The current decade has witnessed a renewed blossoming of literary works by Korean American and, increasingly, Korean Canadian writers. Prominent among the fiction of these writers are novels targeting a young adult (high school and up) and juvenile (middle school and up) readership. Some of these novels are set in the present day (at least three deal with the lives of K-pop trainees in Seoul), others take place during cataclysmic events in the past (for example, the Korean War). Almost all offer a strong coming-of-age element.
As a reader of mysteries that offer a strong sense of culture and place, I was delighted to discover among this recent burst of Korean diaspora literature Jane Hur’s young-adult mysteries set during Korea’s Chosǒn period (1392-1910). A Crane Among Wolves is the newest among this series. It is set in 1506 and a purge of political enemies undertaken by the notorious Yǒnsangun– one of only two Chosǒn monarchs not to be dignified with a posthumous reign name–is well under way. Iseul, 17-year-old younger daughter of a wellborn family has been orphaned by the murder of her parents by minions of the throne, and isolated further by the seizure of Suyeon, her older sister, for Yǒnsangun’s harem. Bereft of family, she is determined to cross forbidden territory to reach the capital of Seoul and free her sister. The struggles that confront her along the way take place amid the burgeoning of dissent with Yǒnsangun’s purge, distinct in Korea history for the brutality of the king’s vengeance toward his political enemies. A chance encounter with Madam Yul, owner of a traditional inn, and Wǒnsik, a long-term guest with forensic skills, fortifies Yiseul’s resolve to rescue her sister: she joins Wonsik in a quest to identify Nameless Flower, the otherwise anonymous perpetrator of several murders of court officials, believing that in this way she can gain access to the court and her sister. But as she makes her way toward the capital she is almost slain by a guard party headed by Daehyun, a half-brother of Yǒnsangun. Before long, though, Iseul and Daehyun come to an understanding based on their mutual distrust of the monarch as well as on Iseul’s demonstrated capacity for empathy toward other victims of Yǒnsangun’s misrule.
Ultimately Iseul is reunited with her sister, Yǒnsangun is removed from the throne, and Iseul and Daehyun survive a deadly encounter with Nameless Flower, the assassin. Years later Iseul learns that Daehyun, thought to have died in the aftermath of these events, has begun a new life in Mokp’o, at the south end of the Korean Peninsula. Iseul locates him and he reciprocates by revealing his birth name, Yi Kyung, a gesture made only to the closest of confidants and for Iseul a confirmation of the possibility of a relationship no longer constrained by the demands of life in a society stratified by birth, clan, gender, and ideology.
A Crane Among Wolves succeeds on a variety of grounds. The narrative alternates between Iseul’s first-person account and chapters told in the third person that focus on both Iseul and Daehyun. The characterization is engaging and the dialog appropriate for events taking place half a millennium in the past. In a Historical Note at the end of the novel, author Hur describes how she shaped the characters on the basis of historical records. To her credit, she acknowledges in this note (and in an Author’s Note at the beginning of the book) content that young-adult readers in particular might find disturbing. But rather than avoid such content and more generally the unpleasant historical events in which they are framed, she reminds us that “it is imperative to confront history because it repeats itself if ignored…. Thank you for not looking away.”
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.
