Winter in Sokcho

by Elisa Dusapin, Aneesa Abbas Higgins

Genres: General Fiction; Literary Fiction

Synopsis

‘A punchy first novel.' -- Guardian Top 10 Best New Books in Translation

As if Marguerite Duras wrote Convenience Store Woman – a beautiful, unexpected novel from a debut French Korean author

It's winter in Sokcho, a tourist town on the border between South and North Korea. The cold slows everything down. Bodies are red and raw, the fish turn venomous, beyond the beach guns point out from the North's watchtowers. A young French Korean woman works as a receptionist in a tired guesthouse. One evening, an unexpected guest arrives: a French cartoonist determined to find inspiration in this desolate landscape.

The two form an uneasy relationship. When she agrees to accompany him on trips to discover an ‘authentic' Korea, they visit snowy mountaintops and dramatic waterfalls, and cross into North Korea. But he takes no interest in the Sokcho she knows – the gaudy neon lights, the scars of war, the fish market where her mother works. As she's pulled into his vision and taken in by his drawings, she strikes upon a way to finally be seen.

An exquisitely-crafted debut, which won the Prix Robert Walser, Winter in Sokcho is a novel about shared identities and divided selves, vision and blindness, intimacy and alienation. Elisa Shua Dusapin's voice is distinctive and unmistakable.

‘Beautifully translated from the French by Aneesa Abbas Higgins, comes together slowly, like a Polaroid photo, its effects both intimate and foreign.' -- TLS

'Enigmatic, beguiling...This finely crafted debut explores topics of identity and heredity in compelling fashion. In its aimless, outsider protagonist there are echoes of Sayaka Murata's Convenience Store Woman.' -- Irish Times

'The bustling seaside resort of Sokcho in South Korea is the perfect backdrop for this quietly haunting debut.' -- Daily Mail

'Crisp and poetic.' -- i

'Dazzling.' -- Vogue Top Five Debuts

'A fascinating portrait of life in modern Korea.' -- S Magazine

Release date: February 20, 2020

Publisher: Daunt Books

Print pages: 84

Sample

Winter in Sokcho

HE ARRIVED bundled up in a woolen coat.

He put his suitcase down at my feet and pulled off his hat. Western face. Dark eyes. Hair combed to one side. He looked straight through me, without seeing me. Somewhat impatiently, he asked me in English if he could stay for a few days while he looked around for something else. I gave him a registration form to fill in. He handed me his passport so I could do it for him. Yan Kerrand, 1968, from Granville. A Frenchman. He seemed younger than in the photo, his cheeks less hollow. I held out my pencil for him to sign and he took a pen from his coat. While I was checking him in, he pulled off his gloves, placed them on the counter, inspected the dust, the cat figurine on the wall above the computer. I felt compelled, for the first time since I'd started at the guest house, to make excuses for myself. I wasn't responsible for the run-down state of the place. I'd only been working there a month.

There were two buildings. In the main building, the reception, kitchen and visitors' lounge downstairs, and a hallway lined with guest rooms. Another hallway with more guest rooms upstairs. Orange and green corridors, lit by bluish light bulbs. Old Park hadn't moved on from the days after the war, when guests were lured like squid to their nets, dazzled by strings of blinking lights. From the boiler room, on clear days, I could see the beach stretching all the way to the Ulsan mountains that swelled on the horizon. The second building was around the back of the first one, down a long alleyway. A traditional house on stilts, restored to make the most of its two rooms with their heated floors and paper dividing walls. An internal courtyard with a frozen fountain and a bare chestnut tree. There was no mention of Old Park's in the guidebooks. People washed up there by chance, when they'd had too much to drink or missed the last bus home.

The computer froze. I left it to recover while I went over the information for guests with the Frenchman. It was usually Old Park's job to do this but he wasn't there that day. Breakfast from 5 A.M. to 10, in the kitchen next to the reception, through the sliding glass door. No charge for toast, butter, jam, coffee, tea, orange juice, and milk. Fruit and yogurt extra, put a thousand won in the basket on top of the toaster. Items to be washed should be left in the machine at the end of the corridor on the ground floor, I'd take care of the laundry. Wi-Fi password: ilovesokcho, all one word, no capitals. Convenience store open twenty-four hours a day, fifty meters down the road. Bus stop on the left just past the shop. Seoraksan National Park, one hour away, open all day until sunset. A good pair of boots recommended, for the snow. He should bear in mind that Sokcho was a seaside resort, I added. There wasn't much to do in the winter.

