Divorce

A poet reflects on the lives of the different generations of women around her as she contemplates her own divorce from a socially-engaged photographer; her feelings are complicated by the ethics of public/private, art/life divisions, as well as the country’s contemporary history. The story reveals the raw complexity of gender dynamics in a society still hobbled by the demands forced on its people through war and ideology and rapid modernization; it is a good reminder of the different feminisms that do and must exist.

Author Biography

Kim Soom was born in 1974, and debuted as a writer when her stories were selected for publications by Daejeon Ilbo in 1997 and Munhakdongne in 1998. A prolific writer, she has published numerous short story collections and novels to date, including the most recent collection Your Saviour, and the novels One Person, L’s Sneakers, and The Flowing Letter. She is the recipient of the Hyundae Munhak Prize, the Daesan Literature Prize, Yi Sang Prize, and Dongri Literature Prize. Emily Yae Won is the translator of Cheon Heerahn’s ‘Five Preludes & A Fugue’, Kim Soom’s ‘Divorce’, and Hwang Jungeun’s I’ll Go On. Recent translations into Korean include Jessica Au’s Cold Enough for Snow and Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts.