I totally enjoyed this book by this author. I like the plot and her writing style. Will definitely be checking out other books written by her in the future.

As a German, it's hard to read a book by a North Korean author without making comparisons to the GDR/FRG situation. And yes, there were things that did remind me a lot of the "societal fiction" from the GDR that I read whilst growing up in the FRG: The praising of the common good, the metaphors for loyalty to the state, the good power above looking out for the striving people below... all of this is very familiar.

The book was originally published in the 1980ies and centres around a judge who is approached by a former factory worker, now mezzo-soprano in theatre, to initiate her divorce from her factory worker husband. The judge, like the good father, the patron, the person who knows best, wants to understand their relationship and gets very involved in Sun Hee's and Seok Chun's life and befriends their young son as well.

On the one-hand the patronising of the woman who - in my opinion - should get a divorce instantly paired with the promotion of women's right - and obligation - to work outside the home, to have a career even to excel and be better at what they do than their husband written by a male author was a fascinating mix and something, I have not really read in this way before. The judge and society believes that Sun Hee should be with her husband to bring him up-to-date with progress and to make him valuable for the common good of society, so she should be ok with being beaten occasionally and verbally abused. Yet, at the same time, we are introduced into her struggle of combining career and motherhood in a way I have rarely seen in novels written by men, her right to progress - even if it is more for the common good than her own - is never questioned. And she is not the only female character who has a career that takes her out of the home, the judge's wife, too, has a rewarding career as a scientist, a crucial job working on North Korea's food security.

I cannot say that I loved this novel, the underlying propaganda, the heavy metaphors for the common good, the socialist state, being valuable, the praise of hard work and loyalty... well, I just cannot really look beyond that. Yet, there is no doubt that Paek Nam-Nyong could write, even though it feels often very odd and offputting, at times, he did win me over with an observation, a sentence or a thought. Overall, though this was more an interesting book, something you read with an explorer's mind rather than a reader's mind.

From reading the description I was very interested in this book. Unfortunately, I couldn’t finish it. It is very rare, almost never that I sstopreading a book and not finish it. The book was slow and I could not get into it.

Before writing this book, Paek made a study of divorcing couples while he was working at the Jagang Province Writers’ Union. The local court dealing with divorces was in the same building.

The book opens as Judge Jeong Jin Wu is being handed a divorce petition by a trembling woman in a court office in a provincial North Korean town. He has specialised in divorce cases and seems to get very much involved in them. He knows this woman – Sun Hee – by repute, as she is a well-known singer, the lead mezzo-soprano for the Provincial Performing Arts Company. He has seen her perform.

Seok Chun and I have not been on good terms. It’s been like this for several years. I can’t live with him anymore! There is simply no way! We were not meant to be she says.

As a judge, he feels it is duty to find out more and learns that her husband works in a machine factory as a lathe operator, he brings home no money, however, as when he was experimenting on developing a new type of lathe, he damaged some of the factory’s equipment and feels it his duty to pay the money back. She wants to be granted a divorce at once but the judge says he needs to hear both sides and investigate further. Even when he receives a call from the chairman of the commission board urging him to grant the divorce, he says the same thing.

While we will learn more about this case, we also learn about the chairman of the commission board who divorced his wife because he had done well and she was still a country bumpkin. We also learn about the judge’s marriage, which is far from harmonious. Finally, we learn about the marriage of his two neighbours, she a teacher, he an alcoholic coal miner.

Judge Jeong is the key player here. He meets, both separately and together, Sun Hee and Seok Chun, as well as their seven-year old son, Ho Nam. Indeed, at least by Western standards, he goes way beyond the call of duty in establishing what is behind the fact that both husband and wife seem to want a divorce. She feels that he is too devoted to his job and his invention and will not make any attempt at advancement, for example by formally studying engineering or by dressing nicely, while he feels that his contribution – improving the the efficiency of North Korean industry – is superior to that of a mere singer, however good she is and however much she is admired.

At the same time, the judge examines his own marriage. His wife, Eun Ok, is a biologist and is aiming to develop vegetable species that will grow in the mountainous area where she comes from. As a result, she spends lot of time there, leaving him to fend for himself. As for his neighbour, she is a teacher and has devoted herself to her pupils. Her husband is an alcoholic and he knows that this upsets his wife and keeps promising to give it up but never does. Judge Jeong tries to help out here.

