56th Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards Kevin O’Rourke Prize: Iron and Flesh
Cover of Hyun Ki-young's short story collection, which includes "Iron and Flesh"/ Courtesy of Changbi Publishers
Written by Hyun Ki-young
Translated by Peace Lee
Among the famed mountains of the Joseon Peninsula, only Mount Jiri was said to have resisted Yi Seong-gye’s rise to power, thus giving birth to the name “The Unyielding Mountain.” In 1948, when the waist of the Korean Peninsula was severed and hostile regimes took root in both North and South, it was Mount Halla that came to bear that name.
The southern regime enforced a power structure modeled rigidly on American grammar, where English fluency conferred a decisive advantage. Pro-Japanese collaborators swiftly rebranded themselves as pro-American, and nationalism was stripped of any ground to stand on. Former pro-Japanese police officers were reinstated to key positions, and in the military, graduates of U.S.-run Military Language School spearheaded the purge of nationalist forces.
At the time, the U. S. President was Truman. The newly formed government translated his name literally as Jinin, meaning, “True Man,” and promoted him as a divine, messianic figure ushering in a new nation. In esoteric texts, a Jinin is a prophetic savior who, when the time comes, delivers a suffering people and founds a new kingdom. Those secret records foretold that the Jinin would lead an army from across the sea and march northward to establish this new state.
The young people on the island, however, did not rise up because of prophecy, nor from any optimism about victory. Before the uprising on April 3rd, there was the March 1st Gathering, when thirty thousand islanders rallied for true independence — freedom from all foreign domination. That peaceful assembly ended in bloodshed when police opened fire indiscriminately, killing six. For nearly a year afterward, the island was battered by Seocheong — the Northwest Youth Association — and auxiliary police dispatched from the mainland. Murder, torture, looting, and sexual violence ran rampant. With no refuge left and nowhere to run, the youth, in desperation, took up arms.
The regime’s retaliation defied human reason and shattered moral comprehension. Colonel Kim Ik-ryeol, who opposed the scorched-earth policy, was dismissed and replaced by Park Jin-gyeong. Police Chief Chough Pyung-ok and 9th Regiment Commander Park Jin-gyeong openly declared that even if all 300,000 islanders had to be sacrificed, it was a price worth paying to build a new nation — words voiced with the approval of the United States. When the Unites States branded the island “Red Island,” the label stuck — sealing its fate. Red Island. On military operation maps, every area more than five kilometers inland from the coast -including Mount Halla and the villages nestled along its mid-mountain slopes — was marked in red. And red meant blood and fire.
In the end, the 130-plus villages at the heart of the unyielding mid-mountain resistance were consumed by crimson flames. The blood of countless civilians stained the fields and mountains red.
Kill A Hundred to Get One Bandit (百殺一匪)
There were no more than two or three hundred guerilla fighters. Yet under the principle of Baek Sal Il Bi — “kill a hundred to catch one bandit” — it was argued that slaughtering twenty or thirty thousand civilians would eliminate them entirely. By this logic, tens of thousands of innocent lives were sacrificed.
The Calf
Byeong-su was eight years old. In the midst of growth spurts and brimming with life, he had no grasp of what death meant. Three months before the annihilation campaign swept through his village in a terrifying blaze, his grandmother passed away.
She was seventy-two and had always seemed vigorous until, one day, she suddenly fell ill. Unable to eat rice, she switched to thin rice gruel; soon, she refused even that, asking only for sips of scorched rice water. His parents took turns at her side, coaxing her to take one more spoonful, but she shook her head.
“Don’t you fuss over me. I know my body better than anyone. I’ve lived my life. I’ve eaten all my allotted rice - now it’s time for rice water. Once you’ve set down your spoon after a full meal, you shouldn’t go back to eating.”
Five days later, drinking only rice water, she closed her eyes for the last time, a faint and peaceful smile on her lips.
It was Byeong-su’s first encounter with death. His parents wept with sorrow, but he felt no sadness. On the contrary, a secret exhilaration stirred in him, as if he were playing a role in some grand drama, and he puffed out his chest with pride. All the village children envied him in his mourning headscarf and robe. The funeral felt more like a festive gathering — three days and nights with the house packed full, and Byeong-su swept along in the bustle.
The day after the funeral, still heavy with sleeplessness, he returned from school and, out of habit, called for his grandmother as he pushed open the gate. “Oh, my little one’s home! Come in, you must be starving,” she used to call, rushing out to greet him. But now, there was no sound. Silence echoed. Remembering the crowds that had filled the yard, his heart clenched. The permanence of her absence struck him like a breaking wave, and tears slid down his cheeks.
“I’ve eaten all my allotted rice — now it’s time for rice water,” Grandmother had said. Death as the natural close of a life: a shame, a sorrow, but not something to fight, no more than one could hold back the setting sun.
But the deaths Byeong-su saw three months later were nothing like that. They were brutal - deaths brought on by killing.
In the blue dawn, while the village still slept, suppression forces closed in. Starting from the outskirts, they set homes ablaze and fired blindly into the dark, driving the villagers toward the three-way intersection at the center. Byeong-su’s father scrambled onto the roof, beating at the flames licking the eaves — until a bullet struck him down. His mother was struck in the back with a rifle butt and dragged away. Amid the chaos, Byeong-su managed to free the mewling cow and her calf from the burning barn, then ran after his mother.
The village became a sea of fire, flames licking the cloud blood-red. People and animals staggered through smoke-choked alleys, gunned down where they stood. From within burning homes came the desperate screams of the trapped — human and animal alike. Through the inferno, soldiers in tin helmets and white armbands, like messengers of the underworld, charged about in a frenzy. Around twenty young people who had failed to escape were marked for execution. Women were not spared; Byeong-su’s mother was among them. She was twenty-six.