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Friend
Paek Nam-nyong's Friend is a tale of marital intrigue, abuse, and divorce in North Korea. A woman in her thirties comes to a courthouse petitioning for a divorce. As the judge who hears her statement begins to investigate the case, the story unfolds into a broader consideration of love and marriage. The novel delves into its protagonists' past, describing how the couple first fell in love and then how their marriage deteriorated over the years. It chronicles the toll their acrimony takes on their son and their careers alongside the story of the judge's own marital troubles.
A best-seller in North Korea, where Paek continues to live and write, Friend illuminates a side of life in the DPRK that Western readers have never before encountered. Far from being a propagandistic screed in praise of the Great Leader, Friend describes the lives of people who struggle with everyday problems such as marital woes and workplace conflicts. Instead of socialist-realist stock figures, Paek depicts complex characters who wrestle with universal questions of individual identity, the split between public and private selves, the unpredictability of existence, and the never-ending labor of maintaining a relationship. This groundbreaking translation of one of North Korea's most popular writers offers English-language readers a page-turner full of psychological tension as well as a revealing portrait of a society that is typically seen as closed to the outside world.
A best-seller in North Korea, where Paek continues to live and write, Friend illuminates a side of life in the DPRK that Western readers have never before encountered. Far from being a propagandistic screed in praise of the Great Leader, Friend describes the lives of people who struggle with everyday problems such as marital woes and workplace conflicts. Instead of socialist-realist stock figures, Paek depicts complex characters who wrestle with universal questions of individual identity, the split between public and private selves, the unpredictability of existence, and the never-ending labor of maintaining a relationship. This groundbreaking translation of one of North Korea's most popular writers offers English-language readers a page-turner full of psychological tension as well as a revealing portrait of a society that is typically seen as closed to the outside world.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1988
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September 25, 2020
As the first state-sanctioned novel from the DPRK to have been translated to English, Friend is an object of utmost sociological curiosity in the Anglophone world, but what really made me pick it up is the claim that it is a 'bestseller' in North Korea. What makes a bestseller in a command economy is itself an interesting matter. According to translator Immanuel Kim, this depends entirely on whether people are circulating the book amongst themselves: "If a book is tattered, then you know it’s a bestseller. If it’s pristine, it’s not a bestseller."
Further, Friend is unique because it does not mention or refer to the Supreme Leader at all, instead focusing on the lives of ordinary people in a society that is otherwise closed off to the outside world. The story revolves around a divorce petition, and delves into questions on love, marriage, and family. However, it is not a story entirely devoid of propaganda: narration and dialogue between characters tell us about the just and efficient nature of administrative structures as well as the standards of living these afford to the country's citizens, such as how collectivisation has improved life in remote villages, and how a delicate balance between tradition and modernity has led to a harmonious cultural landscape. The approach to family, too, is not merely as a personal matter but as the basic unit on which the success and future of the nation depends.
Unsurprisingly, then, divorce is seen as a source of deep distress and catastrophe—deeply damaging to children and adversely affecting the productivity of adults, a disaster to be avoided at all costs. Thus, we follow protagonist Judge Jeong Jin Wu as he tries to reunite an unhappy couple and save their marriage from falling apart, a common enough theme in melodramatic literature everywhere. Similarly, society and family are both constructed in a highly gendered way, where women go out and work, but are also the ones primarily valued for household work and child-rearing. Just as Betty Friedan remarked of suburban housewives in 1950s America, the ideal of womanhood in North Korea in the late 1980s, according to this novel, is to be demure and hardworking, and to never trouble your husband with your own worries.
In addition to social values, Friend also reflects the larger political values of the time it is set in: efforts of the state to recognise extraordinary achievements of ordinary citizens under the Hidden Hero campaign can be seen, and in the Judge's admonishing of the characters for not abiding by party directives for self-improvement through education, we can see the shifting trends where social conditions are to be improved with intellectual advancement rather than just manual labour.
Whereas it provides valuable insight into the socio-cultural and political context and the image the party wants Koreans to have of their own country, and provides psychological insight through multiple narrators, the novel is nonetheless not very high in terms of literary merit. The plot is predictable and the characters largely uni-dimensional, their individual arcs fitting together too easily to be coincidental. There is some pretty writing in here, but it often tends to get trite, and give way to some truly ridiculous drivel:
In general, while I recognise that Friend marks an important moment in the world of publishing, it was not my kind of book at all. All the sociological intrigue aside, I'd best describe it as the kind of melodramatic story that gets made into a TV soap (which it actually was, in North Korea).
Further, Friend is unique because it does not mention or refer to the Supreme Leader at all, instead focusing on the lives of ordinary people in a society that is otherwise closed off to the outside world. The story revolves around a divorce petition, and delves into questions on love, marriage, and family. However, it is not a story entirely devoid of propaganda: narration and dialogue between characters tell us about the just and efficient nature of administrative structures as well as the standards of living these afford to the country's citizens, such as how collectivisation has improved life in remote villages, and how a delicate balance between tradition and modernity has led to a harmonious cultural landscape. The approach to family, too, is not merely as a personal matter but as the basic unit on which the success and future of the nation depends.
Unsurprisingly, then, divorce is seen as a source of deep distress and catastrophe—deeply damaging to children and adversely affecting the productivity of adults, a disaster to be avoided at all costs. Thus, we follow protagonist Judge Jeong Jin Wu as he tries to reunite an unhappy couple and save their marriage from falling apart, a common enough theme in melodramatic literature everywhere. Similarly, society and family are both constructed in a highly gendered way, where women go out and work, but are also the ones primarily valued for household work and child-rearing. Just as Betty Friedan remarked of suburban housewives in 1950s America, the ideal of womanhood in North Korea in the late 1980s, according to this novel, is to be demure and hardworking, and to never trouble your husband with your own worries.
In addition to social values, Friend also reflects the larger political values of the time it is set in: efforts of the state to recognise extraordinary achievements of ordinary citizens under the Hidden Hero campaign can be seen, and in the Judge's admonishing of the characters for not abiding by party directives for self-improvement through education, we can see the shifting trends where social conditions are to be improved with intellectual advancement rather than just manual labour.
Whereas it provides valuable insight into the socio-cultural and political context and the image the party wants Koreans to have of their own country, and provides psychological insight through multiple narrators, the novel is nonetheless not very high in terms of literary merit. The plot is predictable and the characters largely uni-dimensional, their individual arcs fitting together too easily to be coincidental. There is some pretty writing in here, but it often tends to get trite, and give way to some truly ridiculous drivel:
"Comrade Judge, don't you agree that the relationship between a family and a nation is interlinked? Think about it. Can a woman who sings so passionately about the nation be the source of her family's troubles? No, she can't. She would be a hypocrite, and we all know that a hypocrite cannot move her audience the way a genuine singer can. Sun Hee sings genuinely and, therefore cannot be the cause of her failed marriage."As a reader, I found that argument anything but rational, and that isn't all: an entire section of this book details a senior dissertation about how the establishment of the exogamous family with the man at its head 'liberated' women (huh?).
Jeong Jin Wu was impressed with Chae Rim's rational analysis and remained silent. [emphasis added]
In general, while I recognise that Friend marks an important moment in the world of publishing, it was not my kind of book at all. All the sociological intrigue aside, I'd best describe it as the kind of melodramatic story that gets made into a TV soap (which it actually was, in North Korea).
April 22, 2020
As a German, it's hard to read a book by a North Korean author without making comparisons to the GDR/FRG situation. And yes, there were things that did remind me a lot of the "societal fiction" from the GDR that I read whilst growing up in the FRG: The praising of the common good, the metaphors for loyalty to the state, the good power above looking out for the striving people below... all of this is very familiar.
The book was originally published in the 1980ies and centres around a judge who is approached by a former factory worker, now mezzo-soprano in theatre, to initiate her divorce from her factory worker husband. The judge, like the good father, the patron, the person who knows best, wants to understand their relationship and gets very involved in Sun Hee's and Seok Chun's life and befriends their young son as well.
On the one-hand the patronising of the woman who - in my opinion - should get a divorce instantly paired with the promotion of women's right - and obligation - to work outside the home, to have a career even to excel and be better at what they do than their husband written by a male author was a fascinating mix and something, I have not really read in this way before. The judge and society believes that Sun Hee should be with her husband to bring him up-to-date with progress and to make him valuable for the common good of society, so she should be ok with being beaten occasionally and verbally abused. Yet, at the same time, we are introduced into her struggle of combining career and motherhood in a way I have rarely seen in novels written by men, her right to progress - even if it is more for the common good than her own - is never questioned. And she is not the only female character who has a career that takes her out of the home, the judge's wife, too, has a rewarding career as a scientist, a crucial job working on North Korea's food security.
I cannot say that I loved this novel, the underlying propaganda, the heavy metaphors for the common good, the socialist state, being valuable, the praise of hard work and loyalty... well, I just cannot really look beyond that. Yet, there is no doubt that Paek Nam-Nyong could write, even though it feels often very odd and offputting, at times, he did win me over with an observation, a sentence or a thought. Overall, though this was more an interesting book, something you read with an explorer's mind rather than a reader's mind.