Finally there is Chae Rim, the chairman of the commission board. He tries to intervene in Sun Hee’s divorce, as he is related to her. However, Judge Jeong remembers how badly he treated his wife and discovers how his son is now suffering, and is determined to get him. Inevitably, he finds some dirty deeds (on what seems to us scant evidence). Chae Rim is clearly the bad guy but, as this is a North Korean novel, instead of calling in lawyers as a Western crook like him would have done, he accepts his guilt and punishment.

It is an interesting story, even if, to a Westerner, it seems a bit naive and black and white. Judge Jeong goes way beyond the call of duty to resolve the various issues. Some might say he is interfering. Equally, their standards, often laudable, may seem a bit odd to us. For example He who diligently carries out the Party’s directives is the true bearer of noble consciousness and character.

The role of women is very much part of the novel. We see most women working. Indeed, the lathe factory seems to have quite a few women doing technical jobs. Despite this, the men expect their wife to do the traditional housewife chores, such as cooking and laundry and complain when they are not available to do them

What is, of course interesting, is that this book is written by a North Korean writer who is not a dissident or enemy of the people, but someone very much part of the system and who has Party approval. Clearly, he has to paint the righteous workers succeeding and following the correct path, which he does. At the same time, the individuals are not all stereotypes and have their flaws and concerns and do not always behave the way they should. The book does admit on more than one occasion that there are workers who are slackers and, of course, the teacher’s husband is an alcoholic. It is not a great work of literature but certainly interesting to read about a country few of us are every likely to visit.

This was an interesting read.... it gives you pretty good insight into how North Koreans view things. The writing was first class but average at best. Reading this just show me clarity as to why freedom is so important. There’s is some sexism in this book. Which opens my eyes to the fact things like equal pay and equality are in no way as serious of an issue as the fact in communist and socialist countries women are beaten and that’s suppose to be ok?

From the afterword of Friend by Paek Nam-nyong:

"Friend is unique in the Anglophone publishing landscape in that it is a state-sanctioned novel, written in Korea for North Koreans, by an author in good standing with the regime."

By reading that sentence, one can already form assumptions about this book. The afterword also informs us that most books that come from North Korea are written by dissidents and are highly political, so Paek's book is supposed to be important because it's different: it's a domestic drama. I disagree. Friend is extremely political. Here's a few lines from the first chapter of this novel:

"Many people in the city neither knew the location of the Superior Court nor knew of its existence. Those who abided by the law or lived in a harmonious family had no reason to come here."

What a disheartening paragraph. Also, these lines that are nothing but straight-up propaganda:

"She possessed the secret riches of humility, gentleness, and virtue that won the respect of her colleagues, students, community members, and husband. She was a pure, dignified, and honest woman who valued the worth of her students and the nobility of her occupation. She understood that sacrificing her life for the students of this generation was fulfilling not merely her duty as a schoolteacher but her destiny. Her love for the nation and her compassionate spirit for the people were admirable qualities..."

I mean, lmao. This book is like one big propaganda that puts Kim Il-sung in a good light, disguised as a Jane Austen novel, but hardly fooling anyone. At least I'm not. But that's not why I gave the book one star; the poor writing and two-dimensional characters are responsible for that.

I would like to thank Columbia University Press for sending me an ARC of this novel from Paek Nam-nyong that was first published in North Korea in 1988. Friend was a very calming and peaceful read. The story centers on a couple, Sun Hee and Seok Chun, and the judge they have asked to divorce them, Jeong Jin Wu. Reading this novel, I reflected on the nuclear family structure, the "point" of marriage, the heavy pain of resentment, and the role of the government in one's union with another. How can one tell if it's too late to save a marriage? And what happens when it's the government who gets to make that decision? Friend is out on April 28.

I enjoyed reading this from an anthropological point of view, it wasn't a literary marvel in the same sense as a well-written western classic, but it was riveting nonetheless. The story is about a North Korean judge named Jeong Jin Wu, who evaluates and advocates for divorcing couples in varying circumstances, conscientiously deals with his own marital strife and also toes the rigid party line along the way. The married couples he works with have fascinating stories, that probably wouldn't be half as compelling if they were South Korean or western, it's the element of unrecognized brainwashed zombieness that make them so brilliant.

