Shortly after my third novel, Intimate Stranger, was published eight years ago, I was contacted by a few studios interested in acquiring rights for the screen adaptation. A famous producer even approached me and suggested I write the script myself. He’d sign the contract on the condition that I participate in the writing. I straight out refused, as I had no idea how to write a screenplay. He said I could learn quickly, but I doubted it would be that easy.

        I didn’t watch a lot of television. I could think of only one or two series I’d watched from beginning to end, and neither of them were recent. My lack of knowledge would make it all the more difficult to identify trends for structuring a screenplay or dramatizing the story effectively. In short, I had no interest in the job.

        Even now I’m pleased with my decision not to participate in writing the screenplay. As a writer, I know that a work demands total devotion from its author. One cannot devote oneself to something one doesn’t love.

        Ultimately, I sold the screen rights to a female director preparing her second feature film. She planned to write the screenplay herself, and actually, she seemed worried that I’d get too involved in the project. Only after I promised her I wouldn’t, raising my hands in a pacifying gesture, did she share her interpretation of the novel. We spent hours discussing the dramatization and I could tell that she was perfect for the task. Not only did she have deep feelings for the novel, but above all, she was a writer herself. She’d read the book so many times that the cover was in tatters, and Post-it notes with her ideas were pasted throughout.

        Yumi Lee, the protagonist of Intimate Stranger, deceives others by assuming false identities. She’s a habitual liar, changing her name, job, and hometown multiple times. The climax of the story—which also works as a commentary on the irony of gender as a socially imposed construct—is the scene in which she changes sex. The director told me that she couldn’t depict all the character’s lies onscreen; in particular, the part where she changes into a man would be impossible to capture. She wanted to make desire central to Yumi’s story, and not gender. Also, she presented the character as a villain. A villain! Wouldn’t that make her evil? I was caught off-balance, as I’d never considered a central character of mine in that light. I was also concerned that they’d portray Yumi as crazed without any context. But in the end, I agreed to all the director’s decisions. Now, as then, I regard an adaptation of a literary work to be distinct from the original. The medium is a form which dictates what can be relayed through it. It is entirely up to the director to determine what can be conveyed on screen. She is the creator of the work.

        In hindsight, I probably doubted that my work would really be made into a movie. During my career, I noticed many writers in my circle, including myself, signing copyright contracts with studios, but only very seldom were these projects ever realized. A screen project was like a unit of soldiers on a mission. The risks were high, commensurate with the supplies and resources required. Most of all, the flow of capital involved was beyond anything that one could imagine. Even with a signed contract, very few works made it to the production stage and, having gone through this process many times before, my expectations were understandably low. Years passed without any news, and I assumed that the project had fallen through like the others.

        When the director finally got back to me, it was during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. She said she had something important to tell me, and a studio representative accompanied her to our meeting. They wanted to amend the contract, applying the rights to a drama series instead of a film. They said that theatres were empty due to the pandemic, and funding was being diverted to streaming services. It would take Netflix months to review a manuscript. With the adaptation in hand, they’d decided that Intimate Stranger would do much better as a series than as a film. I agreed to the change without too much fuss. The project went into full gear after that. The actors were cast, production was finalized, and promotional articles came out. Every time the director resolved an issue, she filled me in on how things were progressing. I was the first to be informed about anything to do with the series. I felt that she respected me as the author of the original work and strove to keep a place for me at the table. Later I found out how exceptional this attention was.

        Before the end of the year, I received a copy of the script for the show. Titled Anna, it was divided into eight episodes. I read it immediately, and as I expected, it diverged from the novel in many places. In the novel, Yumi’s father dresses her in expensive clothes befitting a Russian Grand Duchess, and so “Anna” becomes a kind of nickname for her. In the drama, however, Anna is the name of the woman that Yumi begins to imitate in earnest.