The book was originally published in the 1980ies and centres around a judge who is approached by a former factory worker, now mezzo-soprano in theatre, to initiate her divorce from her factory worker husband. The judge, like the good father, the patron, the person who knows best, wants to understand their relationship and gets very involved in Sun Hee's and Seok Chun's life and befriends their young son as well.
On the one-hand the patronising of the woman who - in my opinion - should get a divorce instantly paired with the promotion of women's right - and obligation - to work outside the home, to have a career even to excel and be better at what they do than their husband written by a male author was a fascinating mix and something, I have not really read in this way before. The judge and society believes that Sun Hee should be with her husband to bring him up-to-date with progress and to make him valuable for the common good of society, so she should be ok with being beaten occasionally and verbally abused. Yet, at the same time, we are introduced into her struggle of combining career and motherhood in a way I have rarely seen in novels written by men, her right to progress - even if it is more for the common good than her own - is never questioned. And she is not the only female character who has a career that takes her out of the home, the judge's wife, too, has a rewarding career as a scientist, a crucial job working on North Korea's food security.
I cannot say that I loved this novel, the underlying propaganda, the heavy metaphors for the common good, the socialist state, being valuable, the praise of hard work and loyalty... well, I just cannot really look beyond that. Yet, there is no doubt that Paek Nam-Nyong could write, even though it feels often very odd and offputting, at times, he did win me over with an observation, a sentence or a thought. Overall, though this was more an interesting book, something you read with an explorer's mind rather than a reader's mind.
November 23, 2019
”You love Sun Hee the press worker and not the renowned mezzo- soprano of the performing arts company. She has progressed and become a new person. Times have changed, and so must you. Our entire society is actively progressing toward becoming intellectualized in scientific technology and the arts. But you, comrade, have fallen behind.”
‘벗’ by백남룡 has been translated by ‘Friend’ by Immanuel Kim.
The significance of this novel is explained by Kim in a very useful afterword:
”Almost all the North Korean writing we have access to in English translation is by dissidents or defectors.
Friend is unique in the Anglophone publishing landscape in that it is a state-sanctioned novel, written in Korea for North Koreans, by an author in good standing with the regime.
First published in Pyongyang in 1988, the novel was picked up by the South Korean press Sallimteo in 1992, and the French publisher Actes Sud produced a translation by Patrick Maurus in 2011. “
NB: Slightly unhelpfully (particularly for Goodreads cataloguing) the original author’s name has been Romanised as Paek Nam-Nyong here, but as Baek Nam-Ryong in the French (the ㄹ/R becomes a ㄴ/N sound when pronounced, and the B/P choice often splits views)
This novel was published in the late 1980s, when state-sanctioned literary efforts were moving away from literature about revolutionary heroes and towards a focus on more ordinary lives, alongside a ‘hidden heroes’ campaign in the country generally. This was also the period of the Three Revolutions campaign which as Kim explains both motivated the author himself to move to full-time writing, as well (as we shall see) as inspiring this story:
”While he was content with his job at [a] factory, he followed the Party’s Three Revolutions campaign, which called on the people to study political ideology, acquire the latest technical skills, and raise their cultural consciousness through literature, cinema, songs, theater, and collective activities. Paek chose a career in writing to educate his readers on the importance of self- cultivation, which entails lifelong learning, serving the country and the people, abiding by Party doctrine, and participating in collective community initiatives.”
This novel, essentially a psychological domestic drama, is set in 1984. The hidden hero is Judge Jeong Jin Wu, responsible for divorces cases, although his role, as he interprets it, is more that of an investigator and marriage counsellor – working out what has gone wrong and if the marriage can be repaired. Although he is also responsible for other cases, one of which gives a rather interesting insight into 1980s North Korea:
”The director of the City Electricity Distribution Company had designed an electric blanket for personal use and had been using it without permission from the government. This was considered a felony, as the entire country was trying to conserve energy. He was not an ordinary citizen, but the director of the very institution whose priority was the conservation of energy. For this reason, he was going to receive a severe sentence.”
He is approached by a couple, coming up to their 10th anniversary but seeking a divorce: Chae Sun Hee, a skilled lathe operator, and Lee Seok Chun, who started herself as a factory worker but has since found fame as the lead mezzo-soprano of a performing group. They first meet when Seok-Chun is a seconded worker at the rural factory where she works, and, for him, it is love at first friction press:
"Amid the noise of all the running machines, Seok Chun was able to distinguish the sound of the friction press that Sun Hee operated. He could see drops of sweat rolling down her forehead, around her lustrous eyes, and down her white cheeks as she arduously worked the press. Such images of Sun Hee occupied Seok Chun’s thoughts and enlivened his soul."
And the retrospectively told tale of their initial romance rather romanticises the factory floor. Indeed when Sun Hee initially rebuts his over-hasty declaration of affections, he decides to move back to his hometown, but it is loyalty to his workplace that keeps him there:
”He had determined to forget about Sun Hee, but he deeply wanted his feelings for her to persist. He regretted his foolish behavior of the night before, when his words, which he had intended to use to express his love for her, had instead been cynical, deriving from his frustration and embarrassment. Yet he loved her, he still desired her. He felt that he had neither the strength nor the courage to control his emotions. He decided to leave at dawn without anyone knowing, without a word, while the villagers were still asleep. He thought that if he left, his love for Sun Hee would subside, gradually fading into oblivion, and then his troubled heart would be able to find solace and regain its peace in solitude.
Yet he could not forget the factory, to which he had grown attached. He did not want to leave because of Sun Hee. His heart would not find peace in an abrupt departure. He tried to convince himself that if he spent his energy solely on working on the lathe and living among the noble factory workers and adopting their humble lifestyle, then thoughts of Sun Hee, his love for her and everything that concerned her very existence would fade away. Seok Chun could never forget the lathe work that had become a part of his identity along with the smell of greased steel, the sharp steel rods, the admirable workers and their quiet ambitions, and the humorous stories the factory workers told. These were the elements that shaped his life, that gave passion to his creativity and aspirations.”
But as they settle down to married life, and as Sun Hee’s career soars, her frustration with her husband largely stems from his unwillingness to progress. While a talented amateur inventor, he refuses to go to college and instead works on self-designed solutions, which typically take years to perfect. As the Judge also admonishes him:
"If you had listened to your wife and gone to the Engineering College, then you would be a technician by now and would not have wasted all those years trying to figure out the complex engineering components of your invention"
My description makes this all sound rather earnest, almost comically so, and to an extent it is. But the author’s literary reputation is well deserved – his prose, in Kim’s translation, can turn to the lyrical such as this riff on the weather:
”From whence, from whom, for what reason was the wind running, like a fugitive, like someone who has abandoned his family? Who will ever know its point of departure, who will ever know its lonesome fate? It wanders the earth aimlessly, seeking refuge among the trees in the depths of a forest or by a river in an open meadow. It dashes by without looking back, or it lurks around a single spot. At times, it affectionately embraces life, sharing warmth and love with everything near and far. At other times, it bellows with rage and devours every thing in sight with a destructive force that makes the earth shudder. It gets soaked in the cold rain and freezes in the icy blizzard. It moans in agony and howls into the lonely night. But then, on a quiet day, it wakes from the warmth of the sun and embarks on its journey yet again, looking forward to the promise of a new day, a new adventure. This is why it can never find a mate and, therefore, lives a most miserable life.”
And amidst the paeans to industrial progress and the exhortations to cultural and education progress, this is a very human story of a troubled married couple and their son, and the novel, while ending on a hopeful note, avoids an easy resolution.
A fascinating insight into an otherwise closed society and literary culture.
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC.
‘벗’ by백남룡 has been translated by ‘Friend’ by Immanuel Kim.
The significance of this novel is explained by Kim in a very useful afterword:
”Almost all the North Korean writing we have access to in English translation is by dissidents or defectors.
Friend is unique in the Anglophone publishing landscape in that it is a state-sanctioned novel, written in Korea for North Koreans, by an author in good standing with the regime.
First published in Pyongyang in 1988, the novel was picked up by the South Korean press Sallimteo in 1992, and the French publisher Actes Sud produced a translation by Patrick Maurus in 2011. “
NB: Slightly unhelpfully (particularly for Goodreads cataloguing) the original author’s name has been Romanised as Paek Nam-Nyong here, but as Baek Nam-Ryong in the French (the ㄹ/R becomes a ㄴ/N sound when pronounced, and the B/P choice often splits views)
This novel was published in the late 1980s, when state-sanctioned literary efforts were moving away from literature about revolutionary heroes and towards a focus on more ordinary lives, alongside a ‘hidden heroes’ campaign in the country generally. This was also the period of the Three Revolutions campaign which as Kim explains both motivated the author himself to move to full-time writing, as well (as we shall see) as inspiring this story:
”While he was content with his job at [a] factory, he followed the Party’s Three Revolutions campaign, which called on the people to study political ideology, acquire the latest technical skills, and raise their cultural consciousness through literature, cinema, songs, theater, and collective activities. Paek chose a career in writing to educate his readers on the importance of self- cultivation, which entails lifelong learning, serving the country and the people, abiding by Party doctrine, and participating in collective community initiatives.”