The degree of sexism displayed is disheartening to say the least. That hitting ones wife shows a firm sense of principle? "...as man entered the feudal era, a married woman was considered the property of a man and was forced to be submissive to her husband. This allowed women to develop an awareness of their human emotions and human rights that was beneficial to them." wtf?
The child-like earnest naivete of these people, the oh so foreign ways they flirt, and cuss, and take their work and party so seriously, the kindergarten-aged boy fondling his mom's breast. This must have been so difficult to translate.

The afterword of Friend was most insightful. The novel is unique because most North Korean literature available in English is by dissidents but Friend is a state-sanctioned novel, written for North Koreans, by an author in good relationship with the regime. Friend was first published in Pyongyang in 1988, then picked up by the South Korean press Sallimteo in 1992, and the French publisher Actes Sud produced a translation by Patrick Maurus in 2011.

Chae Sun Hee, an established singer, wants to get a divorce from Lee Seok Chun, a veteran lathe machine worker who works in a factory. She has been married for 10 years and they have a son named Ho Nam. The protagonist of the novel is Judge Jeong Jin Wu who grants divorces but also acts as an investigator to see if a divorce case presented before him can be avoided and the marriage saved. His own wife, is mainly absent from home and pursues agricultural research in a remote area. The Judge gets a call from Chae Rim, a cousin of Sun Hee, urging a quick divorce but the name reminds him of a couple to whom he granted a divorce 6 years ago, which somehow bothers him.


State sanctioned novels have to fulfill certain obligations (as mentioned in the afterword). There should be a moral to the story; there should be enough to elevate the thinking and intellectual questioning of the readers. Hence, at times the novel falls into the constricted mould of revolving around myriad 'acceptable duties of a model person' — responsibility of citizens towards the state, the various aspects of sacrifice and adjustment in a marriage, empowering co-workers, higher education to better one's skills. That said, the novel is fairly progressive in the aspects of women's life — pursuing a career, choosing passion over staying in the same house as the partner after marriage and balancing career and domestic life. It also encourages, through the characters, to keep bettering oneself, acquiring knowledge and serving the society (and thereby the state). The novel also explores family as a unit, balancing family and the work-related community, corruption hindering the progress of the working class (and having widespread effects on their domestic life as well) and the effect of a divorce on the children involved in the marriage. There is enough to sink your teeth into and meditate about life, marriage and domestic and social responsibilities of citizens.

I feel so conflicted about this book, but I'm giving it 4 stars because it is beautifully written and has made me think. Friend is a North Korean novel originally written in 1988, and it was beyond fascinating to read a work of fiction from a country so closed off from the rest of the world. The book follows a couple seeking a divorce, and the judge who has the ultimate say in whether or not they are granted one. It is definitely a culture shock; it required a significant adjustment to follow a story that is so clearly rooted in politically approved messages, and it's hard to empathize with some characters during even the most emotional moments because I have no way of relating to their context and values. But it definitely challenged me to try.

Friend is also a psychological portrait of several families and individuals struggling in their own way, balancing their personal desires with what's best for their families, coworkers, and larger community. There are moments of surprisingly progressive monologues on ambition, particularly as it relates to women, and bursts of poignancy, sadness, and the occasional light humor. All of this is cozily wrapped up in simple, vibrant imagery.

It is so rare to have the opportunity to read a novel that comes from Paek's perspective, and I am beyond glad I read it.

Incredibly sad for anyone who is a product of divorce. I've been consuming a lot of divorce stories lately, so that may have heightened the dismal-ness I felt.

Anni '80 del Novecento, Corea del Nord. Sun Hee si reca dal giudice Jeong Jin Wu per chiedere il divorzio dal marito, ma nel Paese anche la separazione tra coniugi è un affare che interessa la collettività, così, non solo il "compagno" Jeong coinvolge amici e conoscenti della coppia, ma, risoluto a non stravolgere una famiglia e a riportarvi l'armonia, diventa per i due l'amico del titolo, interessandosi in prima persona al caso...

La caratteristica principale di questo romanzo, che mi ha spinto a scegliere di leggerlo, è quella di essere una delle pochissime opere nordcoreane tradotte e distribuite in occidente, scritta non da un disertore, ma da un autore che vive nel paese di origine ed è in buoni rapporti con il regime.

Il romanzo presenta uno stile davvero molto semplice, e parte dalla richiesta di divorzio di Sun Hee per raccontare la storia della sua relazione con il marito; parallelamente, l'autore narra anche, seppur più brevemente, quella di altre due coppie, ossia l'una, formata dallo stesso giudice e sua moglie, l'altra, costituita da una maestra e suo marito.


