Novel
The Heartless
무정
Yi Kwang-su · 1917
Synopsis
Yi Hyeong-sik, an English teacher at the Gyeongseong school in Seoul, gives lessons to Kim Seon-hyeong, the daughter of a church elder, whom her father intends to send to study abroad. He then learns that Pak Yeong-chae, the daughter of his former teacher and his promised bride of long ago, has become a kisaeng to secure the release of her imprisoned father. Having come to look for him in Seoul, she is raped by Bae, the school's director of discipline; she leaves him a note and takes the train to Pyongyang, resolved to die.
Context
The novel appeared in one hundred and twenty-six instalments in the Maeil Sinbo, from 1 January to 14 June 1917, then in volume form in 1918 from Gwangik Seogwan; its author, a student at Waseda, sent the manuscript from Tōkyō. It is regarded as the first long novel of modern Korean literature. The Encyclopedia of Korean Culture stresses that the love plot widens into national awakening and that the psychological analysis goes beyond that of the new novel, but judges the opposition of old and new schematic, and the author's voice didactic. According to the Seoul Shinmun, readers wrote to the newspaper asking that Yeong-chae not be left to die.
Who it is for
A long novel published in serial form, often didactic in tone, translated into English in 2005 by Cornell.
Prizes and reception
According to the daily Seoul Shinmun, one of the best-selling books of the Korean century, constantly reissued since the liberation.
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