Korea and took refuge as an invited author at the Berlin Academy of Arts. In 1991, he continued his exile in New York. After returning to South Korea in 1993, he was sentenced to seven years in prison, but was released in 1998 after serving five of those years. Following this, he has shown year after year that his creative spirit will not die with the publication of The Old Garden (2000), The Guest (2001), Shim Cheong (2003), Princess Bari (2007), Hesperus (2008), Gangnam Dream (2010), A Familiar World (2011), The Sound of the Shallow Water (2012), and Dusk (2015). He has been awarded the Manhae Literature Prize, the Lee San Literature Prize, and the Daesan Literary Award, among others. Hwang’s major works have been translated and published around the world in countries such as France, the US, Italy, and Sweden.

The French edition of Hwang Sok-yong's Baridaegi (Princesse Bari) has been published by Philippe Picquier, a publishing house that specializes in Far East literature. Following the release of Shim Chong (Shimcheong, fille etendu) by Zulmain 2010, Baridaegi is Hwang’s eighth publication in France, which makes him the most translated Korean author in the country. Hwang’s prominent works A Chronicle of Mr. Han (Monsieur Han), The Shadow of Arms (À l'ombre des armes), The Old Garden (Le vieux jardin), and The Guest (L' invité) have all been translated into French. The French audience’s positive reception of his works has prompted reprinting of the short story collection Road to Sampo (La route de Sampo) and A Chronicle of Mr. Han as a pocket edition by 10/18. The Guest and Shim Chong were also reprinted in pocket size by the prominent publisher Seuil. Their portable size ensures wider distribution, especially among a young readership.



In a recent interview, Hwang Sok-yong revealed his personal connection to France. As a student he read major French classics by Zola, Stendhal, Balzac, Gide, Saint-Exupéry, Malraux, Camus, and Sartre. He was fascinated by the French language and took French courses at Alliance Française. Hwang has visited France a number of times since he became a writer, usually when his works were translated and published in France. He loves to meet his French audience and particularly appreciates their questions. They reveal a different way of reading that is more profound and perhaps closer to the essence of what he wants to convey in his writing. He also notes that having his books translated into French opens the door for translation into other European languages. Understanding that literature is universal, he decided to stay in Paris in 2006 and 2007 after spending the previous year in London. It was during this stay in Paris that he wrote Baridaegi. It is ironic that this preeminently Korean work, inspired by the Korean legend of Bari, was written during his voluntary exile in Paris. 



 




Baridaegi
Hwang Sok-yong, Changbi Publishers, Inc.
2007, 301pp., ISBN 9788936433581		Princesse Bari
Editions Philippe Picquier
2013, 251pp., ISBN 9782809709322


The first part of the novel portrays North Korea during the mid-1990s as it struggles with intense economic failure. Many families like Bari’s try to escape the famine by crossing the border to China. This theme of migration became very urgent for Hwang after he discovered the prevalence of immigrant communities in London. During his stay in Paris, daily he encountered images of violent riots in the suburbs of major French cities where large Muslim communities had formed.



Since Hwang’s works are inspired by his political and social commitment, it was only natural that he became vocal about migration, so pervasive in today’s world. Migration, Hwang says, disrupts cultural harmony. It is never easy to accept the other. As a broken race, Koreans understand this best of all.



Hwang uses the legend of Bari to address these Korean and universal issues of migration so deeply rooted in contemporar y societ y. Based on the reactions during Korean culture week at Université Paris-Dauphine this October, the book’s unfamiliar legends and shamanistic worldview were not culturally exclusive. Hwang is skilled at integrating his clear, poetic writing with a deeper meaning of the work. As Bari bravely confronts a violent world in stubborn pursuit of the elixir of life, she reveals the importance of the trivialities that comprise our daily lives. As in Shim Chong, Hwang speaks through the voice of a female protagonist.



It has been barely a month since the book was published, but Philippe Picquier Publishing attests to the positive reception of Baridaegi. Le Monde diplomatique, Télérama, and L'Express have featured the book in their columns. Libération devoted an entire page to Hwang in its review section. Philippe Pons of Le Monde wrote: “Baridaegi is an unsettling book, the fruit of the novelist’s extensive investigation along the border between North Korea and China, meeting refugees […]The journey through hell gives those who endure it an understanding of life’s suffering and the ability to guide wandering souls through the underworld.” Le Figaro, too, will address Baridaegi in its literature column. Let us conclude with the review in Psychologies magazine: “Hwang Sok-yong’s harsh and poetic book reveals the spiritual in the mundane. He converts the supernatural into the norm. The story of Bari is like that of thousands of hopeful illegal immigrants arriving in the West every day.”




Jean-Noël Juttet is a former diplomat who has worked in Japan and Korea. He won the Daesan Grand Prize for translation (1999), Korea France Cultural Award (2006), and the Grand Prize for the 10th Korean Literature Translation Awards in 2011. He teaches at the LTI Korea Translation Academy.








 




Writer 필자 소개

Jean-Noël Juttet

Jean-Noël Juttet

Jean-Noël Juttet is a former diplomat who has worked in Japan and Korea. He won the Daesan Grand Prize for translation (1999), Korea France Cultural Award (2006), and the Grand Prize for the 10th Korean Literature Translation Awards in 2011. He teaches at the LTI Korea Translation Academy.

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