Honorifics reflect and dictate the distance between two people—their hierarchy and intimacy—and this is true in Korean society, where honorifics often stand in for names. A good short story collection. I enjoyed each story. They have a story to tell. Each story is different yet so similar with their underlying feelings and emotions women go through their lifetime. Written with sober detail, filmic precision and absolute control . . . an incredibly impressive collection told with realism, seriousness and moral integrity’ Observer The final two stories - Michaela and The Secret - revolve around the heartbreaking 2014 Sewol ferry sinking that killed 304 passengers, many of whom were high-school students and their young teachers. JY: A deeply humanizing element in your collection was its depictions of friendships between the various social outcasts, like Shoko and the grandfather. These relationships are often complicated and painful, while simultaneously life-giving and crucial. Could you speak more about your focus on friendship?

Shoko’s Smile is an incredibly impressive collection told with realism, seriousness and moral integrity. The stories are painful and complex but never depressing. They show what it’s like to be an ordinary person with a painful past and an unknowable future, living out the years in the cold light of day. Brilliantly conceived, the stories in Shoko’s Smile are emotionally raw and true to life: a compilation of a writer who has not only devoted time to the development of the craft, but who has invested in the deep observation of character. The resulting emotional portraiture is both extraordinary and moving. Korean society underwent rapid economic growth, instilling in people a hypercompetitive, materialistic mindset. The country may be wealthy but it struggles with rising inequality. While Choi's themes were interesting and I did like her unadorned yet polished, the stories themselves...well, they didn't necessarily move me. Take the first story for example. The dynamic between the narrator and Shoko had potential but then as the narrative progresses the story veers into melodrama. A lot of the characters also sounded very much like the same person, which didn't help to differentiate their stories. They were too 'samey' and despite their relatively short length, I found my interested waning more often than not. Yet, she offers hauntingly raw insights into the tug-and-pull of human dynamics and relationships past their expiry date. She writes: "Some people break up after a big fight, but there are also people who drift incrementally apart until they can't face each other anymore."Pure dreams were meant for talented filmmakers who could afford to enjoy their jobs. Glory was meant for them, too. Film art in general, only revealed its true face to hardworking mediocrities. I covered my face with my hands and sobbed. It was difficult to accept that fact. The moment untalented people clutch at the mirage of dreams, it slowly eats away their lives. Soyu’s vulnerability and her need to feel that odd sense of superiority over her friends and peers stood out to me. It’s not a great trait, but instead of despising her for it, I felt that I could empathise with her and I found it oddly comforting to have a character that felt so.. human. While we don’t like to admit it, I think this is true that instead of recognising our own vulnerabilities, we (sometimes) try to cover for it by revelling in a warped sense of superiority and feeling the need to feel justified and comforted that our choices are “better” than the others. Choi Eunyoung is a South Korean writer acclaimed for her nuanced yet poignant stories about women, queer people, victims of state violence, and other marginalized voices. She is the author of the bestselling story collections Shoko's Smile and Someone Who Can't Hurt Me, which have sold over 200,000 copies and 150,000 copies respectively in Korea and is being translated into several languages. Since her literary debut in 2013, she has received numerous accolades, including the Munhakdongne Young Writers Award (2014, 2017, 2020), Heo Kyun Literary Award, Lee Haejo Literary Award, and Hankook Ilbo Literary Award. Both of her story collections were selected as the best fiction title of the year by 50 Korean writers (2016, 2018). She has also published a Korean-English bilingual edition of her novella The Summer and contributed to many anthologies. Another part that stood out for me was when at the start, the readers are told Shoko always said “someday”. It foreshadowed that Shoko would not be able to achieve any of those goals set out, but the readers are in for a surprise when it turned out that Shoko did achieve them in her own way and pace, even though the road was not smooth.