Guests were few and far between at that time of year. A Japanese climber, and a girl about my age, seeking refuge from the capital while she recovered from plastic surgery to her face. She'd been at the guest house for about two weeks, her boyfriend had just joined her for ten days. I'd put all three of them in the main house. Business had been slow since the death of Park's wife the previous year. Park had closed up the upstairs bedrooms. When you included my room and Park's, all the rooms were taken. The Frenchman could sleep in the other building.

It was dark. We set off down the narrow alleyway past Mother Kim's stall. Her pork balls gave off an aroma of garlic and drains that lingered in the mouth all the way down the street. Ice cracked beneath our feet. Pallid neon lights. We crossed a second alleyway and came to the front porch.

Kerrand slid the door open. Pink paint, plastic faux baroque mirror, desk, purple bedspread. His head brushed the ceiling, from wall to bed was no more than two steps for him. I'd given him the smallest room in the building, to save on cleaning. The communal bathroom was across the courtyard, but he wouldn't get wet, there was a covered walkway all around the house. It didn't bother him anyway. He examined the stains on the wallpaper, put down his suitcase, handed me five thousand won. I tried to refuse it but he insisted, wearily.

On my way back to reception, I took a detour through the fish market to pick up the leftovers my mother had put aside for me. I walked down the aisles to stand number forty-two, ignoring the looks people gave me as I passed. My French origins were still a source of gossip even though it was twenty-three years since my father had seduced my mother and then vanished without a trace.

My mother, wearing too much makeup as usual, handed me a bag of baby octopus:

"That's all there is right now. Have you got any bean paste left?"

"Yes."

"I'll give you some."

"No need, I still have some."

"Why don't you use it?"

"I do!"

Her rubber gloves made a sucking noise as she pulled them on and looked at me suspiciously. I'd lost weight. Old Park didn't give me enough time to eat, she'd have a word with him. I told her not to. I'd been consuming vast amounts of toast and milky coffee every morning ever since I'd started working there, I said, I couldn't possibly have lost weight. Old Park had taken a while to get used to my cooking but he didn't interfere. The kitchen was my domain.


The octopus were tiny, ten or so to a handful. I sorted through them, browned them with shallots, soy sauce, sugar, and diluted bean paste. I reduced the heat to stop them getting too dry. When the sauce had thickened, I added some sesame and tteok, slices of small sticky rice balls. Then I started to chop the carrots. Reflected in the blade of the knife, their grooved surface blended weirdly with the flesh of my fingers.

I felt a chill as a draft blew through the kitchen. Turning around I saw Kerrand come in. He wanted a glass of water. He watched me work while he drank it, staring hard as if he were trying to make sense of the image in front of him. I lost concentration and nicked the palm of my hand. Blood welled onto the carrots, hardening to form a brownish crust. Kerrand took a handkerchief from his pocket. He stood close to me and held it to the wound.

"You should be more careful."

"I didn't do it on purpose."

"Just as well."

He smiled, pressing his hand against mine. I broke away, feeling uneasy. He nodded toward the pan.

"Is that for this evening?"

"Yes, seven o'clock, in the next room."

"You're bleeding."

Irony, statement of fact, distaste. I couldn't read the tone of his voice. And besides, he'd already left.

At dinner, there was no sign of him.


MY MOTHER WAS squatting in the kitchen, her chin pressed to her neck, arms plunged into a bucket. She was mixing fish liver, leeks, and sweet potato noodles to make the stuffing for the squid. Her soondae were known to be the best in Sokcho.

"Watch me work the mixture. See how I spread the stuffing evenly."

I wasn't really listening. Liquid was spurting out from the bucket, pooling around our boots and running toward the drain in the middle of the room. My mother lived at the port, above the loading bays, in one of the apartments reserved for fishmongers. Noisy. Cheap. My childhood home. I went to see her on Sunday evenings and stayed over until Monday, my day off. She'd been finding it difficult sleeping alone since I'd moved out.

Handing me a squid to stuff, she placed her liverstained gloves on my hips and sighed:

"So young and pretty, and still not married ..."

"Jun-oh has to find a job first. We've got plenty of time."

"People always think they have time."

"I'm only twenty-four."

"Exactly."

I promised her we'd get engaged officially, in a few months' time. Reassured, my mother went back to her task.


That night, between the damp sheets, crushed by the weight of her head on my stomach, I felt her chest rising and falling as she slept. I'd gotten used to sleeping alone in the guest house. Her snoring kept me awake. I counted the drops of saliva leaking out one by one from her parted lips and onto my skin.