Book Summary

Land of Tears is an anthology of short stories about the Korean experience of poverty and mental and physical anguish. Most of the stories have to do directly or indirectly with the Korean War. The stories depict the lives of a wide range of characters, such as a North Korean People's Army soldier, a South Korean Communist Party Partisan member, the wife of a Partisan, an ordinary South Korean person in the midst of hardship during the Korean War, a North Korean refugee, and the anguish of a South Korean intellectual.

The common thread running through all these characters is the author's portrayal of the inextinguishable humanity in each one of them. In no sense are these people monstrous or less than human, even in the severest of human circumstances. In fact, the author shows how the most extreme hardship that each of the characters encounters draws out the most exalted nature of being human.

Author

Park Sangseek received a B.A. in English from Seoul National University, a B.A. in political science from Amherst College, and a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He taught in the U.S. for ten years before he returned to South Korea in 1979. He worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Institute of Foreign Affairs as Dean of Research and Chancellor for ten years. He also served as Consul General, Ambassador to UNESCO and to Singapore. He retired from the Foreign Ministry in 2000. After retirement, he served as Rector of the Institute of Peace Studies, Kyung Hee University.

Translator

Inyoung Choi is a translator and artist who studied comparative literature and fine arts in the USA. She has translated many works of Korean literature for over twenty-five years.