K-LIT REVIEW Juhea Kim’s short story collection reminds us what we hadn’t known we’d forgotten
A copy of "A Love Story from the End of the World" by Juhea Kim / Courtesy of Faye Leung
What would you get if you combined climate fiction with dystopian sci-fi, threw in a dash of feminist and Indigenous literature, then added semi-autobiographical writing to the mix?
The answer can be found in “A Love Story From the End of the World” by Juhea Kim, the award-winning author’s first short story collection.
The 10 stories in this collection are taken from Kim’s writings over the years. They share no common theme or genre, but span an impressive range that puts the author’s literary versatility on full display. “Biodome” and “Bioark” transport us to a dystopian future; “KwaZulu-Natal,” “Mountain, Island” and the eponymous “A Story From the End of the World” tug at our heartstrings; “Color of the New World” and “Tree of Life” leave us reeling and wanting more; “Older Sister” and “Notting Hill” bear the intriguing scent of autobiography; and “A Woman’s Life, in 10 Scenes” is refreshingly experimental.
With this book, Juhea Kim demonstrates once more that she is the master of using external struggles to guide the reader’s gaze inward. “Why do you think we need to be moving?” a woman asks in “Bioark,” when their ship’s propeller breaks down. Stranded in a fiery red ocean, the last survivors of humankind are forced to contemplate the stillness of their reality. “Nothing is waiting for us anywhere. But we need the propeller to be working at all times because then it feels as though we’re going somewhere.”
Like the imaginary ark, our modern lives are in constant motion — walking, driving, scrolling on social media in the two minutes it takes for the elevator to ping. We glorify busyness and are always on the move, but are we racing toward a goal, or simply running away from the anxiety of inactivity? Is there a point in marching ever forward if each day is going to be the same cycle of waking and sleeping, never ending, never changing and never aging? “By the very air I breathe, I break and remake the world. That is what it means to be alive,” the narrator concludes. Each of us influences this world, just as it influences us. Even something as small as a breath or a glance can matter.
Kim once wrote in an essay, “A novel’s first duty isn’t to teach you what you don’t know — but to show you what you don’t know that you already know.” Staying true to this, several stories in “A Love Story From the End of the World” cover climate-related themes that aren’t news to anyone — melting ice caps, suffocating air pollution, ballooning landfills, facts long shelved in the dustiest corners of minds preoccupied with the here and now. But by introducing readers to Rocky the orphaned elephant (“KwaZulu-Natal”), Hayang the abandoned polar bear cub (“A Love Story From the End of the World”) and Heru the dancing boy who dreamed of leaving his landfill mountain home (“Mountain, Island”), Kim gently helps us remember the things we hadn’t known we’d forgotten. Her elegant, compassionate prose gently fans the air, stoking the last embers of our humanity, that vulnerable flicker we hide within thick walls of resignation and apathy.
Of the 10 stories, my indisputable favorite is “Older Sister,” a semi-autobiographical tale of two daughters born to Korean American immigrants. Where the other stories are impassioned entreaties that stirred the heart, this is a deeply pensive reflection that strikes the soul. From the moment the sisters are born, they are doomed to struggle ceaselessly in a biased world, under the weight of their parents’ expectations and the mantle of discovering their own identities. As is often the case, the two sisters could not be more different. One is a prodigy and the other is hardworking; one has her head in the clouds and the other has her feet planted firmly in the mud. As children, they grudgingly acquiesce to the roles assigned to them — Older Sister as the caretaker, Younger Sister as the obedient minion. As they mature into adults, however, they find themselves driven apart, seeing the same world but drawing vastly different conclusions. Yet, when crisis strikes, the first faces that surface in their panicked minds are each other’s. When it truly matters, the pain of old wounds fades against the desperate need to be united.
Counterintuitively, short story collections have always taken me longer to read. “A Love Story From the End of the World” took even longer than most. Each story ensconced me so deeply that emerging from it felt like breaking through the surface of a deep lake with a gasp and blinking at the glare of the sun. It takes a while to adjust. With my head above water but body still entangled in the currents of the tale, I had to pause each time to regulate my breathing. Only after reorienting myself could I plunge once more into the depths of a new story, ready to be carried away by a fresh wave of delight.
“A Love Story From the End of the World” is available at dbbooks.co.kr.
Faye Leung runs @the_bibliocracy, an Instagram account dedicated to singling out reads for savoring. She regularly posts book reviews and recommendations, and has a particular fondness for Korean literature.