In “Sister, My Little Soonae”, love is adjacent to loss and the very intimacy holding a relationship together may be the very thing which unravels it. When a distant cousin—Soonae—comes to live with Hae Oak, she becomes like an older sister to her. Their intimate sisterly relationship however, is dealt a blow by the fallout of a brutal dictatorship which leaves Auntie Soonae’s husband disabled. As time goes on the two women find that they can no longer be honest with each other: Each story forces me to confront a part of myself and I find that oddly comforting and liberating. It’s as if the book helped me put in words, or to realise, what I’ve been feeling (deep down). Heartbreaking and moving with great characterization, many of the stories contained an unexpected twist that would make me view the story in a whole new light. The majority of them also emphasized how when differences collide (albeit through upbringings, perspectives or cultures), it can unite others or tear them apart. The translation into English was very well done, and I especially enjoyed how certain Korean characters and honorifics were kept. Jae-Yeon Yoo: Shoko’s Smile—as well as your other works—call attention so poignantly to the margins of society; in one way or another, your narrators are all somewhat misfits, outsiders, and/or loners. Could you speak about this focus, and why it’s important to your work? EC: The Sewol sinking has numerous existing victims and is an ongoing incident that hasn’t even been fully investigated. Many people were scarred by the incident when it happened in 2014 and still are. To fictionalize such great pain of others is a scary, delicate task, as you run the risk of objectifying and othering real-life victims. But when I wrote those two stories in 2014 and 2015, there were calls to “bury the past and move forward” and to “stop raising a fuss.” I felt strongly that the incident shouldn’t be intentionally forgotten and, as a writer, I had to write. There were attempts by certain people to corner and isolate the victims’ families by spreading the framework of “us vs. them” and “over-demanding surviving families vs. ordinary citizens.” I felt such distinctions were violent and wanted to ask these people if they truly, hand on their heart, thought they had nothing to do with the incident. My portrayal of the sinking is cautious, and never direct, to avoid objectifying the suffering of others in a rough manner, and to show that even people who appear to be unrelated are, in fact, connected to what happened as members of a shared society.Choi Eunyoung refrains from sensationalizing the horrors of these historical events, keeping the stories firmly grounded in the emotional realities of the characters through sparse and understated prose. Reminiscent of Alice Munroe and Elena Ferrante, it is the force of emotions bleeding through Choi’s language that disarms, breaks, and warms the reader’s heart. Ultimately, Shoko’s Smile gently arouses in us an empathy for the pain of others and ourselves. JY: In your interviews, you’ve mentioned how female artists undergo intense self-scrutiny, particularly how you’re “ cold and cruel ” about your own art. I’m curious at how this plays out within the world of Shoko’s Smile, where all the narrators are female. Could you talk more about the role of women in your writing? How do you think this intense self-doubt affects your work? BRIANNA HIRAMI WRITES — So many people want to experience love – the butterflies that fill one’s stomach and makes their chest tighten when they see that special person. We have all seen the movies and read the books about true romance that make our hearts ache either because of a fairy tale ending or a tragic affair that is torn apart by unfortunate circumstances. But what about the love that does not include picnic dates in parks and long romantic walks on the beach? Isn’t that love something special too? Maybe love is experienced in other ways that someone may not directly notice? Each centres around the life of a young Korean woman, with political overtones in some of the stories, such as the rounding-up and torture of suspected leftists, the sinking of the Sewol ferry (see below) and the pro-democracy student movement. Perhaps the most heartbreaking moments in Shoko’s Smile are the stories of lives affected by political incidents too big to be overcome by the effort to keep love and faith alive. That Choi sets her stories within real historic facts, South Korean and global, makes her fiction even more poignant.

