Yideum captures with raw honesty the sense of dread felt by many Korean women during this time as Jeong struggles in a swirl of misguided desires and hopelessness against a society distorted by competing ideologies, sexual violence, and cultural conservatism. Facing this helplessness, her impulse is to escape into the world of art. Blood Sisters is a vivid, powerful portrayal of a woman's efforts to live an authentic life in the face of injustice.

    The shocking and blisteringly memorable stories of The Cake Tree in the Ruins are based on his own experiences as a child in Japan during the Second World War.They are stories of a lonely whale searching the oceans for a mate, who sacrifices himself for love; of a mother desperately trying to save her son with her tears; of a huge, magnificent tree which grows amid the ruins of a burnt-out town, its branches made from the sweetest cake imaginable.Profound, heartbreaking and aglow with a piercing beauty, they express the chaos and terror of conflict, yet also how love can illuminate even the darkest moment.

    I'll wear her face tonight instead of mine.'These dreamlike, carnivalesque fables by one of the leading lights of the Surrealist movement are masterpieces of invention and Grand Guignol humour.Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.

    Since that time, they have but slumbered. But when a massive sea tremor brings the ancient stone city of R'lyeh to the surface once more, the Old Ones awaken at last.The Whisperer in Darkness brings together the original Cthulhu Mythos stories of the legendary horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. Included in this volume are several early tales, along with the classics 'The Call of Cthulhu', 'The Dunwich Horror' and 'At the Mountains of Madness'. Arm yourself with a copy of Abdul Alhazred's fabled Necronomicon and prepare to face terrors beyond the wildest imaginings of all, save H.P. Lovecraft.

    Fortunately I had my spectacles with me so I could see it was really a nose.'With this pair of absurd, comic stories Gogol indulges his imagination and delights readers.Contains 'The Nose' and 'The Carriage'.

    And mermaids are on display at the local aquarium.The Beginning of the World in the Middle of the Night is a collection of twelve haunting stories; modern fairy tales brimming with magic, outsiders and lost souls.

    M. G. Le ClézioThe French writer and Nobel Literature laureate J. M. G. Le Clézio has harbored a keen interest in Korea that not only prompted him to learn and master the Korean language on his own but also inspired his new novel. Bitna: Under the Sky of Seoul is Le Clézio’s portrait of Seoul—its people and its places—rendered with an intimate familiarity and attention to detail that few non-Korean writers, not to mention non-natives of the Seoul, could replicate. It is a story of life in the city as it is being lived today.Five stories tied together in a frame narrative on a single themeA drama about lives and connections that traverse reality and fantasyThe eponymous main character, Bitna, is a nineteen-year-old in her first year at university, and a recent transplant to Seoul from Jeolla-do, where her parents work in the fish market. As it was for Le Clézio, the city is for Bitna an unfamiliar, crowded, and lonely place. By chance, Bitna gets a part-time job telling stories to Salome, a woman with an incurable illness who now spends her days at home, waiting to die. Bitna’s stories open up a world of adventure for both Bitna and Salome.Bitna tells Salome five stories in all: the story of Mr. Cho, a retiree who raises pigeons and imagines the home he left behind in North Korea during the war as a baby on his mother’s back; the story of the mysterious traveler Kitty and the messages she delivers to bring once-distant neighbors together in community and friendship; the story of Naomi, abandoned as a baby, and Hana, the woman who raises her, and their encounter with life and death; the story of the singer Nabi, who rises to stardom but falls victim to the greed and lies of the people around her; and Bitna’s own story, about her life in the city and the fear she comes to experience as a result of a faceless stalker. Each story is layered with diverse themes that have attracted the author’s interest over the years, including Korea’s traditions, religions, history, and cuisine, as well as intergenerational conflict, inter-Korean issues, and sociopolitical issues.Through these stories, Le Clézio takes the reader on an extensive journey through Seoul, from the back alleys around Sinchon and Hongdae to landmarks like Gyeongbokgung Palace, Cheonggyecheon Stream, Bukhansan Mountain, and the Hangang River. Bitna is in fact a personal account of sorts, interwoven with the writer’s own memories of the neighborhoods he has gotten to know, the people he has met along the way, and the stories they have shared with him.At a certain point, the reader will discover that the stories in Bitna are intertwined, and that they resonate in real ways, whether their substance is true or imagined, fact or fiction. They are stories that reflect the intersecting experiences of all who live, like Bitna, under the Seoul sky.Experiences of life, death, despair and hope in the vast city of SeoulBitna is a picture of life in Seoul as it is experienced by various different kinds of people, with different parts of the city as backdrops. Le Clézio masterfully ties the individual stories together into a stirring and lyrical portrayal of the profound human capacity for warmth and compassion. And yet, as is true of the writer’s past works, the characters in Bitna are no strangers to sadness. Their lives are plain, unembellished accounts of the feelings of despair, sorrow, estrangement, and frustration that pervade the city and settle into its crevices like layers of dust.At the same time, the character Salome, who, at the end of her life, yearns only to be told another story, and the stories of Bitna, meditations in their own right on life and death, are a testament to not only the preciousness of life but also the possibility of a courage that treasures life and refuses to give up on it. Life, the author seems to say, is something that must be lived to its end, in cries and fits and shudders and a fierce, constant struggle, until the soul takes its leave. The life that has been thwarted by defeat and disappointment is more luminous, and the future that awaits it brighter.

