The Tamesis
When I write, I am a person taking a walk. I often lose my bearings, but I try to keep writing and keep moving forward. There are difficulties, of course, but there are also moments of joy when you suddenly find a way out. I feel like writing is the sum total of all these experiences.
Throughout the book, perhaps most notably Little Teacups, you’ll be thinking about the small, everyday aspects of life that serve as creative routines. What is your daily life like?
To be honest, having such an intense routine is only possible when I’m writing. During this time, whenever I had time, I returned to my desk again and again. But when I’m not writing, my life is easy and irregular. In fact, when I look back on my life, that’s how I spent most of my life.
What is the connection between gardening and writing?
When I was putting this book together, I wanted the entire book to be wrapped in light. So I chose the section from my journal about tending a garden. My garden is small because it faces north and doesn’t get enough sunlight. To provide light for the plants, I placed mirrors on the ground and moved them along the arc of the sun. I want this image to echo the light light and line.
IYou asked in your Nobel Prize lecture: “To what extent can we reject violence?” The world is filled with violence today. Do you think it is possible to reject it?
It always amazes me that even in desperate situations there are still people who try to speak out against violence. I don’t want to forget that there is this power within humans.
What do you want the world to do to end the cycle of violence?
In my latest novel, we are not separatedand those who are determined not to say goodbye [to the dead]. Instead of choosing an impossible farewell, they chose to remain in tenacious mourning. They light candles in the dark night. I still want to believe in the light that shines within us and keep going, holding on to it with tenacity, hope.
we are not separated It tells the story of the 1948 Jeju Massacre, when the South Korean military killed tens of thousands of people to suppress protests on Jeju Island and the resulting uprising. Where did the idea for this book come from?
after release human behavior [about a similar massacre in 1980]I had a dream. I was walking through a snowfield filled with black trees with their tops cut off. There are tens of thousands of graves marked with these trees. Suddenly, the water rushed in from the other side of the field and reached my ankles. I didn’t know how to move the bones from the grave to safety, so I ran across the water and woke up. The record of that dream is the first two pages we are not separated. I wrote the rest of the novel by feeling out what lay beyond these pages.