Il racconto è piuttosto didascalico, portando avanti con fermezza l'idea che una coppia debba fare del proprio meglio per evitare il divorzio e non distruggere la famiglia, che è alla base della società, e la cui armonia porta gli individui ad essere più utili al benessere della collettività.
"Un matrimonio", scrive l'autore, è "un pezzo della nazione" e la famiglia è "un bellissimo mondo in cui fiorisce la speranza e dove risiede l'amore dell'umanità".

Il partito, seppur menzionato solo alcune volte, e naturalmente elogiato per i suoi meriti, sembra però una presenza costante che, come una grossa cupola, incapsula il mondo in cui si muovono i personaggi della storia, un mondo che viene descritto con termini quasi bucolici, complici descrizioni accurate e quasi sognanti dei paesaggi naturali e degli agenti atmosferici.
Si sottolinea più volte la necessità di "essere leali cittadini del paese" e di dedicare la propria vita ad accrescerne la prosperità.

Ciò che mi ha colpito favorevolmente sono state le descrizioni delle donne. In un romanzo degli anni '80 mi ha abbastanza sorpreso leggere di mogli e madri liberamente impegnate in lavori che amano e, anche se questo potrebbe essere giustificato dalla stessa esigenza del regime di tenere occupato il suo popolo, è stato inaspettato imbattermi in mariti che sbrigavano faccende domestiche e badavano ai figli. Inaspettato perché ancora oggi, nel nostro civilissimo occidente, esistono individui dalla mentalità piuttosto chiusa che credono ancora in ruoli stabiliti dal sesso.
Inoltre, benché inizialmente mi è sembrato che l'autore volesse addossare solo alla moglie la responsabilità del fallimento del matrimonio, andando avanti con la storia è stato chiaro che Jeong Jin Wu ritenesse entrambi i coniugi imputabili del fatto di aver minato, con il proprio comportamento e il proprio atteggiamento, la stabilità della coppia.


Il personaggio del giudice è quello meglio caratterizzato, e probabilmente anche il mio preferito. In ambito lavorativo, sente che è dovere della legge proteggere i diritti delle donne, così come è consapevole del fatto di non occuparsi semplicemente di "casi legali", ma delle vite delle persone; ripensa spesso alle sue vecchie cause, chiedendosi se abbia fatto la scelta giusta, e cerca di aiutare in tutti i modi coloro che si rivolgono a lui. In ambito privato non è esente da difetti, si rende conto di provare risentimento verso la moglie, la cui assenza lo fa sentire solo ed oberato, eppure fa in modo di non farsi sommergere dai propri sentimenti negativi e di diventare una persona migliore, spostando il focus sui meriti della donna che ha sposato e sui sacrifici che ella stessa compie ogni giorno per il paese.

Friend è stato una lettura interessante per la sua ambientazione e per la possibilità di dare un'occhiata ad una realtà così lontana - benché romanzata -, tuttavia non si è rivelato appassionante, né tanto meno una di quelle storie che non si può smettere di leggere.

I would recommend this book to the Western reader who wants a change of pace. Those looking for a hero's journey or plot that follows the witch's hat schematic taught in elementary school will probably find themselves disappointed because this book is an exceptionally deliberate and slowly paced novel.

Judge Jeong Jin Wu finds himself looking into a divorce petition. This is basically the plot. As he looks into things, he contemplates the marriages of others and the meaning of love and the ties that bind. Much of the action in the book is filtered through Jeong Jin Wu's eyes. Western audiences may not understand why a civil servant has gotten so involved in client's lives.; they may also bristle at the adult client's inability to ameliorate their situations and act like adults and not petulant children. Because the characters that occupy the judge's time are often depicted as self-centered, negligent, and aloof (sometimes even Jeong Jin Wu), it was hard to invest in this novel and these characters.

