Raising a Swallow

A man and a woman meet for the first time and converse as if they’ve known each other for a long while, falling together head over heels in love. This is how Yoon Dae-nyung’s novel begins. There are few writers out there who can capture the scene of a man and woman meeting with so much allure. The author recently published a new novel series called “Raising a Swallow,” published by Changbi. Nearly all of the eight stories compiled in this book were praised when the literary art magazine was announced. We met Yoon on January 24 and he said, “I feel as if I am penetrating through the center of a writer’s life.”

-When we think of your novels, we think of a woman who unrealistically and mystifyingly falls in love, but there’s little of that this time.

“Last year my mother was very ill. As I stayed by her side I began to wonder about a woman’s life. Marriage, giving birth, raising a family, and getting old. I began to feel the image of a woman more keenly.” (The mother in “Raising a Swallow” runs away every season and returns flying back as she ages, and Taeng-ja’s aunt circles the drain as she deals with the pain of losing the love of her life.)

-In your previous books, the women seem to have nothing to do with the seedy real world, but this time they get their hands dirty.

“Since some years ago, I started wanting to portray characters in detail. I could get closer to the readers that way. I heard from many female readers before that they couldn’t understand my characters, but recently women have responded very positively. It took a long time for me to understand women. Not just me, but the whole male species.” (laughs)

-There’s a rough side to life, but meanwhile there’s a kind of lenient self-reflection here.

“I actually wrote the story of Taeng-ja’s diseased aunt when I heard the news of my own aunt’s death. It was a huge shock to me. My vague notion of death solidified for a moment. I guess I began to take a broader approach to humans and life.”

-You’ve been writing for 17 years, but many people still think of your first book of short stories, “A Correspondence about Sweetfish Fishing.”

“Frankly, I feel I’ve been disadvantaged by that. When I read that book, I do get a little awed by myself (laughs), but the sentences are rough and some parts of the plot are rocky. Because the image of that piece was so strong, it still continues. I sometimes think I will never be free from that mentality of the critique I received then of ‘returning to existentialism,’ however far I’ve come. That may be my ultimate philosophical realization.”

-Still people hit the road and meet strangers on the way.

“That illusion of ‘hitting the road!’ I don’t know what’s so great about that. Leaving the road is like living, and preparing for death. The road I’m standing on is all about saying farewell to the familiar past and searching for a new horizon. Like going through the middle of life.”

kimjy@donga.com