Seopyeonje - The Southerners' Songs

Yi Chung-jun's haunting and disturbing novel Seopyeonje is set in the 1950s after the Korean War in the remote south of the country, home of the traditional art of pansori singing, a moving and plangently beautiful style of folk song performed by travelling musicians. This haunting novel explores themes such as forgiveness, the redemptive power of art and modern man's loss of innocence and alienation from traditional values. A magic-realist gem, the novel employs epic, myth and fantasy to create a fusion of the real and the fantastic.