This novel, essentially a psychological domestic drama, is set in 1984. The hidden hero is Judge Jeong Jin Wu, responsible for divorces cases, although his role, as he interprets it, is more that of an investigator and marriage counsellor – working out what has gone wrong and if the marriage can be repaired. Although he is also responsible for other cases, one of which gives a rather interesting insight into 1980s North Korea:
”The director of the City Electricity Distribution Company had designed an electric blanket for personal use and had been using it without permission from the government. This was considered a felony, as the entire country was trying to conserve energy. He was not an ordinary citizen, but the director of the very institution whose priority was the conservation of energy. For this reason, he was going to receive a severe sentence.”
He is approached by a couple, coming up to their 10th anniversary but seeking a divorce: Chae Sun Hee, a skilled lathe operator, and Lee Seok Chun, who started herself as a factory worker but has since found fame as the lead mezzo-soprano of a performing group. They first meet when Seok-Chun is a seconded worker at the rural factory where she works, and, for him, it is love at first friction press:
"Amid the noise of all the running machines, Seok Chun was able to distinguish the sound of the friction press that Sun Hee operated. He could see drops of sweat rolling down her forehead, around her lustrous eyes, and down her white cheeks as she arduously worked the press. Such images of Sun Hee occupied Seok Chun’s thoughts and enlivened his soul."
And the retrospectively told tale of their initial romance rather romanticises the factory floor. Indeed when Sun Hee initially rebuts his over-hasty declaration of affections, he decides to move back to his hometown, but it is loyalty to his workplace that keeps him there:
”He had determined to forget about Sun Hee, but he deeply wanted his feelings for her to persist. He regretted his foolish behavior of the night before, when his words, which he had intended to use to express his love for her, had instead been cynical, deriving from his frustration and embarrassment. Yet he loved her, he still desired her. He felt that he had neither the strength nor the courage to control his emotions. He decided to leave at dawn without anyone knowing, without a word, while the villagers were still asleep. He thought that if he left, his love for Sun Hee would subside, gradually fading into oblivion, and then his troubled heart would be able to find solace and regain its peace in solitude.
Yet he could not forget the factory, to which he had grown attached. He did not want to leave because of Sun Hee. His heart would not find peace in an abrupt departure. He tried to convince himself that if he spent his energy solely on working on the lathe and living among the noble factory workers and adopting their humble lifestyle, then thoughts of Sun Hee, his love for her and everything that concerned her very existence would fade away. Seok Chun could never forget the lathe work that had become a part of his identity along with the smell of greased steel, the sharp steel rods, the admirable workers and their quiet ambitions, and the humorous stories the factory workers told. These were the elements that shaped his life, that gave passion to his creativity and aspirations.”
But as they settle down to married life, and as Sun Hee’s career soars, her frustration with her husband largely stems from his unwillingness to progress. While a talented amateur inventor, he refuses to go to college and instead works on self-designed solutions, which typically take years to perfect. As the Judge also admonishes him:
"If you had listened to your wife and gone to the Engineering College, then you would be a technician by now and would not have wasted all those years trying to figure out the complex engineering components of your invention"
My description makes this all sound rather earnest, almost comically so, and to an extent it is. But the author’s literary reputation is well deserved – his prose, in Kim’s translation, can turn to the lyrical such as this riff on the weather:
”From whence, from whom, for what reason was the wind running, like a fugitive, like someone who has abandoned his family? Who will ever know its point of departure, who will ever know its lonesome fate? It wanders the earth aimlessly, seeking refuge among the trees in the depths of a forest or by a river in an open meadow. It dashes by without looking back, or it lurks around a single spot. At times, it affectionately embraces life, sharing warmth and love with everything near and far. At other times, it bellows with rage and devours every thing in sight with a destructive force that makes the earth shudder. It gets soaked in the cold rain and freezes in the icy blizzard. It moans in agony and howls into the lonely night. But then, on a quiet day, it wakes from the warmth of the sun and embarks on its journey yet again, looking forward to the promise of a new day, a new adventure. This is why it can never find a mate and, therefore, lives a most miserable life.”
And amidst the paeans to industrial progress and the exhortations to cultural and education progress, this is a very human story of a troubled married couple and their son, and the novel, while ending on a hopeful note, avoids an easy resolution.
A fascinating insight into an otherwise closed society and literary culture.
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for the ARC.
March 31, 2023
I highly doubt anyone has picked up the English translation of ‘Friend’ because it sounded like such a great and interesting story. I’m sure more or less everyone outside of North Korea has read it for the same reason. Because it’s from North Korea. Not only that, but it is the only state sanctioned novel to appear in English, and as someone who likes to read as widely as possible culturally speaking, it's hard to not indulge that kind of curiosity. ‘Friend’ tells the story of a couple attempting to divorce (something North Korea doesn't look kindly upon), and the courthouse judge who investigates and becomes entangled with their case.
Unfortunately (though not unexpectedly) ‘Friend’ was pretty much just a piece of propaganda and as such, was a real struggle to get through. A peculiar falseness pervades the entire narrative - it’s impossible to ever be swept up in the story because everything within it is so clearly constructed with a particular agenda in mind. From the major plot points, to throwaway sentences and even word choice, there are so many jarring elements to this book that constantly either unnerved or straight up irritated me. “Show don’t tell” also is non-existent here. There is essentially nothing but telling, which is unsurprising when you think about it. It’s not really in the interests of the regime to leave a lot open to interpretation - they want to tell you exactly how you should think and feel about what you are being presented so there's no nuance, nothing beyond the surface. Which is exactly why it reads like a book for babies. Every detail is spoon fed to you, which ends up leaving it with little value as a piece of fiction.
I think fundamentally either writing specifically for such an oppressive and cult like regime, or writing something that is of a quality for it to be sanctioned and allowed by said regime (whether commissioned to or not), implies a lack of critical thinking skills, emotional intelligence and fundamental empathy that are all required to write meaningful fiction. Theoretically, it should be possible to write quality prose without these things, but it's not possible to write a quality story without these fundamentals, which is why this book was so unbearable. Every sentiment expressed here rings entirely false. Either our author believes the things he writes here, and therefore he has a severe lack of those fundamentals I listed above, which impinge on his ability to tell a worthwhile story. Or, he simply manufactures and repeats for the benefit of the regime, and therefore is far too disingenuous and morally bankrupt to enjoy in any real way. This book definitely has far more value as an intellectual curiosity, which is indeed how I came to it in the first place I suppose. Though, I have to say, my interest really lay not in seeing a glimpse of the regime and life within it, but seeing if it was still possible to make meaningful and/or universal art under conditions that seem antithetical to this. I was definitely disappointed to find, at least from this novel, that not to be the case.
I was genuinely hoping to be disproven - I was hoping that there would be a story here I may find abhorrent in some way but that it might be wrapped in some genuinely good writing of real literary merit, something that would challenge my notions of what made writing successful. After reading 'Friend' I don't believe this to be intrinsically impossible, but I'm sad to say I didn't find any proof of it here. The writing really is quite poor, and to me, the whole thing read like a student just beginning to write, unsure of how to express themselves fully. It felt clunky and stilted with far too much exposition and overly basic literary devices. It's hard to say if this is because of what was necessary to write for this novel to be allowed, or if this is simply our author's skill level. I suppose when you also consider that North Korea aren't privy to the rich history of literature in the way that almost anyone else from any other country would be, it isn't surprising that this book isn't as well written as I hoped it may be. After all, reading is one of the things most fundamental to learning how to write and the absence of that is very clearly felt here.
I did um and ah about the rating here, due to its importance as a historical and intellectual curiosity, but ultimately it is so artistically and morally bankrupt, with no style or particular skill behind it either, it felt wrong to rate it any higher than the bare minimum. Every sentence just made me feel gross, and it was incredibly hard to stomach long enough to get through it. I am still a little caught between whether I believe it's possible to write beautiful prose not only under conditions that seem so crushing to art, but in favour of those forces that do the crushing, and I was a little bummed that this novel didn’t offer any evidence that it might be possible. I suppose I wouldn’t be surprised to find that it simply isn’t. Any merit it has only lies in the ability to peep behind the curtain of North Korean society, seeing a little into the lives of ordinary people and how the state expects them to think and conduct their lives. However, if your interest lies beyond this, or in any literary capacity, I’d definitely give this one a miss.
Unfortunately (though not unexpectedly) ‘Friend’ was pretty much just a piece of propaganda and as such, was a real struggle to get through. A peculiar falseness pervades the entire narrative - it’s impossible to ever be swept up in the story because everything within it is so clearly constructed with a particular agenda in mind. From the major plot points, to throwaway sentences and even word choice, there are so many jarring elements to this book that constantly either unnerved or straight up irritated me. “Show don’t tell” also is non-existent here. There is essentially nothing but telling, which is unsurprising when you think about it. It’s not really in the interests of the regime to leave a lot open to interpretation - they want to tell you exactly how you should think and feel about what you are being presented so there's no nuance, nothing beyond the surface. Which is exactly why it reads like a book for babies. Every detail is spoon fed to you, which ends up leaving it with little value as a piece of fiction.
