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Voices scrap

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! Updated: 2025-02-24

  • Posted by Moonji Publishing co., Ltd. on 2024-08-29
  • Updated by Moonji Publishing co., Ltd. on 2025-02-24

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Description 작품 소개

This collection tells poignant human stories unfolding on the stage of the home.

Lee Seung-U's latest short story collection, "Voices," comprises eight stories centered around the symbolic theme of the "home." The narrators in these stories suffer and face crises as they lose their sense of direction in life, struggling with wounds inflicted by their families, fractures in relationships, and the absurd realities they cannot resolve on their own. Through these narratives, the author meticulously explores the inner transformations and reflections that occur when the home—once a place of rest and refuge—loses its essential function, all conveyed through delicate language and the unique "voices" of each character.

In "Voices," the narrators confront their suffering and speak out to us. For example, in "When the Valve of the Fire Hydrant Was Turned, Water Burst Out," a man witnesses a woman's dignity being unjustly violated by authority on the street and raises a powerful voice in resistance to the unjust power and the apathetic society that allows it. In "I Should (Not) Have Answered the Phone," the protagonist is overwhelmed by guilt and pain over the death of a close colleague, becoming engulfed in anxiety even within the confines of his home—a condition expressed through a powerful inner voice. The male narrator in "Empty House" has been wandering since running away after being abused by his father in childhood, while the female narrator escapes her in-laws after they forcibly take her home. These two characters, entangled by the wounds inflicted within their homes, meet at the threshold of death, where they begin to heal and once again hear the voices of their respective homes.

In this collection, Lee Seung-U deeply observes the complexities of human psychology and relationships, exploring the dark wounds rooted in the family and the nature of humanity. The characters in these stories confront the sources of pain they never wished to face, carefully depicting the loss of the home and the inner conflict of needing to return to it. In this way, "Voices" ultimately tells stories of returning to the place where everything began—the home—while embracing the themes explored in Lee Seung-U's previous works, offering readers a new direction that goes beyond what has come before.

Lee Seung-U was born in 1959 in Jangheung, South Jeolla Province. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Seoul Theological University and studied at Yonsei University Graduate School of Theology. He made his literary debut with a medium-length fiction, A Portrait of Erysichthon, which won Korean Literature’s New Writers Contest in 1981. He has since been acclaimed as the leader in the development of Korean literature over the past thirty years and deemed a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature, with many of his works translated into different languages. His published works include the short story collections Mr. Koo Pyeongmok’s Cockroach, About Eclipse, A Conjecture Regarding Labyrinth, Magnolia Park, People Don’t Even Know What’s In Their Own Homes, I Will Live Very Long, Missing Person Ad, An Old Diary, A Person of Discretion, and The Strangers, and the book of flash fiction Made Tears Held Tears, and the novels A Portrait of Erysichthon, The Shade of a Thorn Tree, The Reverse Side of Life, Who Else Is Inside Me, The Private Life of Plants, A Room with a Bath, Wherever That Is, A Midday Gaze, Singing Aboveground, and The Life of Love. Lee is the recipient of the 1993 Daesan Literary Award, the 2002 Dongseo Literary Award, the 2007 Contemporary Literature Award, the 2010 Hwang Sun-won Literary Award, the 2013 Dong-in Literary Award, the 2019 Oh Yeongsu Literature Award, and the 2021 Yi Sang Literary Award.

Author Bio 작가 소개

이승우

Lee Seung-U이승우

Lee Seung-U, a former student of theology, made his literary debut in 1981 with the novella A Portrait of Erysichthon. Throughout his career, Lee has maintained an interest in theological and metaphysical issues, which is reflected in his writing style that meticulously depicts the inner workings of the human soul. His works deal with questions about morals arising in quotidian life as well as more universal issues concerning God, salvation, and guilt. In particular, Lee’s novels since 2000 have inquired into the meaning of reality and the everyday, thereby bringing together the sacred and the secular, and the mind and the body. Published translations of his books include The Reverse Side of Life (Peter Owen, 2005), La vie rêvée des plantes (Gallimard, 2009), Ici comme ailleurs (Gallimard, 2013), and The Private Life of Plants (Dalkey Archive, 2015).

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