In this emblematic selection of her stories Oh Jung-hee probes beneath the surface of
seemingly quotidian lives to expose nightmarish family configurations warped by desertion
psychosis and death. In 'Chinatown' a young girl living on the edge of the city's Chinese
community comes of age among mundane violences collisions with adult sexuality and the
American occupation in 'The Garden Party' a woman grapples with her conflicting identities of
wife mother and writer at an alcohol-fuelled gathering. Throughout a career spanning six
decades Oh Jung-hee has drawn comparisons to Alice Munro Virginia Woolf and Joyce Carol
Oates and is assuredly a trailblazing writer.