I think fundamentally either writing specifically for such an oppressive and cult like regime, or writing something that is of a quality for it to be sanctioned and allowed by said regime (whether commissioned to or not), implies a lack of critical thinking skills, emotional intelligence and fundamental empathy that are all required to write meaningful fiction. Theoretically, it should be possible to write quality prose without these things, but it's not possible to write a quality story without these fundamentals, which is why this book was so unbearable. Every sentiment expressed here rings entirely false. Either our author believes the things he writes here, and therefore he has a severe lack of those fundamentals I listed above, which impinge on his ability to tell a worthwhile story. Or, he simply manufactures and repeats for the benefit of the regime, and therefore is far too disingenuous and morally bankrupt to enjoy in any real way. This book definitely has far more value as an intellectual curiosity, which is indeed how I came to it in the first place I suppose. Though, I have to say, my interest really lay not in seeing a glimpse of the regime and life within it, but seeing if it was still possible to make meaningful and/or universal art under conditions that seem antithetical to this. I was definitely disappointed to find, at least from this novel, that not to be the case.
I was genuinely hoping to be disproven - I was hoping that there would be a story here I may find abhorrent in some way but that it might be wrapped in some genuinely good writing of real literary merit, something that would challenge my notions of what made writing successful. After reading 'Friend' I don't believe this to be intrinsically impossible, but I'm sad to say I didn't find any proof of it here. The writing really is quite poor, and to me, the whole thing read like a student just beginning to write, unsure of how to express themselves fully. It felt clunky and stilted with far too much exposition and overly basic literary devices. It's hard to say if this is because of what was necessary to write for this novel to be allowed, or if this is simply our author's skill level. I suppose when you also consider that North Korea aren't privy to the rich history of literature in the way that almost anyone else from any other country would be, it isn't surprising that this book isn't as well written as I hoped it may be. After all, reading is one of the things most fundamental to learning how to write and the absence of that is very clearly felt here.
I did um and ah about the rating here, due to its importance as a historical and intellectual curiosity, but ultimately it is so artistically and morally bankrupt, with no style or particular skill behind it either, it felt wrong to rate it any higher than the bare minimum. Every sentence just made me feel gross, and it was incredibly hard to stomach long enough to get through it. I am still a little caught between whether I believe it's possible to write beautiful prose not only under conditions that seem so crushing to art, but in favour of those forces that do the crushing, and I was a little bummed that this novel didn’t offer any evidence that it might be possible. I suppose I wouldn’t be surprised to find that it simply isn’t. Any merit it has only lies in the ability to peep behind the curtain of North Korean society, seeing a little into the lives of ordinary people and how the state expects them to think and conduct their lives. However, if your interest lies beyond this, or in any literary capacity, I’d definitely give this one a miss.
May 3, 2025
Noticias del paraíso 2,5
Corea del Norte es un país muy cerrado, con muy mala prensa, y escasa producción literaria conocida. Sólo he conocido y leído La acusación , una colección de relatos, sumamente críticos del régimen, escritos por Bandi (Mariposa), un seudónimo tras el que se esconde el verdadero autor, por razones de seguridad.
A través de esta lectura he querido conocer un poco más sobre el modo de vida en el país, a partir de la experiencia de que aún en países totalitarios, se puede esquivar la censura a través de historias que eviten tocar temas políticos sensibles: historias domésticas, novelas policiales o (aunque me generan menos interés), novelas románticas o situadas en un pasado lejano (como hizo Ismail Kadare con El palacio de los sueños, que sitúa la historia en tiempos del Imperio Otomano, para construir, esquivando la censura, una impecable metáfora de la implacable vigilancia del estado totalitario de la Albania de Enver Hoxha).
Logré cumplir parcialmente el objetivo a través de la lectura de esta novela, y sospecho que es hasta dónde su puede llegar. El narrador, sobre todo a través del juez Jeon Jin Wu, quien mientras trata de buscar la mejor solución para una solicitud de divorcio de una pareja, nos traslada con bastante precisión a la forma de razonar de los sistemas colectivistas, con su ética propia, en la que lo que es bueno es lo que beneficia del Estado, y por ende a la Nación y a la ciudadanía en general (frente al individualismo egoísta, aunque también a la pereza y la ausencia de iniciativa y compromiso ciudadano, que perjudica a la economía y a al bienestar del conjunto).
No evita mencionar la existencia de la corrupción, en particular en alguno de los infinitos Comités, encargados de diferenciar lo que es bueno y válido y lo que atenta contra el trinomio inseparable Estado-Nación-Bienestar Colectivo; aunque no lo considera una consecuencia inevitable del sistema, sino como un desviación ideológica, que todos, desde el gobernante para abajo, desean y deben combatir.
En algunos aspectos toma las características de una apología del sistema, dirigida a escolares disciplinados, a través de sus personajes ejemplares, así como de los caídos con posibilidades de redención.
Los personajes, aunque tienen, principalmente, un papel funcional al argumento central, muestran algunos matices interesantes. La narración y construcción de la historia me han parecido bastante buenas, y hacen pensar que se trata de un autor con talento literario.
Todo esto dicho, llegando a cerca del sesenta por ciento del libro, la sensación de adoctrinamiento ya se me hizo insoportable, y decidí adelantar páginas para ver como terminaba, que fue efectivamente como había supuesto. Suficiente para mí.
Un libro que podría interesar a quien tenga curiosidad por ver la otra cara de la moneda, y no sufra tanto las inconsistencias o tenga mejor estómago para sobrellevarlo; es una historia bien narrada que aborda con bastante sensibilidad diversos temas de las relaciones humanas. Fue traducida del coreano al inglés por Immanuel Kim, catedrático de la la Universidad George Washington y publicada por la Universidad de Columbia, Nueva York.
PD: Lo había calificado inicialmente con dos estrellas; pero por ciertos méritos literarios, me ha parecido más justo (más allá de la ética colectivista) calificarlo con tres estrellas.
Corea del Norte es un país muy cerrado, con muy mala prensa, y escasa producción literaria conocida. Sólo he conocido y leído La acusación , una colección de relatos, sumamente críticos del régimen, escritos por Bandi (Mariposa), un seudónimo tras el que se esconde el verdadero autor, por razones de seguridad.
A través de esta lectura he querido conocer un poco más sobre el modo de vida en el país, a partir de la experiencia de que aún en países totalitarios, se puede esquivar la censura a través de historias que eviten tocar temas políticos sensibles: historias domésticas, novelas policiales o (aunque me generan menos interés), novelas románticas o situadas en un pasado lejano (como hizo Ismail Kadare con El palacio de los sueños, que sitúa la historia en tiempos del Imperio Otomano, para construir, esquivando la censura, una impecable metáfora de la implacable vigilancia del estado totalitario de la Albania de Enver Hoxha).
Logré cumplir parcialmente el objetivo a través de la lectura de esta novela, y sospecho que es hasta dónde su puede llegar. El narrador, sobre todo a través del juez Jeon Jin Wu, quien mientras trata de buscar la mejor solución para una solicitud de divorcio de una pareja, nos traslada con bastante precisión a la forma de razonar de los sistemas colectivistas, con su ética propia, en la que lo que es bueno es lo que beneficia del Estado, y por ende a la Nación y a la ciudadanía en general (frente al individualismo egoísta, aunque también a la pereza y la ausencia de iniciativa y compromiso ciudadano, que perjudica a la economía y a al bienestar del conjunto).
No evita mencionar la existencia de la corrupción, en particular en alguno de los infinitos Comités, encargados de diferenciar lo que es bueno y válido y lo que atenta contra el trinomio inseparable Estado-Nación-Bienestar Colectivo; aunque no lo considera una consecuencia inevitable del sistema, sino como un desviación ideológica, que todos, desde el gobernante para abajo, desean y deben combatir.
En algunos aspectos toma las características de una apología del sistema, dirigida a escolares disciplinados, a través de sus personajes ejemplares, así como de los caídos con posibilidades de redención.
Los personajes, aunque tienen, principalmente, un papel funcional al argumento central, muestran algunos matices interesantes. La narración y construcción de la historia me han parecido bastante buenas, y hacen pensar que se trata de un autor con talento literario.
Todo esto dicho, llegando a cerca del sesenta por ciento del libro, la sensación de adoctrinamiento ya se me hizo insoportable, y decidí adelantar páginas para ver como terminaba, que fue efectivamente como había supuesto. Suficiente para mí.
Un libro que podría interesar a quien tenga curiosidad por ver la otra cara de la moneda, y no sufra tanto las inconsistencias o tenga mejor estómago para sobrellevarlo; es una historia bien narrada que aborda con bastante sensibilidad diversos temas de las relaciones humanas. Fue traducida del coreano al inglés por Immanuel Kim, catedrático de la la Universidad George Washington y publicada por la Universidad de Columbia, Nueva York.
PD: Lo había calificado inicialmente con dos estrellas; pero por ciertos méritos literarios, me ha parecido más justo (más allá de la ética colectivista) calificarlo con tres estrellas.
March 6, 2020
The afterword of Friend was most insightful. The novel is unique because most North Korean literature available in English is by dissidents but Friend is a state-sanctioned novel, written for North Koreans, by an author in good relationship with the regime. Friend was first published in Pyongyang in 1988, then picked up by the South Korean press Sallimteo in 1992, and the French publisher Actes Sud produced a translation by Patrick Maurus in 2011.
Chae Sun Hee, an established singer, wants to get a divorce from Lee Seok Chun, a veteran lathe machine worker who works in a factory. She has been married for 10 years and they have a son named Ho Nam. The protagonist of the novel is Judge Jeong Jin Wu who grants divorces but also acts as an investigator to see if a divorce case presented before him can be avoided and the marriage saved. His own wife, is mainly absent from home and pursues agricultural research in a remote area. The Judge gets a call from Chae Rim, a cousin of Sun Hee, urging a quick divorce but the name reminds him of a couple to whom he granted a divorce 6 years ago, which somehow bothers him.
State sanctioned novels have to fulfill certain obligations (as mentioned in the afterword). There should be a moral to the story; there should be enough to elevate the thinking and intellectual questioning of the readers. Hence, at times the novel falls into the constricted mould of revolving around myriad 'acceptable duties of a model person' — responsibility of citizens towards the state, the various aspects of sacrifice and adjustment in a marriage, empowering co-workers, higher education to better one's skills. That said, the novel is fairly progressive in the aspects of women's life — pursuing a career, choosing passion over staying in the same house as the partner after marriage and balancing career and domestic life. It also encourages, through the characters, to keep bettering oneself, acquiring knowledge and serving the society (and thereby the state). The novel also explores family as a unit, balancing family and the work-related community, corruption hindering the progress of the working class (and having widespread effects on their domestic life as well) and the effect of a divorce on the children involved in the marriage. There is enough to sink your teeth into and meditate about life, marriage and domestic and social responsibilities of citizens.
Much thanks to Columbia University Press for an e-copy of the book. All opinions are my own.
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Chae Sun Hee, an established singer, wants to get a divorce from Lee Seok Chun, a veteran lathe machine worker who works in a factory. She has been married for 10 years and they have a son named Ho Nam. The protagonist of the novel is Judge Jeong Jin Wu who grants divorces but also acts as an investigator to see if a divorce case presented before him can be avoided and the marriage saved. His own wife, is mainly absent from home and pursues agricultural research in a remote area. The Judge gets a call from Chae Rim, a cousin of Sun Hee, urging a quick divorce but the name reminds him of a couple to whom he granted a divorce 6 years ago, which somehow bothers him.
State sanctioned novels have to fulfill certain obligations (as mentioned in the afterword). There should be a moral to the story; there should be enough to elevate the thinking and intellectual questioning of the readers. Hence, at times the novel falls into the constricted mould of revolving around myriad 'acceptable duties of a model person' — responsibility of citizens towards the state, the various aspects of sacrifice and adjustment in a marriage, empowering co-workers, higher education to better one's skills. That said, the novel is fairly progressive in the aspects of women's life — pursuing a career, choosing passion over staying in the same house as the partner after marriage and balancing career and domestic life. It also encourages, through the characters, to keep bettering oneself, acquiring knowledge and serving the society (and thereby the state). The novel also explores family as a unit, balancing family and the work-related community, corruption hindering the progress of the working class (and having widespread effects on their domestic life as well) and the effect of a divorce on the children involved in the marriage. There is enough to sink your teeth into and meditate about life, marriage and domestic and social responsibilities of citizens.
Much thanks to Columbia University Press for an e-copy of the book. All opinions are my own.
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August 27, 2021
I've seen a few reviews mentionig how this book is unique because it does not mention 'the Great Leader' and I'm sort of curious about this statement - how is this unique? how much North Korean literature have these people consumed to say this? To my knnowledge this is the only North Korean fiction book translated to English (besides The samizdat lit by Bandi). Great Leader making an appearance or not, this book represented the regime's views on family really well (in other words: no Leader, no problem! his knowedge is still in there).
That being said, there's a couple things I want to mention. 1) I have rushed to read this because Immanuel Kim analyzes it to see how the state's idea of women, family, and officials (aka the Judge) are portrayed in Rewriting Revolution: Women, Sexuality, and Memory in North Korean Fiction; 2) I've been researching (and thus, watching and reading a lot of) North Korean propaganda these past few days and I am frustrated, depleated, and hate everything about it. THUS, this book gets 4 stars. Why? Because it represents what the regime dictates in fiction and challenges it to some extent. Going deeper into this would just be echoing Immanuel Kim's own analysis, so if you want to know why this is state-friendly yet still groundbreaking for NK lit (and depictions of women and famiy), go read his book (and the afterword in Friend).
Synopsis - Friend follows Judge Jeong Jin Wu confronted by the fact that he has to do his job (gasp!). He divorces couples but when a woman approaches him to ask for a divorce, he decides he will become the friend of the family and save the marriage. Not sure if this is a spoiler about what happened to the family or I'm just joking, but I'm hiding it just in case:
Now onto my personal thoughts: I hated this. I wanted it to end so badly. My parents are divorced and I am a woman, so being told divorce is wrong (not always) and what women's place is (ugh) was maybe not fun. I wanted to slap everyone in this book and shake them out of their stupidity. The misogyny had me dying, sighing, and eye-rolling. Yet here I am, I survived, this book did not end me. Bye bye.
That being said, there's a couple things I want to mention. 1) I have rushed to read this because Immanuel Kim analyzes it to see how the state's idea of women, family, and officials (aka the Judge) are portrayed in Rewriting Revolution: Women, Sexuality, and Memory in North Korean Fiction; 2) I've been researching (and thus, watching and reading a lot of) North Korean propaganda these past few days and I am frustrated, depleated, and hate everything about it. THUS, this book gets 4 stars. Why? Because it represents what the regime dictates in fiction and challenges it to some extent. Going deeper into this would just be echoing Immanuel Kim's own analysis, so if you want to know why this is state-friendly yet still groundbreaking for NK lit (and depictions of women and famiy), go read his book (and the afterword in Friend).
Synopsis - Friend follows Judge Jeong Jin Wu confronted by the fact that he has to do his job (gasp!). He divorces couples but when a woman approaches him to ask for a divorce, he decides he will become the friend of the family and save the marriage. Not sure if this is a spoiler about what happened to the family or I'm just joking, but I'm hiding it just in case:
Now onto my personal thoughts: I hated this. I wanted it to end so badly. My parents are divorced and I am a woman, so being told divorce is wrong (not always) and what women's place is (ugh) was maybe not fun. I wanted to slap everyone in this book and shake them out of their stupidity. The misogyny had me dying, sighing, and eye-rolling. Yet here I am, I survived, this book did not end me. Bye bye.
November 25, 2025
I don’t know how to rate this book! Within the context of my Read Around the World quest, it’s a 5 star read for its fascinating glimpses into one of the most mysterious countries today. But if I didn’t have a RATW project? It’s 2 stars (okay, I’m being generous. It’s like a one star for story, characters and settings). So let’s just average it at 3? I don’t know! I suspect I’ll talk about this one a lot because it was my pick for North Korea… Ultimately, I’m glad I read it and now I want to read a memoir by a defector.
November 24, 2025
i prefer my propaganda to be more eloquently written. he should have gone to the writing center.
November 24, 2025
it really was profound when he said
“would u like to have some crackers and delicious food?”
and then she said “no”
it really helped me understand north korean culture
“would u like to have some crackers and delicious food?”
and then she said “no”
it really helped me understand north korean culture
November 24, 2025
“It’s like a propagandistic Hallmark movie” - my good friend Sadie
This book was a whole lot of hypocrisy and dysfunction, all telling, no showing.
This book was a whole lot of hypocrisy and dysfunction, all telling, no showing.
August 9, 2020
See a June 20, 2020, online “in-store appearance” by translator Immanuel Kim at the website of Washington, D.C., bookstore “Politics & Prose” here, or at P&P's YouTube channel here. I found it interesting.
I watched this event stream live. At one point in the proceedings, Kim gives a shout-out to the support he got from publisher Columbia University Press in the preparation of this book. I said to myself, “Hmm, Columbia University Press is one of those generous establishments who gives reviewers free electronic advance copies via Netgalley.” I navigated over there and scored a free copy. Thanks to all.
If you don't watch the author appearance linked to above, I recommended that you start reading this book with the translator afterword. It gives helpful context. Readers of this Goodreads page probably know already that this is possibly the first state-approved novel from the Hermit Kingdom to be translated and published in English. The afterward fills in additional detail that I found helpful to keep in mind while reading, e.g., at the time, the officially-approved literature was moving away from heroic manual laborers toward heroes who improve themselves through education.
Remember, this novel was published in North Korea in 1988. At that time, the Soviet Union's generous subsidies had just been reduced, and the subsequent economic hardships were not yet being rippled through the economy, so life was comparatively prosperous and normal. Since them, there were (and are) Western sanctions against the regime. Life's probably much harder now.
Even if life was easier for North Korean then compared to now, sometimes the mask of normalcy that the novel attempts to portray slips a little and you get an idea about how different (meaning, lower) the quality of life was. For example, early on in the novel, some characters attend a evening concert. When the concert is over, people leave the concert hall and reach for the flashlights they have in the purses or overcoats – because of course the street lights are few and far between. Later on in the book, the female protagonist (who is a singing celebrity in North Korea) decides to do some laundry and – instead of using a washing machine, or even handwashing in the sink – has to go down to this nearby river and stand in the freezing water to launder her family's clothes. No one, including the author, remarks on this or considers it in the least bit odd.
You can tell a man wrote this. Each of the two families who are at the center of this novel, the man selflessly takes on the tasks of cleaning and child-rearing while the wife thoughtlessly goes off to concentrate on her career. This state of affairs occurs in real life, I guess, but certainly not as frequently as it does in novels written by men – whether they write in North Korea or not.
Similarly, it is briefly mentioned that, in one of the two families, the husband has on occasion verbally and physically abused the wife, but it's treated like no big deal.
There's also some obligatory stuff about how wonderful and wise the party's leadership is, but it's pretty easy to skim through these parts. Also, a Communist Party apparatchik is caught red-handed stealing, and immediately breaks down to the investigator and repents, which is completely laughable. In real life, the apparatchik would have sent a message to the investigator by having the investigator's school-aged child beaten within an inch of his life. These guys don't get their positions by being push-overs.
Still, I enjoyed reading this, because it's a little window, no matter how foggy, onto a place which we can't really know otherwise. Also, it's a good easy read, a tribute to both the original author and the translator. Worth a look.
I watched this event stream live. At one point in the proceedings, Kim gives a shout-out to the support he got from publisher Columbia University Press in the preparation of this book. I said to myself, “Hmm, Columbia University Press is one of those generous establishments who gives reviewers free electronic advance copies via Netgalley.” I navigated over there and scored a free copy. Thanks to all.
If you don't watch the author appearance linked to above, I recommended that you start reading this book with the translator afterword. It gives helpful context. Readers of this Goodreads page probably know already that this is possibly the first state-approved novel from the Hermit Kingdom to be translated and published in English. The afterward fills in additional detail that I found helpful to keep in mind while reading, e.g., at the time, the officially-approved literature was moving away from heroic manual laborers toward heroes who improve themselves through education.
Remember, this novel was published in North Korea in 1988. At that time, the Soviet Union's generous subsidies had just been reduced, and the subsequent economic hardships were not yet being rippled through the economy, so life was comparatively prosperous and normal. Since them, there were (and are) Western sanctions against the regime. Life's probably much harder now.
Even if life was easier for North Korean then compared to now, sometimes the mask of normalcy that the novel attempts to portray slips a little and you get an idea about how different (meaning, lower) the quality of life was. For example, early on in the novel, some characters attend a evening concert. When the concert is over, people leave the concert hall and reach for the flashlights they have in the purses or overcoats – because of course the street lights are few and far between. Later on in the book, the female protagonist (who is a singing celebrity in North Korea) decides to do some laundry and – instead of using a washing machine, or even handwashing in the sink – has to go down to this nearby river and stand in the freezing water to launder her family's clothes. No one, including the author, remarks on this or considers it in the least bit odd.
You can tell a man wrote this. Each of the two families who are at the center of this novel, the man selflessly takes on the tasks of cleaning and child-rearing while the wife thoughtlessly goes off to concentrate on her career. This state of affairs occurs in real life, I guess, but certainly not as frequently as it does in novels written by men – whether they write in North Korea or not.
Similarly, it is briefly mentioned that, in one of the two families, the husband has on occasion verbally and physically abused the wife, but it's treated like no big deal.
There's also some obligatory stuff about how wonderful and wise the party's leadership is, but it's pretty easy to skim through these parts. Also, a Communist Party apparatchik is caught red-handed stealing, and immediately breaks down to the investigator and repents, which is completely laughable. In real life, the apparatchik would have sent a message to the investigator by having the investigator's school-aged child beaten within an inch of his life. These guys don't get their positions by being push-overs.
Still, I enjoyed reading this, because it's a little window, no matter how foggy, onto a place which we can't really know otherwise. Also, it's a good easy read, a tribute to both the original author and the translator. Worth a look.
June 30, 2020
Thank you netgalley for giving me an arc in exchange for an honest review.
The significance of Friend can be summed up from a section of the afterword:
"Friend is unique in the Anglophone publishing landscape in that it is a state-sanctioned novel, written in Korea for North Koreans, by an author in good standing with the regime."
At it's core this book is a psychological domestic drama, but the propaganda within it (loyalty to the state, hard work for the common good etc.), is heavy-handed. But I found the inside look into the lives of a divorce lawyer and the family seeking a divorce to be incredibly interesting. Paek Nam Nyong explores the idea of what marriage means, what people owe themselves when it comes to their own happiness, and how to be a friend.
Overall, I found this book to be extremely engaging and informative.
The significance of Friend can be summed up from a section of the afterword:
"Friend is unique in the Anglophone publishing landscape in that it is a state-sanctioned novel, written in Korea for North Koreans, by an author in good standing with the regime."
At it's core this book is a psychological domestic drama, but the propaganda within it (loyalty to the state, hard work for the common good etc.), is heavy-handed. But I found the inside look into the lives of a divorce lawyer and the family seeking a divorce to be incredibly interesting. Paek Nam Nyong explores the idea of what marriage means, what people owe themselves when it comes to their own happiness, and how to be a friend.
Overall, I found this book to be extremely engaging and informative.
did-not-finish
May 9, 2021My interest in reading a novel set and published in North Korea was soon defeated by the horrific, stilted prose. Bailed a page or two shy of chapter two.
aborted
August 24, 2023I couldn't get past page 80, and that felt like an accomplishment, with the wooden prose.
Read
July 3, 2025Read as part of the Read Around the World book club (North Korea)
May 15, 2021
A pesar de contar con un ritmo que me resultó un poco lento y una historia que no me llegó a cautivar en absoluto, hay varios puntos de este libro que me parece valioso rescatar.
En primer lugar, se trata de un texto escrito por un autor que aún radica en Corea del Norte y que se encuentra trabajando de manera activa. Además, “Friend” fue un éxito de ventas en su país y el gobierno norcoreano autorizó su traducción y distribución más allá de sus fronteras.
Por otro lado, los personajes presentan varios niveles de profundidad y se cuestionan a sí mismos constantemente. ¿Sus decisiones beneficiarán a su entorno social de la misma manera en la que se beneficiarán ellos de forma independiente? Es interesante ver cómo todos ellos se responden esta pregunta desde la lógica de la sociedad socialista. Y aquí quiero aclarar que, más allá de nuestras opiniones políticas, es importante leer y entender este libro dentro del constructo social en el que fue escrito. Por eso, aunque no estuve de acuerdo en muchos casos, sí valoré los momentos en los que el autor reflexiona sobre el rol de la mujer, la importancia de la familia y los modos de convivencia social que imperan en su entorno.
Dentro de la literatura norcoreana “oficial” hay diferentes momentos y tendencias. Así, mientras algunas narrativas se dedican exclusivamente a alabar la figura del Gran Líder, otros, como es el caso de “Friend” se centran más en los individuos que conforman el colectivo. Adicionalmente, quienes estén interesados en la narrativa norcoreana, deben tratar de leer, por lo menos, tres textos:
(1) Los libros escritos por disidentes del régimen.
En este rubro, recomiendo mucho “Los acuarios de Pyongyang”
(2) Textos escritos por ciudadanos de Corea del Norte que lograron sacar sus textos del país de manera ilegal, aunque ellos y ellas continúan residiendo ahí.
“La acusación” es una opción interesante y disponible en castellano.
(3) Los libros “oficiales” autorizados por el gobierno
“Friend” es uno de los pocos, si no el único, disponible en inglés. No conozco ninguno traducido al castellano.
En primer lugar, se trata de un texto escrito por un autor que aún radica en Corea del Norte y que se encuentra trabajando de manera activa. Además, “Friend” fue un éxito de ventas en su país y el gobierno norcoreano autorizó su traducción y distribución más allá de sus fronteras.
Por otro lado, los personajes presentan varios niveles de profundidad y se cuestionan a sí mismos constantemente. ¿Sus decisiones beneficiarán a su entorno social de la misma manera en la que se beneficiarán ellos de forma independiente? Es interesante ver cómo todos ellos se responden esta pregunta desde la lógica de la sociedad socialista. Y aquí quiero aclarar que, más allá de nuestras opiniones políticas, es importante leer y entender este libro dentro del constructo social en el que fue escrito. Por eso, aunque no estuve de acuerdo en muchos casos, sí valoré los momentos en los que el autor reflexiona sobre el rol de la mujer, la importancia de la familia y los modos de convivencia social que imperan en su entorno.
Dentro de la literatura norcoreana “oficial” hay diferentes momentos y tendencias. Así, mientras algunas narrativas se dedican exclusivamente a alabar la figura del Gran Líder, otros, como es el caso de “Friend” se centran más en los individuos que conforman el colectivo. Adicionalmente, quienes estén interesados en la narrativa norcoreana, deben tratar de leer, por lo menos, tres textos:
(1) Los libros escritos por disidentes del régimen.
En este rubro, recomiendo mucho “Los acuarios de Pyongyang”
(2) Textos escritos por ciudadanos de Corea del Norte que lograron sacar sus textos del país de manera ilegal, aunque ellos y ellas continúan residiendo ahí.
“La acusación” es una opción interesante y disponible en castellano.
(3) Los libros “oficiales” autorizados por el gobierno
“Friend” es uno de los pocos, si no el único, disponible en inglés. No conozco ninguno traducido al castellano.