        The novel’s narrator was cut entirely from the series. A depressed novelist—her career finished, her marriage over—she depicted scenes of everyday sadness, which is a common trope in contemporary fiction. However, for this very reason, the effect could not be felt on the screen so there was no need for her. The camera subsumed the narrator’s role, replacing her descriptive musings with camera shots. In the novel, the narrator’s words conveyed much of the storyline, but in the video format, the audience simply followed the camera’s point of view. Such differences were vividly apparent in the screenplay.

        Intimate Stranger, the book, follows the life of Yumi Lee. Through her disguises, she infiltrates different social classes and becomes involved with many men—even marrying one—before abruptly vanishing to assume a new identity and find new targets. Instead of following this sequence, the screenplay of Anna focused on one section and expanded on it. It depicts Yumi’s first marriage in exhaustive detail, focusing on her relationship with her husband and what they exchange in the name of desire. In the drama series, however, a plot twist involving the husband at the end is entirely new, so you can actually regard the screenplay as a different work. Only later, when I saw the filmed version, could I recognize the two works as coming from the same source.

        The director offered me the chance to watch all eight episodes before the series premiered. In the beginning, the camera shows the military camp town where Yumi was born and raised. I was astonished by how closely it resembled the scene I had imagined. The bleak alleys, shabby tailor shops, the appearance of the supporting actors were all so familiar. This scene, which I had never described in detail to anyone, was brought to life with such precision that I had the sudden, surreal thought that it had been filmed just for me. This sensation reminded me of the kinds of thoughts that cross my mind while I’m writing. I don’t think about the reader then. The process is extremely personal because I don’t pay attention to popular or commercial appeal. I think to myself, I’m writing a book that I want to read. However, when I saw one of the most beautiful actresses in Korea being called by my character’s name, I knew the series wasn’t just for me anymore. Anna concentrates on Yumi to the extent that there are very few scenes without her. The camera dwells on the actress’s beautiful face. Shots of the elaborately made-up visage are juxtaposed with shots of her bare of cosmetics. Through this technique, the camera shows us the inner life of this mysterious character.

        Yumi’s desire is expressed through her lies, but underneath is emptiness. She fraudulently presents herself as having high social standing, but her habitual lying has no meaning or purpose. She simply wants to enjoy the momentary gratification her lies grant her—the respect, the satisfaction, and the pleasure of the moment. To attain this, she has no scruples about fabricating lies that are bold to the point of ridiculousness. In short, she is monstrous, hollow inside. Anyone who peeks behind her mask will not desire her. This was my design when I wrote the novel. I wanted to write about a woman with a monstrous inner core who could not be the object of desire as she herself is the desiring subject. She was me; she was all of us. . . we all have this aspect hidden under the mask of the socially imposed female identity.

        The most sophisticated aspect of Yumi’s lies is her use of feminine artifice. With expensive brand name products and a tasteful choice in clothes, she crafts an attractive outward appearance. She becomes a charming conversationalist, someone who can mirror another’s mood and satisfy the other’s emotional needs. But this, too, is a mask, not her true self.

        The series Anna created a number of splendid masks for Yumi. I was told that the lead actress changed into dozens of suits for the filming. This was also the reason designer shoes and bags appeared more frequently in this series than in others. High heels, in particular, symbolized Yumi’s status seeking. As she gets closer and closer to succeeding, her shoes become sleeker and narrower at the toe. She pants and gasps climbing the stairs to her high-rise apartment in those shoes.

        Another way the adaptation differs from the novel is that Yumi poses as a music professor in the book whereas in the drama series she becomes a professor of fine arts. Although both fields are plagued by the same problems of exclusive connections, behind-the-scenes financial transactions, and academic forgery, perhaps these issues are more vividly portrayed in an art school setting. In the scenes where Yumi stands in front of grand paintings and sculptures, she herself appears like an object of art—no different from an installation piece that is both fake and real. The actress’s physical beauty embodies the message that the drama series wants to convey.

