We were set to meet near the river. A thick fog was slowly turning the sky an ash grey. It reminded me of a scene from her novel. I pictured the main character, who finds himself all alone in the world. Just then, Pyun Hye-Young walked into the cafe, her face a bright red. Pyun has been one of the most prolific writers in Korea in the last decade. I was thrilled to meet her. As I listened to the sound of her voice and watched the changing expressions on the face of this calm and careful storyteller, I found myself feeling somehow comforted. Perhaps even the lonely man in her book sensed her warmth from afar.

Yang: You just published your third short story collection right on the tail of your first novel. Was it hard to part ways with your characters?

Pyun: Well, in the case of Ashes and Red, I’ve spent so much time talking about it in various publications that, in the process, I felt like I was slowly saying goodbye to that world. Also, the short stories were already written, and I had time to say my goodbyes while the collection was being put together. So the postpartum pain wasn’t too bad. (laughs)

Yang: Most Korean writers add an author’s note at the end of their books. But you chose not to add one to Ashes and Red, even though it was your first novel. If you were to add one now, what would you want to say?

Pyun: I did not add an author’s note when the book was published because, as a writer, I was concerned about elaborating too much on the content of the novel and over-explaining the character. I still feel that way, but I suppose I would like to thank those who have read the book, those who are reading it now, and those who will read it in the future.

Critic Yang Yun-eui and novelist Pyun Hye-Young

Yang: Recently, you have been serializing your second novel online. Is there a big difference for you in terms of writing a short story versus writing a novel?

Pyun: If writing a short story feels like running a hundred-meter sprint, then writing a novel is like running a marathon. You take deeper breaths and can’t stop for rest. I guess I must be out of shape, because I felt a little out of breath.

Yang: In the last decade, your writing has carved out a new field in Korean fiction, and your first two short story collections clearly showed where you stand. With Ashes and Red, the motifs that appeared in your short stories seem to be more integrated and expanded. Was there a particular inspiration behind the novel?

Pyun: This is a delicate subject considering the unfortunate disaster that has taken place in Japan, but Ashes and Red was inspired by earthquakes. Depending on how you look at it, an earthquake is like “bad luck.” They both strike without warning and can cause even a life that appears strong and stable to collapse in an instant. I read an article on earthquakes in a science magazine. It said that in countries where large earthquakes are predicted to happen, even the slightest tremor can cause fatalities. Not because of the earthquake itself, but because people can mistake a tremor for the “big one” and panic. They might rush out of a building only to accidentally fall to their deaths. Ironically, the desire to live can lead to your death. I felt that this said something about what it means to be human, so I based my novel on it.

Yang: Now that you’ve said that, it seems like you must’ve felt the same stress and anxiety as the character in your novel. Was it difficult to write?

Pyun: The whole time I was writing, I had to steadily maintain my focus, so that part was difficult. But when I write, I try to keep the furthest distance possible from what is happening to the characters. If I had completely closed the distance between the narrator and the main character, then I would have absorbed the main character’s pain and suffered. But in this book, I maintained a sense of distance from the characters and tried to write in the voice of a distant observer, so I did not internalize their pain.

Yang: That sense of distance also seems to enhance the character’s duality. In the novel, the character goes abroad for a job transfer and finds himself lost and confused. Up until the halfway point, it seems clear that he’s a victim. But when he becomes implicated in his ex-wife’s death, he starts to look more like a victimizer who lashes out violently at others. So I guess you could say the character is two-faced? Would you say that this two-sidedness is inherent to human desire itself?

Pyun: In my opinion, the main character in Ashes and Red is both a victim and a victimizer. He is a victim in the sense that he is thrown into this diseased city, this world of violence, without regard for his own will. But since he plays a role in that violence, he is also a perpetrator. It does not matter whether he killed his wife or not. The man is pushed around by this violent world, but he comforts and consoles himself with the thought that he’s a victim while easily turning into a perpetrator at a moment’s notice. He seems pitiful because his existence is consumed by this world, but at the same time, he’s not worthy of endless pity because he is also responsible for his situation.

Yang: So I guess, to borrow a line from your novel, you could say he “catches women during the day and rats at night.” Women, or perhaps wives, play an important part in this man’s story. Of your short stories, “Evening Courtship” struck me as a poetic love story. This isn’t directly connected to your work, but could we turn the topic of conversation to romance?

Pyun: That’s not something I have much experience with, unfortunately. (laughs) I’m more the type to tell my younger friends that they should date more. Nothing brings people together quite like love or romance, and one of the things we learn from such relationships ultimately is the question, “What kind of person am I?” It is both the only way for one individual to try to understand another individual, and conversely the process through which we realize how little we actually know about each other. I find love, as a way for a person to find out who they are, to be highly recommended. (laughs) You said that “Evening Courtship” is a love story, and I do think it expresses one type of love. To me, the most beautiful moment in love is when you’re itching with the desire to know the other person, to confess your love, and to hear them confess their love, but you have no assurance of what they feel for you. In other words, I’m referring to that feeling of itching with a desire that cannot be put into words, and holding back and hesitating with each other, even while gladly summoning the courage to try. “Evening Courtship” is about sharing your true feelings with another person despite yourself. In that respect, I agree that it is a type of love story.