Thanks to NetGalley and Columbia University Press for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Mmm. This is a difficult book to categorise and an even more difficult one to evaluate. I rushed to request an ARC of "Friend" because I am fascinated by closed societies and any ruminations from insiders always has the hint of the forbidden. This is something that no reader can resist - well I couldn't anyway. Yes, the subject is divorce, but it is much more than that. Indeed, given the relative paucity of closed societies after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the mish-mash of ideologies that now encompass former communist China, North Korea stands as a true petri dish of the ideological landscape of a land that time forgot. I certainly got the feeling of a true insider; not by anything explosive within the pages of this novel, but simply by my sheer incomprehensibility at some the actions of the protagonists. At first I thought this was a bad thing. Upon closer introspection I decided that this was a huge plus point for the carefully constructed narrative of Paek Nam-nyong. Understanding should not necessarily come with an alignment of lets face it - Western, capitalist values. It should come with an acknowledgment of difference and the cultural, but never inhuman 'other'. The fact that the author wrote this with her own ideological slant (yet, is there any other approach to writing that implies a possible distance from one's true self?) is what makes "Friend" such an understated, but undoubtedly powerful novel of love and loss within the constraints of a particular culture.

Hugely engaging and informative.

Summary:
Paek Nam-nyong’s Friend is a tale of marital intrigue, abuse, and divorce in North Korea. A woman in her thirties comes to a courthouse petitioning for a divorce. As the judge who hears her statement begins to investigate the case, the story unfolds into a broader consideration of love and marriage. The novel delves into its protagonists’ past, describing how the couple first fell in love and then how their marriage deteriorated over the years. It chronicles the toll their acrimony takes on their son and their careers alongside the story of the judge’s own marital troubles.

A best-seller in North Korea, where Paek continues to live and write, Friend illuminates a side of life in the DPRK that Western readers have never before encountered. Far from being a propagandistic screed in praise of the Great Leader, Friend describes the lives of people who struggle with everyday problems such as marital woes and workplace conflicts. Instead of socialist-realist stock figures, Paek depicts complex characters who wrestle with universal questions of individual identity, the split between public and private selves, the unpredictability of existence, and the never-ending labor of maintaining a relationship. This groundbreaking translation of one of North Korea’s most popular writers offers English-language readers a page-turner full of psychological tension as well as a revealing portrait of a society that is typically seen as closed to the outside world.

North Korea brought me here, and the idea that this was a novel made in North Korea for North Koreans, and not specifically for an export market. A divorce judge is petitioned for the right to divorce in the courts by a woman, who is quickly followed by her husband who also says permanent separation is the only thing. Ex-colleagues in an industrial plant, she's now a well-liked singer, perhaps with ideas above her station as a result, while he is – in her mind – a slovenly bloke stuck in a rut, forever having to pay recompense for failed inventions at work. So why is the judge dithering about just stamping the papers and moving on to some other people? After all, his own relationship isn't quite as rosy as he once assumed it would always be. But a coincidence over names, and a third party trying to lean on him to get the divorce settled, remind him of due diligence in procedure, and of at least one time when granting a divorce might not have been the best thing for everyone in the family concerned…

This ultimately read a little like a lightweight copy of something like "The Children's Act" – judge debates their own morals and what they're going through at the same time, when a simple yes/no decision seemed the obvious thing. Set in the mid 1980s, there's not much that does make it strictly North Korean – yes, there is obvious talk about electricity being the vital thing that must be saved, and of unions and labour and the benefit of the state, and there is strict workplace etiquette to follow, but it doesn't try and convey the state of the nation, but concentrate on this insular case. The etiquette comes out in the narration too when we so often get everyone's name in full form (very seldom does the judge's name and title not appear in full on each page), and a lot of the writing seems somewhat naive, telling not showing, and in going into minutiae over the judge's graduation papers being quite skippable. Finally the ending is too pat and tidy, and yet overlong about it. Still, it's a rare chance to see a book such as this, and not one to immediately be passed over. Three and a half stars.

Friend by Paek Nam-nyong is a wonderful literary journey of love, marriage and divorce set in North Korea.

The story follows 3 couples who are either divorced or seeking divorce from Judge Jeong Jin Wu. Divorce is not simply granted when applied for – the Judge investigates the causes for the breakdown in the marriages and contemplates the consequences for everyone involved, including any children. He goes though their life journey, from when they met and fell in love, to their individual careers, to their personas in public, and then determines the best course of action. (This is a wonderful premise and perhaps something that we should consider in our throw-away society.)

The characters are beautifully portrayed - we grow with them and become emotionally vested in their well-being. The descriptions of the country and the culture really drew me in, and I was fascinated by how these characters viewed themselves, their country and their place in society.

This is a wonderful story about a country I know very little about, with words that seem to ebb and flow across the pages as you are drawn deeper and deeper into the very personal lives of these very ordinary people.

A definite recommendation!

