Strength from Sorrow

Fiction. Translated from the Korean by Youngju Ryu. Yang Guija's STRENGTH FROM SORROW is a collection of five stories, "Mountain Flowers," "The Road to Cheonma Tomb," "An Opportunist," "The Hidden Flower," and "Strength from Sorrow." The title story features a group of teachers who struggle to uphold their conscience as educators in an era of authoritarian politics. In her earlier collections, including The Deaf Bird (1980) and The Neighbors of Wonmi District (1987), Yang illumined the decade of political violence in South Korea through the lives of ordinary people and won recognition as a writer who combines literary sophistication and social conscience. "Her stories reveal the emergence of profound understanding of the world from a fleeting emotion and trace the internal struggle that can turn sorrow into a source of power"-Kim Byeongik.