Yang: So I wasn’t that far off the mark. I can’t wait to read a full-fledged love story written by you someday. (laughs) You mentioned the idea of hesitations that cannot be expressed in words. I can’t help but think that this mentality is similar to the hesitation and indecision experienced by the main character in Ashes and Red. After the main character becomes homeless, things still could have ended in a hopeful way if he had confirmed the existence of “Mol.” But when you look at it from another angle, it is also the process through which his life falls apart. In that sense, can you talk about the meaning behind the title, Ashes and Red?

Pyun: I got the idea for the title from the scene where the main character sees the flames of the incineration plant and thinks they are beautiful. You could also say that the key colors of the entire book are ash grey and crimson red. If I had changed the word order around to “Red and Ashes,” then it would have put more emphasis on “grey.” So I put “red” last in order to highlight the red that is left behind in a grey, ruined world. Blood-red signifies death, but it also signifies vitality. So I hope that is how the title will be interpreted.

Yang: So that dual meaning applies to both the theme of the novel and the personality of the main character.

Pyun: Yes, it does. I like to write about things like irony and the duality of human nature.

1. Evening Courtship

Pyun Hye-Young, Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd.

2011, 257p, ISBN 9788932021850

2. AOI Garden

Pyun Hye-Young, Moonji Publishing Co., Ltd.

2005, 266p, ISBN 9788932016207

3. Ashes and Red

Pyun Hye-Young, Changbi Publishers, Inc.

2010, 260p, ISBN 9788936433734

Yang: I heard that an excerpt of your novel will be translated and included with this interview. Is there a particular reason you chose this excerpt? (pages 95-98 of the Korean edition)

Pyun: In that excerpt, the main character experiences loneliness the news, he can’t believe it. But he relives an unhappy memory from his past that reminds him of his wife. I think of this scene as the first moment where the character begins to realize how alone he is. It also foreshadows the fact that he will have to get by and survive on his own without anyone to talk to about his fear and loneliness.

Yang: I thought the most dramatic depiction of the main character’s loneliness was in the final scene of the book—where his only means of communication with the outside world is a public telephone. He’s hit rock bottom, and he’s clinging desperately to the telephone line like a man hanging from a cliff. In fact, the word for “public telephone”—gongjung—is a homonym that can also be read as “midair.” When I think of that scene, with the image of the man talking to the empty air, the excerpt you chose seems all the more meaningful.

Pyun: My first version of the ending had the character gazing at a ruined world in which he has to survive on his own. But if I did that, the reader would be left with only the image of an irrational, oppressive world. It felt like all the blame was placed on the irrationality of systems or the world. So I changed it to a depiction of the main character’s daily life. And I depicted this life as one in which he has lost his own name and adopted the name Mol instead, after the name of the person he searched for but was unable to find. So though he has survived, he’ll never be happy. It may be that he will always be alone in the world.

Yang: Now that you say that, the name Mol seems like a compressed version of his entire life. In your stories, most of your characters are either nameless or only have a last name. Is there a particular reason for this?

Pyun: I chose the name Mol because it doesn’t signify any particular ethnicity or nationality. The Chinese character for mol means “to disappear.” In the end, the main character has vanished from reality. Also, I thought the word sounded like the English word, “mall.” The word “mall” makes me picture a child lost within an enormous maze-like structure or an artificial world. I also often use the name Yujin, the main character’s friend, because it is not limited by gender or nationality. I like names that don’t contain any preconceptions about race, nationality, or gender. Though, of course, it’s not easy to find names like that.

Yang: That’s true about the characters names, but it’s also true about the setting of the story. In your book, no specific nationalities or place names are mentioned. There is not even much indication of when the story takes place. In that regard, infectious disease or earthquakes seem to play a big role in creating worlds, beyond nationality and time period. I guess you could say it is proof that the whole world faces the same difficulties.

Pyun: My short story “AOI Garden” was set in an apartment building in Hong Kong during the SARS epidemic. And, as I said, the starting point of Ashes and Red was a major earthquake. Just as earthquakes give shape to the fear of disaster striking anywhere at any time, disease and epidemics have a similar context. We only experience epidemics through warnings; they don’t exist to us outside of that. Recently, the world was hit hard by the H1N1 virus. I am no expert, so I thought it was nothing more than a type of cold. But socially, there were endless warnings about the dangers of a new virus. An epidemic is where the symptoms are unknown but fear builds with each warning and new set of information. Also, in the case of earthquakes and epidemics, there are always victims, but the rest of the world quickly recovers its vitality. That, too, is part of the nature of everyday life. No matter what horrors we experience, daily life always makes a quick recovery.

Yang: Considering the recent earthquake in Japan and the explosion at the Fukushima nuclear plant, your novel seems quite timely. Nuclear power stops at national borders, but radioactivity has no nationality. You just completed your second novel, which was published online in serial form. How is it different from your first novel?

Pyun: With Ashes and Red, I felt like I was tightening my shoelaces at the starting line, waiting for the gun to go off. But when I wrote my second novel, I had time to check my laces, do a little warm-up, and wave to my friends who had come out to support me. I guess you could say I enjoyed being able to take my time and take deeper breaths while working on something longer.

Yang: I look forward to reading the author’s note in your second novel very soon. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me today.