Yi T'aejun was one of twentieth-century Korea's true masters of the
short story--and a man who in 1946 stunned his contemporaries by moving
to the Soviet-occupied northern zone of his country. In South Korea,
where he is known today as "one who went north," Yi's work was banned
until 1988. His momentous decision did not lead him to a safe haven,
however: though initially welcomed into the literary establishment,
North Korea sent him into internal exile in the 1950s, and little is
known of his fate.
Dust and Other Stories offers a selection of Yi's stories across time
and place, showcasing a superb stylist caught up in the midst of his
era's most urgent ideological and aesthetic divides. This collection
unites his earlier modernist masterpieces from the colonial era with his
little-known work penned during North Korea's founding years, offering a
rare glimpse into the making--and crossing--of the border between south
and north. During the turbulent final years of Japanese rule, Yi's
elegant yet subdued stories championed both his native tongue and the
belief in the capacity of art. In the heavily politicized environment of
the North, his later works maintain a faith in the art of storytelling
and a concern for the disappearance of customs in the throes of
modernization. Throughout both eras, Yi focused on ordinary people: old
men struggling to understand a changing world, lovers meeting up among
ancient ruins, a lively widow targeted by a literacy campaign, a
bourgeois couple trying to sustain themselves during the war by breeding
rabbits, and more. Magnificently translated by Janet Poole, Yi's work
bears witness to global turmoil with a melancholic sense of enduring
beauty.
