From Wonso Pond

Book excerpt: “A vibrant account of the travails of Japanese colonialism as experienced by workers and women by the pioneering feminist writer of the Korean left.” —Andre Schmid, author of Korea Between Empires A classic revolutionary novel of the 1930s and the first complete work written by a woman before the Korean War to be published in English, From Wonso Pond transforms the love triangle between three protagonists into a revealing portrait of the living conditions that led to modern Korea, both North and South. “A fatherless young girl now poised to become the victim of [the landlord’s] lecherous fangs and paws,” begins one of the original newspaper teasers describing From Wonso Pond and the fate of its heroine, Sonbi. In a plot rich with Dickensian overtones, the novel paints a vivid picture of life in what is now North Korea through the eyes of Sonbi, her childhood neighbor, Ch’otchae, and a restless law student, Sinch’ol, as they journey separately from a small, impoverished village ruled by the lecherous land baron to the port city of Inch’on. But life is hardly easier there, as Sonbi wears herself out boiling silk threads twelve hours a day while Ch’otchae and Sinch’ol load rice on the docks. All three become involved with underground activists, fighting the oppression of country and city, as well as their Japanese colonial rulers. “An astonishing achievement . . . From a colonized Korea, Kang sets the stage for the tragic birth of two rival nations. John Dos Passos and George Orwell may have had a Korean sister yet.” —Min Jin Lee, author of Pachinko