[Korean Literature Club] 'Blowfish' by Kyung-Ran Jo (Tran by Chi-Young Kim)

Dear Members and Friends,

For the August meeting of 2025, we will read and discuss ‘Blowfish’ authored by Kyung-Ran Jo and translated by Chi-Young Kim.

The meeting will be led by Jeremy Seligson and held IN-PERSON only.

WHEN_ Thursday. August 14, 2025. 7:30PM (Seoul)

WHERE_B1, North Terrace Cafe (near Anguk Station or Jongno-3 ga Station (Subway Line 1, 3, or 5))

LEADER_Jeremy Seligson

READ_'Blowfish' by Kyung-Ran Jo (Tran. by Chi-Young Kim)

BOOK PURCHASE: Amazon | Kyobo

ABOUT THE BOOK:

Blowfish is a postmodern novel in four parts, alternating between the respective stories of a female sculptor and a male architect. Death is the motif connecting these parallel lives. The sculptor’s grandmother killed herself by eating poisonous blowfish in front of her husband and child, while the architect’s elder brother leapt to his death from the fifth floor of an apartment building. Now, both protagonists are contemplating their own suicides. The sculptor and architect cross paths once in Seoul, and meet again in Tokyo, while the sculptor is learning to prepare a fatal serving of blowfish.

The narrative loosely approximates a love story, but this is no romance in the normal sense. For the woman, the man is a pitstop on the road to her own suicide. For the man, the woman forestalls death and offers him a final chance. Through the conflicting impressions they have of one another, the characters look back on their lives; it is only the desire to create art that calls them back from death.

Evoking the heterogeneous urban spaces of Seoul and Tokyo, Blowfish delves into the inner life of a woman contemplating her failures in love and art. Jo’s fierce will to write animates the novel; the lethal taste of blowfish, which one cannot help but eat even though one may die in doing so, approximates the inexorable pains of writing a novel.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Kyung Ran Jo made her literary debut in 1996 when her short story “The French Optical” won the Dong-a Ilbo New Writer’s Contest. She is the author of five story collections and three novels. Her novel Tongue was published in English by Bloomsbury in 2009. She is also the recipient of the Hyundae Munhak Award and the Dongin Prize, among others.

VENUE:

The ‘North Terrace Cafe (Basement)’ is located at 12 Yulgok-ro 10-gil, Jongno-gu, Seoul. Go to Anguk Station on the Orange #3 Line. Go out Exit 4 and do an immediate U-turn on the sidewalk. Then take a right in front of the Japanese Cultural Center and walk towards Changdeok-gung, but on the opposite side of the main street (Yulgok-ro) from the palace.