Book

Winter in Sokcho / Elisa Shua Dusapin ; translated by Aneesa Abbas Higgins.

ISBN: 9781948830416
ISBN: 1948830418
Physical Description: 156 pages ; 21 cm
Edition: First edition.
Publisher: Rochester, NY : Open Letter, [2021]
Copyright: &copy;2020

Dusapin, Élisa Shua, 1992- (author.). Higgins, Aneesa Abbas, (translator.).

Summary:

It's winter in Sokcho, a tourist town on the border between South and North Korea. The cold slows everything down. Bodies are red and raw, the fish turn venomous, beyond the beach guns point out from the North's watchtowers. A young French Korean woman works as a receptionist in a tired guesthouse. One evening, an unexpected guest arrives: a French cartoonist determined to find inspiration in this desolate landscape. The two form an uneasy relationship. When she agrees to accompany him on trips to discover an "authentic" Korea, they visit snowy mountaintops and dramatic waterfalls, and cross into North Korea. But he takes no interest in the Sokcho she knows--the gaudy neon lights, the scars of war, the fish market where her mother works. As she's pulled into his vision and taken in by his drawings, she strikes upon a way to finally be seen.