#friend #paeknam-nyong #netgalley #columbiauniversitypress

Here's my thing. How did this get out of North Korea? How is this something read in North Korea? It doesn't seem like something the government. Like this book is fine. Not really that crazy. Pretty simple plot, but it just shocked me that it was published there. Mind you I'm always surprised if a book is published and read there. As far as a book to read in the US. I didn't love it. It was interesting and the divorce was something sad, but really I just didn't get into it.

Paek Nam-Nyong (백남룡)의 "Friend (벗)" is my first North Korean novel written by a North Korean. I have read short stories of North Korean writers in 1950s and 1960s who were active writers in occupied Korea and chose communism over capitalism after the end of the Japanese Occupation. Unlike many earlier or post-war South Korean short stories filled with the sorrow and pain, these stories inspired by the newly built communist country were filled with energy and optimism, though I found too much "educational" to my liking.

However, "Friend" took me by surprise as it delves into a deeply personal matter of divorce. Chae Sun Hee, an established singer, wants to get a divorce from Lee Seok Chun, a veteran lathe machine worker after 10 years of marriage with a son named Ho Nam. The desire to get a divorce is mutual but Judge Jeong Jin Wu, whose wife is mainly absent from home due to her pursuit of agricultural research in a remote area, wants to know the details of their married life. Then, he gets a call from Chae Rim, a cousin of Sun Hee, urging a quick divorce but the name reminds the Judge of a couple to whom he granted a divorce 6 years ago, which somehow bothers him.

The book is surprisingly entertaining and characters' emotions are realistically captured. The beauty of the nature reflecting human emotions is also skillfully depicted.

Though capturing emotional struggles of married couples, the book, published in 1988 when North Korea was still optimistic about their future, contains the meta narrative of Juche. One of the Juche movement was the Three Revolution Team Movement in 1973, which stresses ideological, technical and cultural movements. Three main characters symbolize these three aspects; Sun Hee as cultural, Seok Chun as technical and Jin Wu as ideological. All their actions are measured according to each one's "national duty" that includes "the duty to progress and advance in his social position" and "the duty of the law lay in restoring dysfunctional families."

In spite of these inevitable State-guided themes, "Friend" is still quite an enjoyable book.

(Thank you for the advance copy of this book, NetGalley and Columbia University Press!)

A compelling look at a couple in North Korea seeking a divorce.A country we know little of.We are introducec to a woman begging the judge to be allowed to divorce her husband a man she can no longer live with.
The author then shares with us their meeting their relationship the abuse. The author is a bestselling storyteller.I was drawn in to the story the culture the sadness.Found this a fascinating story a window into lives in North Korea.#netgalley#columbiaupress

”You love Sun Hee the press worker and not the renowned mezzo- soprano of the performing arts company. She has progressed and become a new person. Times have changed, and so must you. Our entire society is actively progressing toward becoming intellectualized in scientific technology and the arts. But you, comrade, have fallen behind.”

‘벗’ by백남룡 has been translated by ‘Friend’ by Immanuel Kim.

The significance of this novel is explained by Kim in a very useful afterword:

”Almost all the North Korean writing we have access to in English translation is by dissidents or defectors.

Friend is unique in the Anglophone publishing landscape in that it is a state-sanctioned novel, written in Korea for North Koreans, by an author in good standing with the regime.

First published in Pyongyang in 1988, the novel was picked up by the South Korean press Sallimteo in 1992, and the French publisher Actes Sud produced a translation by Patrick Maurus in 2011. “

NB: Slightly unhelpfully (particularly for Goodreads cataloguing) the original author’s name has been Romanised as Paek Nam-Nyong here, but as Baek Nam-Ryong in the French (the ㄹ/R becomes a ㄴ/N sound when pronounced, and the B/P choice often splits views)

This novel was published in the late 1980s, when state-sanctioned literary efforts were moving away from literature about revolutionary heroes and towards a focus on more ordinary lives, alongside a ‘hidden heroes’ campaign in the country generally. This was also the period of the Three Revolutions campaign which as Kim explains both motivated the author himself to move to full-time writing, as well (as we shall see) as inspiring this story:

”While he was content with his job at [a] factory, he followed the Party’s Three Revolutions campaign, which called on the people to study political ideology, acquire the latest technical skills, and raise their cultural consciousness through literature, cinema, songs, theater, and collective activities. Paek chose a career in writing to educate his readers on the importance of self- cultivation, which entails lifelong learning, serving the country and the people, abiding by Party doctrine, and participating in collective community initiatives.”

