Silver Stallion: A Novel of Korea

by Junghyo Ahn

Overview

In a mountain village in Korea, 1950, the memory of the Japanese occupation has just begun to fade when the farmers hear that the World Army, led by the great American General "Megado" has landed at Inchon.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781569470039
Publisher:	Soho Press, Incorporated
Publication date:	07/01/2003
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	280
Sales rank:	736,388
Product dimensions:	6.13(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.63(d)

About the Author

Ahn Junghyo was born in Seoul in 1941, where he still resides. He studied literature at Sogang Jesuit University, then worked as reporter, columnist, and editor at the English-language Korea Times and Korea Herald. He has published three novels in Korea and has translated nearly a hundred books into his native language.

Editorial Reviews

The second novel by this popular Korean writer ( White Badge ) to be published here in the last six months offers an intimate, mournful perspective on the Korean War, as the harmony of a tiny village is destroyed by the arrival of friendly foreign troops. In 1950, the hamlet of Kumsan is much the same as it was a century earlier; a rich elder serves as the arbiter of propriety, children play together in gangs, men farm and women run the households. But when air raids begin and Western soldiers (called bengkos --big noses) set up camp, Kumsan's delicate structure collapses. The author keeps his scale small but faultlessly detailed, letting events unfold primarily through the eyes of Mansik, a young boy whose mother is raped by soldiers and then shunned by the other villagers; eventually, she seeks work in a prostitute shantytown to feed her children. Though his subjects--the casual devastation wrought by armies and the cruel hypocrisy that can seethe within small communities--are anything but new, the author handles them with passion and precision. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly