Shin Gyeong-suk¡¯s novels are so delicate and welcoming, they invariably remind you of the low hills curving the bends of a countryside road or of a gently flowing stream. The wind may blow, cold rain may pour, a wild storm may pass through, but through it all, Shin¡¯s books retain a touching faith in human nature. This is the consistency that keeps Shin¡¯s novels together.

I met Shin Gyeong-suk in early June, with her new novel, A Phone Rings for Me Somewhere, was relishing its third straight week on the top of the bestseller lists. It was her second bestseller in a row following Take Care of My Mother, which sold more than a million copies and was turned into a successful play. I first thanked Shin for taking time off from her busy schedule and asked her how she is handling her countless obligations. In a hoarse whisper, Shin responded that she was almost lost her voice following a book signing last week. She also said, however, that she could really feel the affection from her readers, and that no matter how busy she got, she always felt content and happy.

For several reasons, A Phone Rings for Me Somewhere is a significant work for Shin. For one thing, it was the first time she had posted drafts of her work online, inviting readers to comment as she progressed. For a ¡°conventional¡± writer, remarked that exposing her work to the rough and tumble of the Internet world must had been quite a risk. But Shin recalled the experience as being ¡°more refreshing and fun than I¡¯d expected.¡±
¡°Yes, the writing was continuing online, but I simply kept meeting the deadline the way I always have, and so I wasn¡¯t in any sort of rush,¡± Shin said. ¡°And then there was the fun part of seeing readers¡¯ comments to my writing in real time. It was as if the monitor was alive.¡±

Each part of Shin¡¯s serial attracted 60 to 100 comments, mostly written by fans who had visited her website every day. Reeling off some of the more memorable user IDs she encountered, she said that over the six months it had taken her to write the whole book, her readers¡¯ feedback were a major source of encouragement and inspiration.

But not all parts of her story were so warmly received. Early on, when she included some intense scenes about the deaths of the main characters, some readers responded they were shocked and heartbroken. ¡°Since the stories were posted at 10am, a relatively early hour,¡± Shin said, ¡°I decided not to reveal the more harrowing episodes, and put them directly in the book.¡±

Another reason why A Phone Rings for Me Somewhere is so special to Shin is that it gave her the chance to write about the vagaries of youth. ¡°French novelist Le Clezio said ¡®the home of the writer is the mother tongue,¡¯¡± said Shin. ¡°As a Korean writer, I¡¯d long harbored ambitions of writing a beautiful and sophisticated Korean-language novel about youth. It finally came true.¡± Just as she had spent her youth reading Andre Gide and Hermann Hesse, Shin said that she hoped her works would become the same kind of coming-of-age works that can inspire the Korean youth of today.

THE UNIVERSAL None of this means, however, that Shin¡¯s themes work only in Korean. The million-selling Take Care of My Mother has been sold to 19 countries throughout North America, Europe and Asia, while other novels have been translated into Chinese, French and Japanese. Shin said that regarding Take Care of My Mother, the editor at her US publisher had shocked her by expressing virtually the same opinions on it as her Korean publisher had. ¡°Regardless of nationality, people seem to share universal feelings and existential values,¡± Shin said.

¡°My novels aren¡¯t confined to certain cultural areas, but deal with fundamental tales,¡± she added, ¡°and that way, anyone from any country can really relate to them.¡± Because of this, Shin said, foreign readers of her work had been able to absorb the oddities of Korean culture, rather than just viewing it as alien. ¡°We often categorize literature by the country of the writer¡¯s origin, such as ¡®Korean literature,¡¯ ¡®Japanese literature,¡¯ or ¡®French literature,¡¯¡± she said, ¡°but actually think there¡¯s no boundary to literature itself.¡±

As a huge fan of foreign literature, Shin said she dearly hoped that Korean novels, definitely including her own, would gain more readership overseas. And in her work, references to foreign culture abound: In one example, at the end of Take Care of My Mother, the Pieta (Jesus in the arms of Mother Mary), in St. Peter¡¯s Basilica in Vatican City, is symbolically overlapped with the scene of the ¡®mother¡¯ in the arms of her own mother. In another, A Phone Rings for Me Somewhere contains a significant reference to St. Christopher from the Western myth.

LITTLE GUYS Saying she has never really felt attracted to heroes, Shin characterized most of her protagonists as ¡°little guys,¡± the ordinary, everyday people who live with the pain of loss. Shin¡¯s empathy with ¡°anti-heroes¡± can be found in her novel Leejin, a historical work about a real-life 19th-century character named Yi Sim who moved from Korea to Paris.
¡°Yi Sim had been completely forgotten amid historical events, such as the modernization at the end of the Joseon Dynasty and the introduction of feudalism in modern France,¡± Shin said, adding that her passion for a character who had faded into insignificance more than 100 years previously had pushed her to try a new genre of writing. ¡°I had personally become more introverted after experiencing some of the difficulties of moving from the countryside to a big city, so I could really relate to the identity crisis and loneliness that Yi Sim must have faced.¡±

This empathy and affection for her characters is a trait found in much of Shin¡¯s work. But back when she began her literary career, aged just 22, Shin admited to having been a very different writer. ¡°Early on, I paid more attention to prose. I wanted the readers to know, no matter which page they were reading, that this is a Shin Gyeong-suk novel,¡±

she said. ¡°But after two decades as a novelist, I feel liberated from that obsession.My focus has definitely shifted to the characters.¡±

In coming up with ideas for her stories, Shin said she was inspired by random words she reads somewhere, newspaper articles, or just little things she comes across in her everyday life. But nothing, she said, inspired her like people themselves, and the endless shades of opinion she had about the many fascinating characters she met. With Shin now twenty years into her career, what, I asked her, did the novel mean to her?

¡°To me, a novel is the world, a way of communication, and everything that I am. All of my novels start from within. The characters¡¯ words and anecdotes all come out through me, and that really is the inevitable outcome.¡± But, she added, while she was the conduit for the characters, each of them ended up weaving his or her own story as the book unfolded. So when the book was complete, the people in it represented no more than 10 percent of her.

She cited An Isolated Room as an example. Though it was considered one of her most autobiographical works, Shin said she was actually interested in the other characters, and not the storyteller. ¡°I wanted to write about my own experience from the 1980s, and as much as I could, I wanted to focus on these other, forgotten characters who suffered just as much, rather than on the narrator, who reflected me. I want people to pay more attention to other characters than to my voice.¡±

Her greatest wish was for her novels to be seen as ¡°guiding hands,¡± Shin said: ¡°We forget that people are valuable in their own way and that each one of us is as unique as a shining star. I want to be able to help people, and sometimes, I wanted to be helped by people.¡±

By Oh Kyong-you