‘Darkness slowly seeping outward…’
My review of the English translation of Hwang Sŏk-yŏng’s The Guest (손님) appears in the latest issue of ISJ. I didn’t comment on the translation, but it generally seems good to me. You can judge for yourself; here is the passage that I open my review with:
The moment he uttered Ch’ansaemgol, Yosŏp realised that some 40 years had passed since he’d last mentioned the name of his hometown. Ch’ansaemgol. The word started out with the scent of a mountain berry, lingering at the tip of one’s tongue—but then the fragrance suddenly turned into the stench of rotting fish. It was as if a blob of black paint had been dumped on a watercolour filled with tender, pale-green leaves, the darkness slowly seeping outward towards the edges.
