![]() ![]() I secretly sneered at cowards who compromised with reality. Neither girl achieves her dreams, as is recounted with deadpan baldness: “Those were the days when I believed my life would turn out special. This visit becomes the root of a long association – not quite friendship, not quite enmity – between the two girls. In the title story, a Japanese girl comes to stay with the narrator on a school exchange trip. Everything, from the three-decade occupation of Korea by Japan to the consequences of the Vietnam war, is explored with the lightest of touches and without losing sight of the central characters’ motivations and personalities. Each is written with sober detail, filmic precision and absolute control. ![]() Reading these seven excellent stories, translated by Sung Ryu, it’s easy to see why. S hoko’s Smile has already sold more than 200,000 copies in South Korean author Choi Eunyoung’s home country. ![]()
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