The fall 1990 issue features new writing from Korea, brought together by a distinguished guest editor, Kim Uchang. He discusses the authors in this issue and gives his overall view of Korean writing in his essay, “Art and Politics in Korea.” Included in this feature are fiction and poetry by Kim Chaewon, So Chongin, Kim Chiha, and Paek Musan.
Also included are works by American poets James McCorkle, Arthur Sze, and Ai; a candid interview with Ai by Hawai‘i writer Lisa Erb; and stories by fiction writers Monica Wood, Michelle Cruz Skinner, and Gladys Swan.
The visual art in this issue was created by Australian Aboriginal artist Jimmy Pike, who tells stories with his screenprints and whose own fascinating life story is outlined by Nadine Amadio.
Fall 1990 (vol. 2, no. 2)
201 pages
“I want to stop talking about the dinner table and reminisce about those long winter evenings when we used to go out to the shed to fetch dong-chi-mi.My sister and I would swim through the dark with a candle or lamp, carrying a big tin pot. Darkness would rush under the light like a whirlwind, and our shadows would take on huge weird shapes and then disappear. I remember the smell that hit us when we opened the door to the shed, the smell of humid straw, which mingled with that of kimchi in a strange mixture.”
—from
“Winter Shadows:
A Woman Preparing a Meal”
by Kim Chaewon
“It was the hungry season. The divers now went for the catches from the sea. They needed other things than wild herbs to eat. Also, they needed millet, for which they traded whatever they could catch from the sea. So, on this day when the sea was calm, the divers went to the sea. When they were changing into their work suits in preparation for going underwater, they heard somebody among them shout at the top of her voice, ‘Look at that! Look at those sons of bitches! They're at their stinking thievery again!’”
—from “Substance and Shadow” by Hyon Kilon
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Mangkaja, screenprint by Jimmy Pike Mangkaja, or Wiringarri, is a white bird from the dreamtime. He is like an owl, with black and white markings around his eyes. He travels at night. Mangkaja came from Kiyili way. Some people were frightened of this Mangkaja. They found him sitting down on a log. They tried to kill him, but he flew up very high, and where he landed there sprung up a waterhole, Mangkaja Kura. Nearby this place is Malajapi, the campsite of the Mala spirit. Mala is the little bush kangaroo. The people come here to tell the spirit to send plenty of Mala to the land. |