        After the trailers were released and as soon as the first episode aired, I was bombarded with calls. Close friends congratulated me, but I also got calls from people I’d lost contact with ages ago. I was stunned. What were they congratulating me for? Even then, I couldn’t recognize the power of visual media. I didn’t know that so many people watched dramas, discussed them, and celebrated them so enthusiastically.

        During the two months that the drama aired, the novel Intimate Stranger received more interest than a newly published book, and sales profits increased at a staggering rate. I was receiving interview requests for a book that was published seven years ago. It was perhaps my busiest season as an author to date. It wasn’t a negative experience, either; in fact, it was a great pleasure. But the whole time I felt like I was in a daze. When the editors at the publishing company called to tell me about urgent additional printings, they asked, “Where have all these readers been hiding until now?”

        Today, the publishing industry is gradually contracting. The digital age has arrived, and the old text-based system of creating, receiving, and sharing messages is being replaced by an audio-visual one. Although a wider variety of genres is being published now, books have less influence than they did in previous generations. As a full-time writer, I’m long past the point of being disappointed that I’m selling fewer copies of my books. It is no exaggeration to say that we are now in an age of visual communication.

        The reading population declines every year, but cooperation between the publishing industry and other media continues to grow stronger. Each year film rights for novels are being optioned more actively and urgently, and books are frequently adapted into stage performances or musicals as well. These adaptations are a very desirable form of publicity, the dream of every author, as they attract more readers to their original works. For example, with the worldwide release of Anna, Intimate Stranger had the chance to be translated and published in multiple languages. Whereas the book had been the basis for the drama series, it was the series that paved the way for the book’s larger re-release.

        As the drama series was trending, drawing readers back to the book, the question I fielded most frequently was, “How do you, as the author, regard the drama?” People seem to believe that I must have some standard or grounds for critiquing the adaptation. However, I always reply that comparing them is meaningless—they are two different works that exist on their own terms. As they’re two stories originating from the same idea, the adaptation can be viewed as a kind of spin-off. Even if you’re depicting the struggles of the same character, the effect will be entirely different depending on whether you use print or visual media. The story in a novel always poses questions that the readers must fill in for themselves. The adaptation, however, can be viewed as one possible answer to those questions. Any answer is possible and none is definitive. This, too, is why familiar prototypes of stories are remade in every generation: we like to see a fresh take, to acquire a new perspective from a familiar tale. Each time, the story takes on new life. People enjoy seeing the adaptations in diverse media. Ultimately, it is the narrative that they have in common, uniting them. Our desire for stories isn’t that different from that of our ancestors who gathered in front of the fire to hear storytellers long ago.

        More than two years have passed since the final episode of Anna aired. The show ended, and with it, my hectic schedule. I returned to my life of peaceful obscurity. Once again, I make a living writing novels for myself and I don’t have many complaints. What has changed is that I’m able to introduce myself more easily. If I say I’m a novelist, many people look uncertain as to how to respond, but if I mention Anna, they brighten up. The power of dramas, the impact of popular media, is amazing. The presence of visual media is felt everywhere in our culture now.

        They say that each book has its own destiny, and Intimate Stranger is the perfect example. As an author, I hope that all books fulfill their destiny in kind. This is, however, something distinct from my own goals or efforts. Various opportunities and possibilities that amount to nothing more than chance await books in the literary market today. Meanwhile, authors write in solitude, removed from the tumult, only guessing as to when the words they planted as seeds will mature into trees, not knowing how far their branches will extend.

Translated by Kari Schenk

Chung Han-ah debuted in 2007. Her works include the short story collections Laughing for My Sake, Annie, and Liquor and Vanilla, and the novels Little Chicago and Intimate Stranger. She has won the Munhakdongne Writer’s Award, the Kim Yong-ik Novel Prize, the Hahn Moo-sook Literary Award, and the Sim Hoon Literary Award. Intimate Stranger was adapted into the serial drama Anna for Coupang Play.

Korean Work Mentioned:

Chung Han-ah, Intimate Stranger (Munhakdongne, 2017) 

정한아, 『친밀한 이방인』 (문학동네, 2017)