Seopyeonje - The Southerners' Songs

(Paperback)

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Yi Chung-jun's haunting and disturbing novel Seopyeonje is set in the 1950s after the Korean War in the remote south of the country, home of the traditional art of pansori singing, a moving and plangently beautiful style of folk song performed by travelling musicians. This haunting novel explores themes such as forgiveness, the redemptive power of art and modern man's loss of innocence and alienation from traditional values. A magic-realist gem, the novel employs epic, myth and fantasy to create a fusion of the real and the fantastic.

Author Bio

YiChung-Jun(1939-2008) was one of the leading South Korean novelists in recent years. Many of his works have been adapted into movies and drama series. According to critic Kim Byeong-ik, Yi Chung-jun opened up a new pace of Korean literature before the true modern literature of Korea was established in the 1960s. Yi Chung-jun died from lung cancer at the age of 68 in July 2008."