After the night commences, the friendship between the nameless narrator’s mother and Mrs. Nguyên never recovered. Her mother visits Mrs. Nguyên several times after, but the tense and awkward air in the room never disappears. Even though they attempt to make each visit “normal,” their once beautiful love for each other shatters. They eventually stop visiting each other, and her mom mourns the loss of her best friend. She stops eating, talks less, does not sleep, and is disengaged from everyone. Her heart is broken and she longs for her best friend, a sentiment made palpable by the protagonist stating, “How preciously Mom must have looked after the piece of heart Mrs. Nguyên had given her. And when it shattered through no fault of her own, how deep must have been her despair…Mom said she didn’t remember those days very well, but for a long time she must have missed Mrs. Nguyên, who had loved her as her.”

In Hanji and Youngju, a failed romance between volunteer workers at a European monastery retreat explores a new kind of international community based on shared values (and shared privilege) as well as the attraction of contemplative places for a young, searching generation. Despite the characters’ best intentions, the story is full of missed connections: “We had resorted to every means, except fighting, to tolerate each other. We didn’t even have the desire to vent our emotions or bad-mouth each other to see how the other would react. You would need at least a shred of affection for fights to happen.” Shoko’s Smile is filled with a tender vulnerability, presented simply in unadorned prose. “I didn’t want to stage a protest about my pain to other people,” the narrator states in “Hanji and Youngju,” a novella about a Korean woman negotiating a complicated relationship and quiet heartache. There is nothing staged or forced about Choi’s stories, which are filled with understated tragedy. Rather than focusing on the drama of the event itself, they reflect the nuances of the grieving process, and what it means to continue living with trauma—such as the violent repercussions of the Vietnam War or the repressed aftermath of the Sewol sinking. Choi Eunyong’s best-selling Shoko’s Smile has earned her comparisons to novelists such as Sally Rooney and Marilynne Robinson for the collection’s carefully crafted portraits of women’s relationships and intimacies formed and dissolved over time.

But all good things must come to an end! This would be true if this were a perfect book and I had to finish it, and it is (unfortunately) true in this case, which is that the story goodness consistency was doomed to die an untimely death. Whenever she felt very fortunate to live a particular moment, the woman remembered her husband, who was called to heaven thirteen years ago. Thinking about him, a heavy pendulum seemed to scrape along the bottom of her heart. He never got to see Michaela enter university or watch her grow into a fine young woman. He never saw the Holy Father holding the Mass at Gwanghwamun and no, he had never been to Jeju island either. If you couldn't share someone else's pain, if you didn't have the guts to survive a difficult stretch with them, it was better to choose heartlessness over half-hearted affection.Jae-Yeon Yoo: As the translator, what drew you to Shoko’s Smile? I know translating an entire manuscript is an investment, and I’d love to hear more about why you chose this collection. Truth to be told, I'm not sure why I started this when I don't feel like having any literary fiction at the moment. After looking further on what the message forth, I think this book is astonishing and agonizing all the same. I find the prose to be a bit dry and monotonous which is why as much as I wanted to love the book, I couldn't find myself engaging with them. I got weary instead. I also agreed on the part where most of the characters felt one-dimensional and barely distinguishable despite it being anthologies. JY: Your writing achingly shows the many ways in which we, from one human to another, keep hurting each other in our society. Are there ways in which you think we can help lessen this overarching pain and cruelty? Many of Choi’s stories feature relationships which form when one woman is uniquely understood by another, or is seen in a way that they have never been seen before. In “Xin Chao Xin Chao”, the loneliness of immigrants is sharply rendered in the story of a Korean family who befriended a Vietnamese family in Germany. The narrator’s mother bears the double burden of being in a loveless marriage in a foreign country but is cared for by Mrs Nguyen who “understood our worries before we mentioned them.” Mrs Nguyen sees the narrator’s mother as no one else has ever seen her, as a woman with “a big heart and the innate capacity to sympathize with other people” and someone who “ached for the people who couldn’t ache.” Mrs Nguyen’s special understanding and affection however, does not suffice to cushion them from the collateral damage of an argument about the Korean participation in the Vietnam war, especially when the Nguyen’s losses are revealed as a result of the conflict.