At the height of summer in 1762, the ruler of Korea, King Yeongjo, ordered his son, Crown Prince Sado, into a rice chest that was then sealed. The royal command meant slow, certain death for the twenty-seven–year-old prince.

What would drive a father to essentially bury his son alive? How could every other member of the Joseon court avoid the stain of this scandal? These questions simmer beneath the surface of Hanjungnok, a series of memoirs written by Lady Hyegyeong, the woman who married Prince Sado and who lived on after her husband’s death to see their son’s elevation to the throne.

Secrecy and suspense may be the drivers behind this sequence; the title of the new French translation by Han Yumi and Hervé Péjaudier is Écrits du silence—literally “Writings out of Silence.” Lady Hyegyeong’s words, however, are the antithesis of silence. In a time when most Korean texts were composed in literary Chinese, this was written in vernacular Korean; in a time when writings about the royal court were written by men, here a woman was revealing all. And even so, she was able to turn restraint into art; a footnote in the early pages of the French translation begins: “The reader of the 1802–1805 Memoir will admire the art of the ellipsis here.”

These memoirs were brought into English by JaHyun Kim Haboush in 1996, and her work in ordering, editing, and translating these memoirs was seminal; in Haboush’s translation, the memoirs are organized by date of composition, such that readers are informed of Lady Hyegyeong’s early life and transition to the court, then of her male relatives and the court before moving on to her son who became king in the wake of her husband’s death, and only finally about her husband and how and why he was put to death. As such, the details of Sado’s death are withheld until practically the very end of the volume—thereby maintaining suspense across hundreds of pages.

As I turned from Haboush’s stunning English translation to this first-ever French version, I was surprised to see that the climactic memoir describing Sado’s death had been moved and now immediately followed the first memoir about Lady Hyegyeong’s entrance into the court. This decision, while made “for reasons as much chronological as dramaturgical,” has drained the other two parts of their dramatic energy; they now read flatly. Rather than weaving a web of possible scenarios, they attempt to interrogate a scene that has already been set down on the page.

Other translation decisions illustrate this editorial sensibility. Here are the first two sentences of the memoir that describe Sado’s death:

English Translation by Ja Hyun Kim Haboush  

The tragedy of the imo year (1762) is unparalleled. Early in pyongsin (1776) the late King [Chongjo], who was then still Crown Prince, sent a memorial to his grandfather, His Late Majesty King Yongjo, requesting the destruction of those portions of the Records of the Royal Secretariat [pertaining to that incident].

French Translation by Han Yumi and Hervé Péjaudier

La mort du prince Sado en l’année Imo (1762) fut un malheur sans précédent. Juste avant qu’il ne se retrouvât intronisé en l’année Eulmi (1776), Jeongjo avait demandé à son grand-père le roi Yeongjo : « Je vous prie de bien vouloir faire disparaître toute trace de ce jour funeste du Journal du Secrétariat royal. »

Literal English Translation of the French

The death of Prince Sado in the year Imo (1762) was an unprecedented tragedy. Just before he was enthroned in the year Eulmi (1776), Jeongjo had asked his grandfather the king Yeongjo: “I beg of you to please erase every trace of this dreadful day from the Records of the Royal Secretariat.”

The effect, then, is a treatment of this narrative more as a historical document to be made accessible than as a literary work of art that teaches its readers how to read it. Such editions certainly have their value; scholars who want to tease out particular threads or who would benefit from the subheadings that editors subsequently appended to these texts will find this faithful French translation a valuable document to have and to refer to. The common reader, however, who wishes to experience Hanjungnok as a literary work of art, will find that JaHyun Kim Haboush’s English translation has made a masterpiece of a masterpiece that other translators can and should look to for inspiration.

Jeffrey Zuckerman

Translator, Written in Invisible Ink by Hervé Guibert (2020)