A translator's fieldwork

By Chi-Young Kim

With the recent publication of my latest translation, ``The Investigation” by Lee Jung-myung, I have officially completed that project.

To celebrate, I placed a ream of notes in the recycling bin, opened the box of translator’s copies that arrived from London and put them away and re-shelved the Korean edition, which is now dog-eared and marked liberally with sticky notes. The end of a project is a good time to reflect on what I’ve taken away from the experience.

Each project makes its own unique mark on my life. I spend close to a year living, breathing and thinking about each novel I translate, examining each sentence, sentiment and fact. As a translator, I probably know the ins and outs of a novel and the individual quirks of each character second only to the author.

When I am deep in a project, I tend to notice things I never have before, the way one suddenly notices all the different cars on the road when one is in the market for one. Thanks to each of my projects, I always find myself seeing new dimensions of Seoul, even though I spent my formative years there.

For example, when I was translating Kim Young-ha's ``Your Republic Is Calling You,” it seemed as if I passed through Sogong-dong every day. Ki-yong, the protagonist, meets a former lover at the Westin Chosun in that neighborhood and uses the linked passageways below several hotels and shopping areas.

Although I know that area well, having spent a lot of time around there in high school, the passageways and the hotels were now colored with a different hue; I could see Ki-yong moving stealthily through, feeling trapped.

Similarly, when I was working on``Please Look After Mom” by Shin Kyung-sook, I gazed at Seoul Station plaza differently, imagining Chi-hon and her siblings standing there, running through the subway stations, frantically searching for their lost mom. When I was translating JeongI-hyeon's ``What You Never Know,” I made it out to Incheon's Chinatown and wandered through the narrow alleys, empathizing with Ming’s sense of otherness.

During my most recent trip to Seoul, I noticed Seodaemun Prison as we drove by. Although I learned about it in school and went to my grandparents’ house near that area every week, it had never occurred to me that it was there. The prison was mobbed by unruly children on a class trip who pushed and shoved, making it difficult to linger.

But being in a Japanese-built prison where major figures in the Korean independence movement were tortured and killed transported me squarely into the fictional world that Yuichi Watanabe and Yun Dong-ju inhabited.

The red brick walls emanated a cold, sinister vibe. I could envision the characters shuttling from the cells to the exercise grounds, shoveling out the dirt in the latrine and flinging it through the barred windows and being dragged off to the execution area.

The most poignant part was the basement, which was divided into tiny, dank cells reserved for torture. There was a distinct chill in the air (despite the kids goofing off and screaming to scare their classmates), and even without the display of torture implements, which were just as barbaric as I imagined them to be, I could picture the guards beating the political dissidents and pulling out their fingernails.

In this oppressive setting, the risks Dong-ju and Yuichi took in developing their friendship felt all the more immediate. Their plan to squirrel away books from incineration and their efforts to rise above their differences to cultivate a meaningful connection seemed dangerous and real to me. As I stood in the prison yard, I felt exposed; I could understand how a prisoner might have led their days under the watchful, vengeful eyes of the prison administration.

The image of Fukuoka Prison has not changed in my mind. But my timely visit to Seodaemun Prison has subtly colored in the details, providing me with a better sense of the fear my characters were living under, as well as the extent of their courageous defiance. I only wish I could have explored the prison setting while I was in the thick of translating.

During this same trip, I also drove by a Yun Dong-ju museum, but didn’t end up having time to stop. Although the project has been completed, my field trips related to this novel are not yet over. Next time, I will have to visit the museum to learn more about the poet I feel I know as intimately as a friend.

Chi-Young Kim is an award-winning literary translator based in Los Angeles. Her latest translation, Lee Jung-myung’s “The Investigation,” was released by Mantle in March. Contact her at chiyoung@chiyoungkim.com or via her website, chiyoungkim.com.