Writer Park Wan-suh and her daughter Ho Won-sook

In memory of mom 1: My mom who had four daughters and one son was always dedicated to her family. She made clothes for her children with a sewing machine and did knitting when it got cold. She was passionate about educating her children. She translated a Japanese math workbook for her eldest daughter to solve in order to get accepted to a prestigious middle school. She let her daughter who was not good at sports practice throwing balls in a dark alley in the evening for a higher score for sports.

In memory of mom 2: My mom was rarely surprised and disliked being a crybaby or making a big fuss about something more than anyone. For such reason, I felt she was so cold that I had to be nervous before her. Even when her novel “Namok (The Naked Tree)” won a prize in a novel contest hosted by the “Women Dong-A” at the age of 40 in 1970, she was neither excited nor expressed a great joy. She was calm. It was kind of arrogance that she earned what she expected.

These are excerpts of “My Mom Is Still,” a collection of essays published by Ho Won-sook, 61, the eldest daughter of Park Wan-suh (1931-2011), a writer, for the fourth anniversary of her mother’s death. Ho, an essayist, describes small pieces of her family history and helps readers’ understanding of her mother’s secret life and literary background. How could a nice mom and a tough writer be combined into one? It was through the path of literature. Her mom did not neglect preparing her family’s dinner or left home for a long time just because she was writing a novel. She did not avoid daily labor such as assisting a senile grandmother and a sick father and preparing her children for college entrance exams. As she reflected her life as a mother in writings, Park Wan-suh could become the treasure of Korean literature.

“I don’t think there is anything that should not be a topic of a novel. Rather, the materials of a novel may be glittering like a treasure in ordinary daily lives, waste that was thrown away, raggedness ostracized by people, and hidden ugly places,” Park Wan-suh said when she won the Yi Sang Literary Prize in 1981. While experiencing the tumultuous modern Korean history, she documented the period with an insight into life and compassion.