Eight lives, two languages: The trickster art of author Mirinae Lee

Author Mirinae Lee, left, speaks during a book talk in Seongsu-dong, Seoul, May 24, while Nathan Truong of the literature-focused YouTube channel Nathan's Nook looks on. Courtesy of Kim Byeong-mun

Mirinae Lee wrote her debut hit novel, "Eight Lives of a Century-old Trickster" (2023), in English, not in her native Korean. At a recent book talk in Seoul, she revealed why.

An audience of about 60, mostly foreigners, gathered on a sunny May 24 afternoon on a rooftop during the twice-yearly dbBOOKs' warehouse sale. They were there to hear Lee speak about her writing philosophy in a book talk co-hosted by Seoul Silent Book Club (SSBC).

When The Korea Times profiled her in December 2023, Lee's work was already gaining acclaim. More success came in 2024, as her novel was nominated for several awards.

Korean-language publishers, meanwhile, had to rush to catch up. The Korean translation of her book came out in mid-2024, 15 months after the original English edition, and proceeded by at least two European translations.

Lee told the gathered fans that a TV production company is pushing forward with a screen-adaptation of "Trickster," with filming expected to begin later this year.

Lee said she is not involved in the screenplay adaptation, taking a hands-off approach. She did reveal one thing: casting for the miniseries is looking “difficult.”

Author Mirinae Lee, front left, speaks during a book talk in Seongsu-dong, Seoul, May 24, while Emily Serby of Seoul Silent Book Club, right, helps moderate. Courtesy of Kim Byeong-mun

Lee told the crowd that she avoids making detailed writing plans. Instead, she waits. Whenever, wherever and in whatever form inspiration strikes, she jots it down, accumulating scenes and poetic images from which she crafts her stories.

The two hosts, SSBC organizer Emily Serby and Nathan Truong of the literature-focused YouTube channel Nathan's Nook, encouraged Lee to talk about her writing philosophy, but the “English” question loomed largest of all.

Lee actually started writing "Trickster" in Korean in the 2010s, but frustrated, she gave up. She switched to English, and momentum returned. Why?

Writing in Korean about Korea and Koreans, she said, felt too constricting. She found English gave her a liberating psychological space, a “freedom and distance," noting that people often speak more freely with strangers than with close acquaintances.

The cover of "8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster" by Mirinae Lee / Courtesy of Little Brown

In the novel, the elderly protagonist dramatizes their adventures through Korean modern history, from the 1930s to the 2000s, to a sympathetic stranger at her nursing home.

If writing in English feels to Lee like conversing with a “stranger,” that may be because she never lived outside Korea before her early 20s. Only when Lee transferred to a college in the United States, she said, did she really start to take English seriously..

The influence of her experiences with language can be seen in the novel’s own development, which was fragmented and came in stages. Versions of five of the novel’s chapters were published as short stories in U.S. literary journals between 2018 and 2021.

"Eight Lives of a Century-old Trickster," although a work of fiction, is chock full of 20th-century Korean historical narratives. Lee approached certain parts of the project as creative nonfiction, with at least one of the protagonist’s “lives” based on her great aunt’s experiences.

The power of fiction, Lee said, is the ability to create characters. Good literary characters can be their own kind of truth.

Lee also spoke of the challenges of translation, such as how to deal with the word “trickster” in the title. The trickster archetype from mythology combines positive and negative traits, and this ambiguity is widely associated with the English word. But “trickster,” Lee said, is untranslatable in Korean. The Korean version’s title translates to “the woman with no name who had eight lives.”

Lee’s recent book talk in Seoul presented a glimpse of how cross-cultural things can get: a Korean who has lived most of her adult life in Hong Kong, speaking in front of mostly non-Koreans, in Korea, about an entirely-Korea-centric popular novel written in English.

Author Mirinae Lee, bottom, greets fans and signs books after a book talk in Seongsu-dong, Seoul, May 24. Courtesy of Kim Byeong-mun

Her accomplishment, with her successful debut novel, looks to me like a giant advertisement for learning foreign languages.

One reason to learn foreign languages is to sharpen your ability to interact with the world, which exposes you to different perspectives.

You never quite know where learning a foreign language and culture will lead. For Lee, it led in a good direction indeed.

Peter Juhl is a researcher focused on Korean political and security issues. He is also an organizer of the Korean Literature Club.