Shin Kyung-sook revisits autobiographical book in English, 20 years later

Writer Shin Kyung-sook poses in this file photo. Her 1995 novel will be published as “The Girl Who Wrote Loneliness” in the United States next fall, her third English book since the first one “Please Look After Mom” received rave reviews in 2011. / Courtesy of Shin Kyung-sook

By Kim Ji-soo

As a writer, Shin Kyung-sook has gained the admiration of readers both in Korea and across the world. It was the second time this reporter got to interview the Seoul-based writer who over three decades has solidified herself as a leading literary figure. She seemed more at ease this time, and prone to chuckling.

When asked whether she was courageous to have written a novel modeled after her younger self and then revisit it in English 20 years later, she replied: “Courageous? I think writers are shy if anything.”

In “The Girl Who Wrote Loneliness,” the speaker lives along with her older brother and a cousin in one of the unnumbered rooms in a beehive-like edifice in the Guro Industrial Complex in Seoul. There she works with other girls in late teens and early 20s at unbelievable wages and attends night school. The girls work in destitute conditions to send money back to parents back home, at a time when there was no concept of labor union and the night school was the only probably option for education.

The chapters of the book mention figures that seem to hail from a faraway land — the 18,000 won monthly pay, the 20,000 candies that a classmate from night school wrapped daily and the one tube of toothpaste that a girl used over the span of three years. These figures were from the Korea in the throes of industrialization in the late 1970s.

“This story is one part growing pains, one part narrative about labor at that time and one part metaphor about what a novel is,” Shin explained.

The speaker in the novel may well be Shin. The Korean title of the novel “Oettanbang” refers to the room that Shin, her older brother and her cousin occupied in while working in the Guro Industrial Complex.

To her, the book is like a child who has grown into a young adult. She’s proud that it has sustained the test of time, perhaps like she has.

“When a work that is built on sentences lasts two decades, I think it means that the sentences are strong and the story conveys something basic about human beings,” she said.

This something basic is from her impressions of other people’s lives, such as compassion for one another and great integrity.

She speaks softly, and pauses as if to acknowledge the commas, ellipses points and periods in her speech.

Yet, she speaks strongly on certain topics, namely prejudice, repression and violence.

She said that while the lives of the characters in the book may seem shabby they made it through with love, compassion and integrity, and they now fill up the landscape of the modern, affluent 21st century Korea.

“(Life) is fair in that sense, I think,” Shin said.

When asked if the protagonist’s friend in the dormitory who committed suicide, Hee-jae, was based on a real character, Shin remained mum.

In real life, Shin went on to a two-year college to study creative writing after working for four years in the industrial zone.

She then made her debut as a writer in 1985 and achieved commercial success with “The Place Where the Harmonium Was” (1992). She has since received various awards for her work, including the Manhae Literature Prize, Dong-in Literature Prize and Yi Sang Literary Prize. In 2009, she won France’s Prix de l’Inapercu for the French version of the “Oettanbang.” In 2012, she won the Man Asian Literary Prize for “Please Look after Mom.”

When asked indirectly how she regards success and if she is happy, especially now that she is in her 50s, she said, “I started working early, debuted early and then worked nonstop till 30. When people tell me that I am successful, I just want to say one shouldn’t complain when one is doing the work that she or he wants to do and when one has found a family or a loved one.”

Of happiness, she said: “If I ever felt that sentiment recently ... (chuckle), I think it was when I earned my driver’s license.”

For her, writing is never a joy; she just knew she had to write. Despite her storied life, she has managed to create works that are known for their warm, emotive descriptions of how people survive cruel realities. How does she remain such a devout believer in the human spirit?

“I learned through those (four years working in the factory) mainly that there is an integral beauty in man,” she said.

Asked how she can retain her faith in people — one of the most unreliable species, Shin said it may be cowardice to believe in people. “But without this belief, I think it (life) would be painful.”

“I think we will never be able to say with certainty what choice a person will make when faced with an unprecedented challenge,” she said. She said stories like that of British nurse William Pooley, who contracted Ebola while volunteering in Sierra Leone, was cured and returned to Sierra Leone to continue his work, drive her belief in the goodness of man.

She believes Western readers aspire for the communal life that her characters have.

“What I am trying to say in ‘Please Look after Mom’ is motherliness exists in all of us; I should look after you, and you after me,” she said.

Shin, who has another novel due out in Korean next year, said she hopes the book will be simultaneously released in Korean and in English.

“That would certainly be a project that I might look forward to,” she said.