Short stories
A Stray Bullet
오발탄
Yi Beom-seon · 1959
Synopsis
In Seoul, after the war, Song Cheol-ho keeps the books of an accounting firm and strives to live according to his conscience. He lives with his family in a shack in Haebangchon, the district of refugees from the North: his mother, who has lost her reason, constantly demands a return to their native land; his wife is pregnant; his brother Yeong-ho, back from the army, despises a society where honesty does not pay; his sister Myeong-suk sells herself to American soldiers and keeps the household alive.
Context
The story appeared in October 1959 in the journal Hyundae Munhak and gave its title the same year to its author's second collection, according to the Encyclopedia of Korean Culture. The latter reads in it the despair and loss of bearings of the postwar period, and a turn by the author towards social criticism; the story earned him a mention for the Dong-in Prize. Yu Hyun-mok made a film of it in 1961; the military government banned it, and this adaptation, set in the alleys of Haebangchon, tops a ranking of the hundred best Korean films, according to the Seoul Shinmun.
Who it is for
A short story of medium length, dark and tight; a few facts about the exodus to the South during the war help to clarify the situation.
Prizes and reception
Translated into English by Marshall R. Pihl, in a bilingual edition in 2015, and into Spanish in Málaga in 2022; no French version.
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