May 11, 2005 

Hwang Sun-won's 1960 novel Trees on a Slope follows three South Korean soldiers during and after the Korean War. They are caught up in the brutal, final battles before the 1953 armistice and then do sentry duty along the truce line; when they are demobilized, they have to find a place in society and come to terms with their war experiences. The sensitive Tong-ho, nicknamed "Poet", dreams about his girlfriend and refuses to drink or sleep with prostitutes - until he starts to come apart under the stress. At the other extreme, the hard-boiled Hyon-t'ae displays extreme callousness towards women, but still finds himself haunted by his actions during the war. Only the pragmatic and resourceful Yon-gu-who has managed to survive capture by the Chinese and escape-finds his footing in peacetime. And then there's Tong-ho's girlfriend Sugi, who seeks out his friends to try to understand what happened to him, and sergeant Sonu, who's Christianity fails to keep him from madness. The novel also offers a fascinating glimpse of post-war Korean life. Trees on a Slope was translated into English by Bruce Fulton, the inaugural holder of the Young-Bin Min Chair in Korean Literature and Literary Translation at the University of British Columbia, and his wife Ju-Chan Fulton. In this VOICES program, Fulton read excerpts from their translation and described Hwang Sun-won's significance as one of the few Korean novelists to write about the war.