    Whatever their differences in mood or effect, they are both very much concerned with Seymour Glass, who is the main character in my still-uncompleted series about the Glass family. It struck me that they had better be collected together, if not deliberately paired off, in something of a hurry, if I mean them to avoid unduly or undesirably close contact with new material in the series. There is only my word for it, granted, but I have several new Glass stories coming along ? waxing, dilating ? each in its own way, but I suspect the less said about them, in mixed company, the better. Oddly, the joys and satisfactions of working on the Glass family peculiarly increase and deepen for me with the years. I can't say why, though. Not, at least, outside the casino proper of my fiction.

    Now, following an accident on the grounds of the middle school where she teaches, Yuko has given up and tendered her resignation. But first she has one last lecture to deliver. She tells a story that upends everything her students ever thought they knew about two of their peers, and sets in motion a maniacal plot for revenge. Narrated in alternating voices, with twists you'll never see coming, Confessions explores the limits of punishment, despair, and tragic love, culminating in a harrowing confrontation between teacher and student that will place the occupants of an entire school in danger. You'll never look at a classroom the same way again.

    The stories range from the tragic to the comic, though Mo Yan's humor is always tinged with a shade of black. They embody, too, the author's deep and abiding love of his fellow man, equaled only by his intense disdain of bureaucracy and repression--despite which his fiction is never didactic. Satire, fantasy, the supernatural, mystery: all are present in this remarkable and intensely enjoyable volume.- The release of award-winning director Zhang Yimou's major film adaptation of the title story (Happy Times) in summer 2002 heightened the visibility of both the author and this collection.- This paperback is being published simultaneously with the author's mangum opus, Big Breasts and Wide Hips--a return to the sweep and ambition of his bestelling Red Sorghum--which will receive major critical acclaim and further raise Mo Yan's profile in the States.- One of the stories in the volume serves as a companion piece to the author's hugely popular Red Sorghum.- Hardcover ISBN: 1-55970-565-5

    By turns delightful, disturbing, and diverting, Fragile Things is a gift of literary enchantment from one of the most unique writers of our time.Contents:• A Study in Emerald • (2003) • novelette• The Fairy Reel • (2004) • poem (variant of The Faery Reel)• October in the Chair • (2002) • shortstory• The Hidden Chamber • (2005) • poem• Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire • (2004) • shortstory (variant of Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Nameless House of the Night of Dread Desire)• The Flints of Memory Lane • (1997) • essay• Closing Time • (2003) • shortstory• Going Wodwo • (2002) • poem• Bitter Grounds • (2003) • novelette• Other People • (2001) • shortstory• Keepsakes and Treasures: A Love Story • (1999) • shortstory• Good Boys Deserve Favours • (1995) • shortstory• The Facts in the Case of the Departure of Miss Finch • (1998) • shortstory• Strange Little Girls • (2001) • shortstory• Harlequin Valentine • (1999) • shortstory• Locks • (1999) • poem• The Problem of Susan • (2004) • shortstory• Instructions • (2000) • poem• How Do You Think It Feels? • (1998) • shortstory• My Life • (2002) • poem• Fifteen Painted Cards from a Vampire Tarot • (1998) • shortstory• Feeders and Eaters • (2002) • shortstory• Diseasemaker's Croup • (2003) • shortstory• In the End • (1996) • shortstory• Goliath • (1998) • shortstory• Pages from a Journal Found in a Shoebox Left in a Greyhound Bus Somewhere Between Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Louisville, Kentucky • (2002) • shortstory• How to Talk to Girls at Parties • (2006) • shortstory• The Day the Saucers Came • (2006) • poem• Sunbird • (2005) • novelette• Inventing Aladdin • (2003) • poem• The Monarch of the Glen • [American Gods] • (2003) • novelette

    She was a young journalist from a prominent family, while he was from a small village of little means. Outside the school, North Korea has fallen under great political upheaval, plunged into chaos and famine. When Jin returns home to find his family starving, their food rations all but gone, he makes a rash decision that will haunt him for the rest of his life.Meanwhile, miles away, Suja has begun to feel the tenuousness of her privilege when she learns that Jin has disappeared. Risking everything, and defying her family, Suja sets out to find him, embarking on a dangerous journey that leads her into a dark criminal underbelly and will test their love and will to survive.

    He became a Buddhist Monk in 1952, and began writing in the late 1950s. Ten Thousand Lives is his major, ongoing work, which began during his imprisonment, with a determination to describe every person he had ever met. Maninbo , as it is known in Korea, is now in its 20th volume, and he has plans for five more volumes before its completion. The selection in this volume—from the first 10 volumes—represents one of the major classics of twentieth-century Korean literature, published for the first time in English.

    But the song's international popularity is no passing fad. "Gangnam Style" is only one tool in South Korea's extraordinarily elaborate and effective strategy to become a major world superpower by first becoming the world's number one pop culture exporter.As a child, Euny Hong moved from America to the Gangnam neighbourhood in Seoul. She was a witness to the most accelerated part of South Korea's economic development, during which time it leapfrogged from third-world military dictatorship to first-world liberal democracy on the cutting edge of global technology.Euny Hong recounts how South Korea vaulted itself into the twenty-first century, becoming a global leader in business, technology, education, and pop culture. Featuring lively, in-depth reporting and numerous interviews with Koreans working in all areas of government and society, The Birth of Korean Cool reveals how a really uncool country became cool, and how a nation that once banned miniskirts, long hair on men, and rock ‘n' roll could come to mass produce boy bands, soap operas, and the world's most important smart phone.

    Every genre and style, from the celebrated No plays to the poetry and novels of the seventeenth century, find a place in this book. An introduction by Donald Keene places the selections in their proper historical context, allowing the readers to enjoy the book both as literature and as a guide to the cultural history of Japan. Selections include “Man’yoshu” or “Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves” from the ancient period; “Kokinshu” or “Collection of Ancient and Modern Poetry,” “The Tosa Diary” of Ki No Tsurayuki, “Yugao” from “Tales of Genji” of Murasaki Shikibu, and “The Pillow Book” of Sei Shonagon from the Heian Period; “The Tale of the Heike” from the Kamakura Period; Plan of the No Stage, “Birds of Sorrow” of Seami Motokiyo, and “Three Poets at Minase” from the Muromachi Period; and Sections from Basho, including “The Narrow Road of Oku,” “The Love Suicides at Sonezaki” by Chikamatsu Monzaemon, and Waka and haiku of the Tokugawa Period.