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2015 Longlist

No One Writes Back

Translated from the original Korean by Jung Yewon

ABOUT
THE BOOK

Communication–or the lack thereof–is the subject of this sly update of the picaresque. No One Writes Back is the story of a young man who leaves home with only his blind dog, an MP3 player, and a book, travelling aimlessly for three years, from motel to motel, meeting people on the road. Rather than learn the names of his fellow travellers–or invent nicknames for them–he assigns them numbers. There’s 239, for example, who once dreamed of being a poet, but who now only reads her poems to a friend in a coma; there’s 109, who rides trains endlessly because of a broken heart; and 32, who’s already decided to commit suicide. The narrator writes letters to these men and women in the hope that he can console them in their various miseries, as well as keep a record of his own experiences: “A letter is like a journal entry for me, except that it gets sent to other people.” No one writes back, of course, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t some hope that one of them will, someday . . .

 

ABOUT
THE AUTHOR Jang
Eun-jin

Jang Eun-jin was born in Gwangju, Korea, in 1976, and graduated from the Department of Geography at Cheonnam National University. She made her literary debut with her receipt of the Joongang Daily New Writers Award, and has since published four novels and a collection of short stories.

Jang Eun-jin was born in Gwangju, Korea, in 1976, and graduated from the Department of Geography at Cheonnam National University. She made her literary debut with her receipt of the Joongang Daily New Writers Award, and has since published four novels and a collection of short stories.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Country
South Korea
Original Language
Korean
Author
Publisher
Dalkey Archive Press
Translator
Jung Yewon
Translation
Translated from the original Korean by Jung Yewon

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