This novel, essentially a psychological domestic drama, is set in 1984. The hidden hero is Judge Jeong Jin Wu, responsible for divorces cases, although his role, as he interprets it, is more that of an investigator and marriage counsellor – working out what has gone wrong and if the marriage can be repaired. Although he is also responsible for other cases, one of which gives a rather interesting insight into 1980s North Korea:

”The director of the City Electricity Distribution Company had designed an electric blanket for personal use and had been using it without permission from the government. This was considered a felony, as the entire country was trying to conserve energy. He was not an ordinary citizen, but the director of the very institution whose priority was the conservation of energy. For this reason, he was going to receive a severe sentence.”

He is approached by a couple, coming up to their 10th anniversary but seeking a divorce: Chae Sun Hee, a skilled lathe operator, and Lee Seok Chun, who started herself as a factory worker but has since found fame as the lead mezzo-soprano of a performing group. They first meet when Seok-Chun is a seconded worker at the rural factory where she works, and, for him, it is love at first friction press:

"Amid the noise of all the running machines, Seok Chun was able to distinguish the sound of the friction press that Sun Hee operated. He could see drops of sweat rolling down her forehead, around her lustrous eyes, and down her white cheeks as she arduously worked the press. Such images of Sun Hee occupied Seok Chun’s thoughts and enlivened his soul."

And the retrospectively told tale of their initial romance rather romanticises the factory floor. Indeed when Sun Hee initially rebuts his over-hasty declaration of affections, he decides to move back to his hometown, but it is loyalty to his workplace that keeps him there:

”He had determined to forget about Sun Hee, but he deeply wanted his feelings for her to persist. He regretted his foolish behavior of the night before, when his words, which he had intended to use to express his love for her, had instead been cynical, deriving from his frustration and embarrassment. Yet he loved her, he still desired her. He felt that he had neither the strength nor the courage to control his emotions. He decided to leave at dawn without anyone knowing, without a word, while the villagers were still asleep. He thought that if he left, his love for Sun Hee would subside, gradually fading into oblivion, and then his troubled heart would be able to find solace and regain its peace in solitude.

Yet he could not forget the factory, to which he had grown attached. He did not want to leave because of Sun Hee. His heart would not find peace in an abrupt departure. He tried to convince himself that if he spent his energy solely on working on the lathe and living among the noble factory workers and adopting their humble lifestyle, then thoughts of Sun Hee, his love for her and everything that concerned her very existence would fade away. Seok Chun could never forget the lathe work that had become a part of his identity along with the smell of greased steel, the sharp steel rods, the admirable workers and their quiet ambitions, and the humorous stories the factory workers told. These were the elements that shaped his life, that gave passion to his creativity and aspirations.”

But as they settle down to married life, and as Sun Hee’s career soars, her frustration with her husband largely stems from his unwillingness to progress. While a talented amateur inventor, he refuses to go to college and instead works on self-designed solutions, which typically take years to perfect. As the Judge also admonishes him:

"If you had listened to your wife and gone to the Engineering College, then you would be a technician by now and would not have wasted all those years trying to figure out the complex engineering components of your invention"

My description makes this all sound rather earnest, almost comically so, and to an extent it is. But the author’s literary reputation is well deserved – his prose, in Kim’s translation, can turn to the lyrical such as this riff on the weather:

”From whence, from whom, for what reason was the wind running, like a fugitive, like someone who has abandoned his family? Who will ever know its point of departure, who will ever know its lonesome fate? It wanders the earth aimlessly, seeking refuge among the trees in the depths of a forest or by a river in an open meadow. It dashes by without looking back, or it lurks around a single spot. At times, it affectionately embraces life, sharing warmth and love with everything near and far. At other times, it bellows with rage and devours every thing in sight with a destructive force that makes the earth shudder. It gets soaked in the cold rain and freezes in the icy blizzard. It moans in agony and howls into the lonely night. But then, on a quiet day, it wakes from the warmth of the sun and embarks on its journey yet again, looking forward to the promise of a new day, a new adventure. This is why it can never find a mate and, therefore, lives a most miserable life.”

And amidst the paeans to industrial progress and the exhortations to cultural and education progress, this is a very human story of a troubled married couple and their son, and the novel, while ending on a hopeful note, avoids an easy resolution.

A fascinating insight into an otherwise closed society and literary culture.

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC.