English-language fiction by ethnic Koreans is central to the literature of the Korean diaspora, which also includes significant bodies of literary work in Russian, Japanese, and, increasingly in Korean, by ethnic Koreans in the Yianbian region of the People’s Republic of China. Unnie is a rare example of an English-language literary work by a writer based in Korea.
On April 16, 2014, the Sewŏlho, a ferry transporting high school students and teachers on a spring outing to the island of Cheju, sank off the southwest coast of Korea. The ship’s crew advised the passengers to remain aboard and await rescue, while they themselves evacuated. More than 300 of the passengers perished, the great majority of them students and teachers, and the remains of several of the victims have yet to be recovered. It was subsequently determined that the boat was overloaded with cargo, making it vulnerable to treacherous currents.
The sinking of the Sewŏlho drew a multifaceted response from the people of South Korea. The plaza fronting City Hall in Seoul became a locus of yellow ribbons posted by the citizenry to commemorate the victims. The K-pop idol group 2NE1 performed an acoustic version of their song “Come Back Home” in which they wore the commemorative ribbons.
Several authors have memorialized the tragedy. Kim T’akhwan, an author of historical novels, has written of the tragedy from a “three embraces” perspective: that of the divers clutching the bodies of the victims as they returned them to the surface; that of the families of the victims comforting one another in periodic gatherings; and that of the author himself taking to heart the subject matter of yet another human disaster met with an ineffectual response by the government.
Yun-Yun (a pen name) is the first writer to directly engage in an English-language literary work with the aftermath of the tragedy. Utilizing the accounts of several families who lost a member to the sinking, she guides us on a journey in which the families of the victims attempt to gain closure: Did their loved ones survive? If not, were their bodies recovered? How, when, and where will they learn the fate of their loved ones?
Several of the families are taken to Chindo, an island off the south coast, to await developments. Some are able to receive the bodies of their family members, only to experience the sloughing off of the victim’s scalp as they pass a hand across the crown of the head. Some are taken on a boat to the spot where the ferry sank. Others wait in vain, asking rhetorically, “Does the Republic of Korea care about its children?”
Yun-young, the protagonist, is already launched on a journey of her own to recover the life of her ŏnni (older sister, here spelled unnie). She recalls the five frustrating years that her family experienced in the U.S., and more recently the time Unnie spent confining herself to a koshiwŏn, a closet-like rental space, in order to prepare for the exam that would qualify her as a public school teacher. Yun-young attempts to cope with the knowledge that Unnie is the second female sibling she has lost.
Three years after the sinking, the ferry is finally located and returned to the surface. Unnie is not aboard. A funeral is held for Unnie and four other victims whose remains have not been recovered. Yun-young offers to the funeral pyre a book in which she has inscribed memories of her older sister, lost to the sea at the age of 29. She calls out to the soul of her sister that she will take on the role of oldest daughter.
Author Yun-Yun has recovered this story in a book of her own, Unnie. In doing so, she has recalled to historical memory an individual named Pak Mina, and by extension the innumerable victims of human-made disasters that have marked the modern history of a nation that today is one of the economic and cultural giants of the world.
That Yun-Yun has taken it upon herself to privately publish a novel that gives heartfelt expression to a national tragedy bespeaks the potential of literary art to effect healing and closure. Let us hope that through Unnie she will inspire others to write stories of all the unnie, indeed all the important others of our lives, so that those who perish in an untimely manner may not be forever consigned to the dark corners of historical memory.
Bruce Fulton occupies the Young-Bin Min Chair in Korean Literature and Literary Translation at the University of British Columbia, where he serves as a Professor in the Department of Asian Studies. He is the co-translator, with Ju-Chan Fulton, of numerous works of modern Korean fiction, most recently Togani by Gong Ji-young and Chinatown, four stories by Oh Jung-hee (Penguin Modern Classic); co-recipient, with Ju-Chan Fulton, of the first U.S. National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellowship for a Korean literary work and the first residency at the Banff International Literature Translation Centre awarded for a translation from any Asian language; and editor of The Penguin Book of Korean Short Stories.
