Bae Suah

A seductive, disorienting, and wholly original story about parallel lives, unfolding over a day and a night in the sweltering heat of Seoul's summer. For two years, 28-year-old Kim Ayami has worked at Seoul's only audio theatre for the blind. But Ayami has just been made redundant, and thinking about the future feels like staring into the unknown. Open to anything, Ayami spends a night in the company of her former boss, searching for a mutual friend who has disappeared, and the following day looking after a visiting poet who turns out to be not what he seems. Walking the streets of the city with each man in turn, Ayami talks about art, love and the inaccessible country to the north. But in the sweltering heat of Seoul at the height of the summer, order gives way to chaos and the edges of reality start to fray, with Ayami becoming an unwitting guide to its increasingly tangled threads. For readers of Han Kang's The Vegetarian and Samanta Schweblin's Fever Dream, Untold Night and Day asks whether more than one version of ourselves can exist at once – and shows why Bae Suah is considered one of the boldest and most important voices in Korean literature today.

"Bae Suah offers the chance to un-know—to see the every-day afresh and be defamiliarized with what we believe we know—which is no small offering."—Music & Literature The meeting between a group of emigrants and a mysterious, wandering actress in an empty train station sets the stage for Recitation, a fragmentary yet lyrical meditation on language, travel, and memory by South Korea's most prominent contemporary female author. As the actress recounts the fascinating story of her stateless existence, an unreliable narrator and the interruptions of her audience challenge traditional notions of storytelling and identity.

A nameless narrator passes through her life, searching for meaning and connection in experiences she barely feels. For her, time and identity blur, and all action is reaction. She can’t quite understand what motivates others to take life seriously enough to focus on anything—for her existence is a loosely woven tapestry of fleeting concepts. From losing her virginity to mindless jobs and a splintered, unsupportive family, the lessons learned have less to do with the reality we all share and more to do with the truth of the imagination, which is where the narrator focuses to discover herself.

This story was originally published in Day One, a weekly literary journal dedicated to short fiction and poetry from emerging writers. Award-winning Korean writer Bae Suah tells the story of a young woman in search of meaning as she considers her fate in modern Seoul. For this aspiring artist, there seems to be no escape from life’s monotony. After leaving her family under the pretense of having fallen in love, she resigns herself to a solitary life rather than succumb to the relentless cultural pressure she feels to exchange her freedom for marriage. Numb to sex and unmoved by love, she begins to lose her grip on reality as those around her fall short of their own aspirations. Confused about the interplay between past and present and unsure of her own desire to live into the future, Highway with Green Apples is a surreal and mesmerizing tale of a young life slowly unraveling.

"Bae Suah offers the chance to unknow—to see the everyday afresh and be defamiliarized with what we believe we know—which is no small offering."—Sophie Hughes, Music & Literature Near the beginning of A Greater Music, the narrator, a young Korean writer, falls into an icy river in the Berlin suburbs, where she's been housesitting for her on-off boyfriend Joachim. This sets into motion a series of memories that move between the hazily defined present and the period three years ago when she first lived in Berlin. Throughout, the narrator's relationship with Joachim, a rough-and-ready metalworker, is contrasted with her friendship with M, an ultra-refined music-loving German teacher, whom, it is suggested, later became her lesbian lover. A novel of memories and wandering, A Greater Music blends riffs on music, language, and literature with a gut-punch of an emotional ending, establishing Bae Suah as one of the most exciting novelists working today. Bae Suah, one of the most highly acclaimed contemporary Korean authors, has published more than a dozen works and won several prestigious awards. She has also translated several books from the German, including works by W. G. Sebald, Franz Kafka, and Jenny Erpenbeck. Her first book to appear in English, Nowhere to be Found, was longlisted for a PEN Translation Prize. Deborah Smith's literary translations from the Korean include two novels by Han Kang (The Vegetarian and Human Acts), and two by Bae Suah, (A Greater Music and Recitation).

"Notti invisibili, giorni sconosciuti" è il racconto di un giorno e una notte nel caldo torrido dell'estate di Seul. Per due anni, l'ex attrice ventottenne Ayami ha lavorato nell'unico «teatro sonoro» di Seul per non vedenti. Ma ora il teatro sta cessando l'attività e il futuro di Ayami è incerto. Completato il suo ultimo turno e chiuso il teatro per sempre, Ayami cammina per le strade della città con il suo ex capo fino a notte fonda. Insieme cercano un'amica comune che è scomparsa, mentre intorno a loro il labirinto dei paesaggi urbani inizia a popolarsi di personaggi misteriosi e immagini fantastiche. Il giorno seguente, su richiesta della stessa amica, Ayami fa da guida per un romanziere di polizieschi in visita dall'estero. Ma nell'afa che consuma senza scampo Seul in piena estate, l'ordine lascia il posto al caos. I confini della realtà iniziano a logorarsi e il passato si intromette nel presente in modi sempre più dirompenti. La trama si sfilaccia e diventa fluida: personaggi, luoghi e tempi si sovrappongono e confondono in una narrazione ipnotica e disorientante. "Notti invisibili, giorni sconosciuti" è un tuffo in un'allucinazione, un'opera che scioglie la linea tra realtà e sogno, esplorando la possibilità di mondi oltre quello che vediamo e sentiamo.

Durante los últimos tiempos, Ayami, exactriz de veintiocho años, ha trabajado en el único teatro sonoro para ciegos de Seúl. Pero ahora la sala cesa su actividad y el futuro de Ayami es incierto. Tras completar su último turno y cerrar el auditorio para siempre, recorre las calles de la ciudad con su antiguo jefe hasta altas horas de la noche. Juntos buscan a una amiga que ha desaparecido, mientras a su alrededor el laberinto de paisajes urbanos comienza a poblarse de personajes misteriosos e imágenes fantásticas. Al día siguiente, Ayami hace de guía para un escritor de novelas policíacas que viene de visita del extranjero. Pero en el bochorno que consume Seúl en pleno verano, el orden da paso al caos. Los límites de la realidad empiezan a deshilacharse y el pasado se inmiscuye en el presente de formas cada vez más perturbadoras. La noche y el día de Ayami es una obra que disuelve la línea que separa la realidad del sueño y explora la posibilidad de mundos más allá de lo que vemos y oímos.

A writer struggles to come to terms with the death of her beloved mentor; the staging of an experimental play goes awry; time freezes for two lovers on a platform, waiting for the train that will take one of them away; a woman living in a foreign country discovers she has been issued the wrong ID. Emotionally haunting and intellectually stimulating, the seven stories in North Station represent the range and power of Bae Suah's distinctive voice and style, which delights in digressions, multiple storylines, and sudden ruptures of societal norms. Heavily influenced by the German authors she's read and translated, Bae's stories combine elements of Korean and European storytelling in a way that's unforgettable and mesmerizing. Bae Suah, one of the most highly acclaimed contemporary Korean authors, has published more than a dozen short story collections and novels, and has won a number of prestigious awards. She has also translated several books from the German, including works by W. G. Sebald, Franz Kafka, and Jenny Erpenbeck. Her novel Nowhere to Be Found was longlisted for the PEN Translation Prize and the Best Translated Book Awards. Deborah Smith has translated two other books by Bae (Recitation and A Greater Music) and won the Man Booker International Prize for her translation of Han Kang's The Vegetarian. She is the founder of Tilted Axis Press.