Silver Stallion
A Novel of Korea
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A “powerful novel” about a young boy and the effect of the Korean War on his family and his rural village (Chattanooga Times).
In a mountain village in Korea, 1950, the memory of the Japanese occupation has just begun to fade. Then, the farmers hear that the army led by the great General “Megado”—MacArthur—has landed at Inchon.
As soldiers descend upon their home, a special encampment is soon set up nearby, nicknamed Texas Town. There, local women meet with the invaders—including one little boy’s mother. And the fate that befalls her will change both of them forever.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The second novel by this popular Korean writer ( White Badge ) to be published here in the last six months offers an intimate, mournful perspective on the Korean War, as the harmony of a tiny village is destroyed by the arrival of friendly foreign troops. In 1950, the hamlet of Kumsan is much the same as it was a century earlier; a rich elder serves as the arbiter of propriety, children play together in gangs, men farm and women run the households. But when air raids begin and Western soldiers (called bengkos --big noses) set up camp, Kumsan's delicate structure collapses. The author keeps his scale small but faultlessly detailed, letting events unfold primarily through the eyes of Mansik, a young boy whose mother is raped by soldiers and then shunned by the other villagers; eventually, she seeks work in a prostitute shantytown to feed her children. Though his subjects--the casual devastation wrought by armies and the cruel hypocrisy that can seethe within small communities--are anything but new, the author handles them with passion and precision.
