Jae-Yong Kim – författare

Island Ablaze and Other Stories is an anthology of thirteen stories – eleven from South Korea and two from North Korea – about these countries' complicated relationships with their most important ally and enemy: the United States. Set in times ranging from colonial Korea to the new millennium, these stories offer a look into the many ways that the US empire shapes the lives of Koreans. In "Dawn," schoolgirl sweethearts living under Japanese colonial rule reconnect as young mothers amid celebrations of the attack on Pearl Harbor. "Till We Meet Again" addresses the adoption industry and America's treatment of Korean children following the Korean War. In the title story, a North Korean radio operator must choose between abandoning the soldier she loves or dying with him at the famous Battle of Incheon that turned the tide of the Korean War. From camp towns to sugarcane fields, missionary schools to international flights, Island Ablaze and Other Stories shows everyday Korean life in the shadow of the American empire.

Island Ablaze and Other Stories is an anthology of thirteen stories - eleven from South Korea and two from North Korea - about these countries' complicated relationships with their most important ally and enemy: the United States. Set in times ranging from colonial Korea to the new millennium, these stories offer a look into the many ways that the US empire shapes the lives of Koreans. In "Dawn," schoolgirl sweethearts living under Japanese colonial rule reconnect as young mothers amid celebrations of the attack on Pearl Harbor. "Till We Meet Again" addresses the adoption industry and America's treatment of Korean children following the Korean War. In the title story, a North Korean radio operator must choose between abandoning the soldier she loves or dying with him at the famous Battle of Incheon that turned the tide of the Korean War. From camp towns to sugarcane fields, missionary schools to international flights, Island Ablaze and Other Stories shows everyday Korean life in the shadow of the American empire.

This volume brings together twelve short stories by colonial Korean proletarian writers, as well as two works written in 1946 under U.S. military occupation. The volume provides a diverse, ever-changing portrait of the complex movements of people and ideas that constituted both colonial Korea and the Japanese empire, adding the tumultuous experiences of those from the Korean peninsula to the existing international canon of socialist and feminist literature.