December 5, 2019
Paek Nam-Nyong (백남룡)의 "Friend (벗)" is my first North Korean novel written by a North Korean. I have read short stories of North Korean writers in the 1950s and the 1960s who were active writers in occupied Korea and chose communism over capitalism after the end of the Japanese Occupation. Unlike many earlier or post-war South Korean short stories filled with the sorrow and pain, these stories inspired by the newly built communist country were filled with energy and optimism, though I found too much "educational" to my liking.
However, "Friend" took me by surprise as it delves into a deeply personal matter of divorce. Chae Sun Hee, an established singer, wants to get a divorce from Lee Seok Chun, a veteran lathe machine worker after 10 years of marriage with a son named Ho Nam. The desire to get a divorce is mutual but Judge Jeong Jin Wu, whose wife is mainly absent from home due to her pursuit of agricultural research in a remote area, wants to know the details of their married life. Then, he gets a call from Chae Rim, a cousin of Sun Hee, urging a quick divorce but the name reminds the Judge of a couple to whom he granted a divorce 6 years ago, which somehow bothers him.
The book is surprisingly entertaining and characters' emotions are realistically captured. The beauty of the nature reflecting human emotions is also skillfully depicted.
Though capturing emotional struggles of married couples, the book, published in 1988 when North Korea was still optimistic about their future, contains the meta narrative of Juche. One of the Juche movement was the Three Revolution Team Movement in 1973, which stresses ideological, technical and cultural movements. Three main characters symbolize these three aspects; Sun Hee as cultural, Seok Chun as technical and Jin Wu as ideological. All their actions are measured according to each one's "national duty" that includes "the duty to progress and advance in his social position" and "the duty of the law lay in restoring dysfunctional families."
In spite of these inevitable State-guided themes, "Friend" is still quite an enjoyable book.
(Thank you for the advance copy of this book, NetGalley and Columbia University Press!)
However, "Friend" took me by surprise as it delves into a deeply personal matter of divorce. Chae Sun Hee, an established singer, wants to get a divorce from Lee Seok Chun, a veteran lathe machine worker after 10 years of marriage with a son named Ho Nam. The desire to get a divorce is mutual but Judge Jeong Jin Wu, whose wife is mainly absent from home due to her pursuit of agricultural research in a remote area, wants to know the details of their married life. Then, he gets a call from Chae Rim, a cousin of Sun Hee, urging a quick divorce but the name reminds the Judge of a couple to whom he granted a divorce 6 years ago, which somehow bothers him.
The book is surprisingly entertaining and characters' emotions are realistically captured. The beauty of the nature reflecting human emotions is also skillfully depicted.
Though capturing emotional struggles of married couples, the book, published in 1988 when North Korea was still optimistic about their future, contains the meta narrative of Juche. One of the Juche movement was the Three Revolution Team Movement in 1973, which stresses ideological, technical and cultural movements. Three main characters symbolize these three aspects; Sun Hee as cultural, Seok Chun as technical and Jin Wu as ideological. All their actions are measured according to each one's "national duty" that includes "the duty to progress and advance in his social position" and "the duty of the law lay in restoring dysfunctional families."
In spite of these inevitable State-guided themes, "Friend" is still quite an enjoyable book.
(Thank you for the advance copy of this book, NetGalley and Columbia University Press!)
September 13, 2021
This was a total change of scene for me and definitely worth the effort. Here we have a novel based in North Korea which has been sanctioned by the state, meaning the government has allowed for it to be printed (!!)
It was interesting to meet characters who are so different than the westernised ones I am usually used to when reading other novels - I can say there was a slight culture shock and I found it quite hard to connect, especially with the women characters.
I would recommend this book to anyone interested to learn about this country which we know very little of. The concept of being a friend and helping out others is visible and goes to show that no matter your culture - you can always be a friend !
It was interesting to meet characters who are so different than the westernised ones I am usually used to when reading other novels - I can say there was a slight culture shock and I found it quite hard to connect, especially with the women characters.
I would recommend this book to anyone interested to learn about this country which we know very little of. The concept of being a friend and helping out others is visible and goes to show that no matter your culture - you can always be a friend !
August 30, 2020
Readable, reasonably engaging story about divorce in contemporary North Korea and a judge whose job it is to review divorce requests and grant or deny them. The form is definitely not socialist realism, but the content … When you look at the values promoted by the judge and basically accepted by the couples and those around them, you will see that they belong to a world where people live to serve the state and the state exerts its power to make sure they do so. Not bad necessarily, but very different from the Western values we are used to which stress personal freedom and individualism.
May 22, 2021
I read this as part of the #invisiblecitiesproject where we are reading translated fiction from three countries a month. Given the politics of North Korea I was fascinated to find a state sanctioned best seller translated into English, as most other available translated literature seems to have a Western audience in mind .
So reading this book for me was less about the story and more about how the state controls and censors artistic creation. How does a writer express themselves in such a situation and push at the constrictions .Is the book a best seller if it breaks with previous North Korean state literature ? Is the subject matter and narrative arc speaking to something more complex in the culture ?
A very helpful afterword describes how Paek Nam Nyong is a product of the country's artistic production system and cut his teeth writing heroic short stories like " High Quality Coal " before rising to the elite Literary Production Unit to produce the ubiquitous historic stories about Kim Yong Il and Kim Il Sung . While producing didactic propaganda he also found a way to explore individual's dilemmas and was lucky enough to be writing at a time in the 1980s when the state was attempting to garner an international cultural profile.
His office in the same building as the divorce courts led him to research the process and he chose to cast a district judge as his protagonist . This fits with the Hidden Heroes policy of the 1980s where unsung heroes of the state were valourised along with a move to encouraging self improvement through education as opposed to heavy industry and heroic brute strength .
So it's no coincidence we have a few predictable characters and themes here . We have the fatherly district judge , fitting with the paternalistic state trope , his wife who has spent her whole life trying to produce vegetable strains that will survive the harsh environments of the North and the younger married couple who met over a lathe machine in a heavy industrial plant. Seeking a divorce the young couple are poles apart. The husband has refused to further his engineering talent at college and has become a sullen workaholic while the wife nurtures her unique singing voice for the good of the state. She is, by Western eyes, pretty submissive but I get the feeling she is bolder than many other fictional women in Korea , as most of the other female characters are more passive domestically .
The judge acts like a detective, mediator and counsellor, there are no lawyers and he has the power to make the decision alone . He speaks to other involved parties without discretion, as divorce is seen as a public matter, given the central role of the family in society. But neither is it a scandal , it's impact being viewed more through community , society and economic production rather than the individuals involved having the final say . I get the feeling the judge is unusual in realising the terrible impact divorce can have on children , especially on the apparently normal process of separating siblings.
At times the propaganda phrases, sentences sometimes whole paragraphs, are so stilted they read like satire and the writing is generally bound and trussed and littered with hackneyed romantic and nature tropes . But there are comedic moments when wedding guests are bored by a standard propaganda larded best man's speech or when older women crack jokes about the reality of marriage . That said the assumptions about the role of women, as both passive , uncomplaining homemakers and submissive, self sacrificing servants of the state, are really never challenged despite the pluck of the main female character. There is a strong and emotionally realistic exploration of the pressures of married life, divorce and the effects on the children that may well be why readers in North Korea enjoyed it .
Of course the ending was predictable but it was far from fully resolved and I could feel the tight ropes of state control loosening as the couple's happy ever after dangled just out of reach ...despite delivering the state's propaganda in so many clunky and at times laughably obvious ways there was a soft critique here that suggested , under the layers of ideology , that humans are complex and fallible , lives are messy and solutions are highly individual ..and a reader would be forced to ask the question that a less than "good" judge might well have abused his powerful position ...
Here's a good recent discussion about the book from the Korean Society, if you are interested in understanding the book, context and hearing from the translator , Immanuel Kim.
https://youtu.be/O7bjl6alr5U
So reading this book for me was less about the story and more about how the state controls and censors artistic creation. How does a writer express themselves in such a situation and push at the constrictions .Is the book a best seller if it breaks with previous North Korean state literature ? Is the subject matter and narrative arc speaking to something more complex in the culture ?
A very helpful afterword describes how Paek Nam Nyong is a product of the country's artistic production system and cut his teeth writing heroic short stories like " High Quality Coal " before rising to the elite Literary Production Unit to produce the ubiquitous historic stories about Kim Yong Il and Kim Il Sung . While producing didactic propaganda he also found a way to explore individual's dilemmas and was lucky enough to be writing at a time in the 1980s when the state was attempting to garner an international cultural profile.
His office in the same building as the divorce courts led him to research the process and he chose to cast a district judge as his protagonist . This fits with the Hidden Heroes policy of the 1980s where unsung heroes of the state were valourised along with a move to encouraging self improvement through education as opposed to heavy industry and heroic brute strength .
So it's no coincidence we have a few predictable characters and themes here . We have the fatherly district judge , fitting with the paternalistic state trope , his wife who has spent her whole life trying to produce vegetable strains that will survive the harsh environments of the North and the younger married couple who met over a lathe machine in a heavy industrial plant. Seeking a divorce the young couple are poles apart. The husband has refused to further his engineering talent at college and has become a sullen workaholic while the wife nurtures her unique singing voice for the good of the state. She is, by Western eyes, pretty submissive but I get the feeling she is bolder than many other fictional women in Korea , as most of the other female characters are more passive domestically .
The judge acts like a detective, mediator and counsellor, there are no lawyers and he has the power to make the decision alone . He speaks to other involved parties without discretion, as divorce is seen as a public matter, given the central role of the family in society. But neither is it a scandal , it's impact being viewed more through community , society and economic production rather than the individuals involved having the final say . I get the feeling the judge is unusual in realising the terrible impact divorce can have on children , especially on the apparently normal process of separating siblings.
At times the propaganda phrases, sentences sometimes whole paragraphs, are so stilted they read like satire and the writing is generally bound and trussed and littered with hackneyed romantic and nature tropes . But there are comedic moments when wedding guests are bored by a standard propaganda larded best man's speech or when older women crack jokes about the reality of marriage . That said the assumptions about the role of women, as both passive , uncomplaining homemakers and submissive, self sacrificing servants of the state, are really never challenged despite the pluck of the main female character. There is a strong and emotionally realistic exploration of the pressures of married life, divorce and the effects on the children that may well be why readers in North Korea enjoyed it .
Of course the ending was predictable but it was far from fully resolved and I could feel the tight ropes of state control loosening as the couple's happy ever after dangled just out of reach ...despite delivering the state's propaganda in so many clunky and at times laughably obvious ways there was a soft critique here that suggested , under the layers of ideology , that humans are complex and fallible , lives are messy and solutions are highly individual ..and a reader would be forced to ask the question that a less than "good" judge might well have abused his powerful position ...
Here's a good recent discussion about the book from the Korean Society, if you are interested in understanding the book, context and hearing from the translator , Immanuel Kim.
https://youtu.be/O7bjl6alr5U
October 11, 2021
Wie alle Kunstgattungen in Nordkorea unterliegt auch die Literatur der Zensur durch die Behörden; die meisten uns zugänglichen Texte stammen von Autoren, die aus dem Land geflohen sind. Der Roman von Paek Nam-Nyong hingegen ist in Nordkorea zugelassen und damit eines der ersten Bücher, die in Übersetzung Einblicke in das Leben unter dem totalitären Regime geben.
Wie dem Nachwort des Übersetzers zu entnehmen ist, war die erwünschte Thematik des literarischen Schaffens für viele Jahre ausschliesslich das Heldentum von Kim Il-sung und seinen Genossen. «Friend» von Paek Nam-Nyong steht exemplarisch für einen Wandel hin zu Erzählungen über gewöhnliche Menschen und ihren Alltag. Zwar wird Kim Il-sung tatsächlich nicht namentlich glorifiziert; die Moralkeule schwingt sich dafür subtiler durch die Dialoge und Gedanken der Figuren.
Die Handlung dreht sich um ein Ehepaar, das sich scheiden lassen möchte. Die Frau, eine berühmte Sängerin, ist unzufrieden, weil ihr Mann nicht studieren und gesellschaftlich aufsteigen möchte; ihr Mann fühlt sich derweil von ihr herabgesetzt und von ihrer Eitelkeit abgestossen. Der Fall wird von einem Richter beurteilt, dessen Aufgabe es offenbar ist, die Ehe nicht zu scheiden, sondern zu retten. Er stellt diverse Nachforschungen darüber an, wie es zu dem Zwist kam und was dagegen unternommen werden könnte. Immer wieder wird betont, dass die Familie der Kern der Gesellschaft sei und dieser in Harmonie zu dienen habe. Auf diese Weise reflektieren die Figuren ihr Verhältnis zum und ihre Pflichten gegenüber dem nordkoreanischen Volk.
Rein literarisch ist das Werk nicht besonders herausragend. Es ist aber interessant, Einblicke in das kulturelle Schaffen einer Gesellschaft zu erhalten, das uns sonst grösstenteils verborgen bleibt. Wer weiss, wann wir das nächste Mal Gelegenheit haben, einen Roman aus Nordkorea zu lesen.
Wie dem Nachwort des Übersetzers zu entnehmen ist, war die erwünschte Thematik des literarischen Schaffens für viele Jahre ausschliesslich das Heldentum von Kim Il-sung und seinen Genossen. «Friend» von Paek Nam-Nyong steht exemplarisch für einen Wandel hin zu Erzählungen über gewöhnliche Menschen und ihren Alltag. Zwar wird Kim Il-sung tatsächlich nicht namentlich glorifiziert; die Moralkeule schwingt sich dafür subtiler durch die Dialoge und Gedanken der Figuren.
Die Handlung dreht sich um ein Ehepaar, das sich scheiden lassen möchte. Die Frau, eine berühmte Sängerin, ist unzufrieden, weil ihr Mann nicht studieren und gesellschaftlich aufsteigen möchte; ihr Mann fühlt sich derweil von ihr herabgesetzt und von ihrer Eitelkeit abgestossen. Der Fall wird von einem Richter beurteilt, dessen Aufgabe es offenbar ist, die Ehe nicht zu scheiden, sondern zu retten. Er stellt diverse Nachforschungen darüber an, wie es zu dem Zwist kam und was dagegen unternommen werden könnte. Immer wieder wird betont, dass die Familie der Kern der Gesellschaft sei und dieser in Harmonie zu dienen habe. Auf diese Weise reflektieren die Figuren ihr Verhältnis zum und ihre Pflichten gegenüber dem nordkoreanischen Volk.
Rein literarisch ist das Werk nicht besonders herausragend. Es ist aber interessant, Einblicke in das kulturelle Schaffen einer Gesellschaft zu erhalten, das uns sonst grösstenteils verborgen bleibt. Wer weiss, wann wir das nächste Mal Gelegenheit haben, einen Roman aus Nordkorea zu lesen.
January 26, 2020
Anni '80 del Novecento, Corea del Nord. Sun Hee si reca dal giudice Jeong Jin Wu per chiedere il divorzio dal marito, ma nel Paese anche la separazione tra coniugi è un affare che interessa la collettività, così, non solo il "compagno" Jeong coinvolge amici e conoscenti della coppia, ma, risoluto a non stravolgere una famiglia e a riportarvi l'armonia, diventa per i due l'amico del titolo, interessandosi in prima persona al caso...
La caratteristica principale di questo romanzo, che mi ha spinto a scegliere di leggerlo, è quella di essere una delle pochissime opere nordcoreane tradotte e distribuite in occidente, scritta non da un disertore, ma da un autore che vive nel paese di origine ed è in buoni rapporti con il regime.
Il romanzo presenta uno stile davvero molto semplice, e parte dalla richiesta di divorzio di Sun Hee per raccontare la storia della sua relazione con il marito; parallelamente, l'autore narra anche, seppur più brevemente, quella di altre due coppie, ossia l'una, formata dallo stesso giudice e sua moglie, l'altra, costituita da una maestra e suo marito.
Il racconto è piuttosto didascalico, portando avanti con fermezza l'idea che una coppia debba fare del proprio meglio per evitare il divorzio e non distruggere la famiglia, che è alla base della società, e la cui armonia porta gli individui ad essere più utili al benessere della collettività.
"Un matrimonio", scrive l'autore, è "un pezzo della nazione" e la famiglia è "un bellissimo mondo in cui fiorisce la speranza e dove risiede l'amore dell'umanità".
Il partito, seppur menzionato solo alcune volte, e naturalmente elogiato per i suoi meriti, sembra però una presenza costante che, come una grossa cupola, incapsula il mondo in cui si muovono i personaggi della storia, un mondo che viene descritto con termini quasi bucolici, complici descrizioni accurate e quasi sognanti dei paesaggi naturali e degli agenti atmosferici.
Si sottolinea più volte la necessità di "essere leali cittadini del paese" e di dedicare la propria vita ad accrescerne la prosperità.
Ciò che mi ha colpito favorevolmente sono state le descrizioni delle donne. In un romanzo degli anni '80 mi ha abbastanza sorpreso leggere di mogli e madri liberamente impegnate in lavori che amano e, anche se questo potrebbe essere giustificato dalla stessa esigenza del regime di tenere occupato il suo popolo, è stato inaspettato imbattermi in mariti che sbrigavano faccende domestiche e badavano ai figli. Inaspettato perché ancora oggi, nel nostro civilissimo occidente, esistono individui dalla mentalità piuttosto chiusa che credono ancora in ruoli stabiliti dal sesso.
Inoltre, benché inizialmente mi è sembrato che l'autore volesse addossare solo alla moglie la responsabilità del fallimento del matrimonio, andando avanti con la storia è stato chiaro che Jeong Jin Wu ritenesse entrambi i coniugi imputabili del fatto di aver minato, con il proprio comportamento e il proprio atteggiamento, la stabilità della coppia.
Il personaggio del giudice è quello meglio caratterizzato, e probabilmente anche il mio preferito. In ambito lavorativo, sente che è dovere della legge proteggere i diritti delle donne, così come è consapevole del fatto di non occuparsi semplicemente di "casi legali", ma delle vite delle persone; ripensa spesso alle sue vecchie cause, chiedendosi se abbia fatto la scelta giusta, e cerca di aiutare in tutti i modi coloro che si rivolgono a lui. In ambito privato non è esente da difetti, si rende conto di provare risentimento verso la moglie, la cui assenza lo fa sentire solo ed oberato, eppure fa in modo di non farsi sommergere dai propri sentimenti negativi e di diventare una persona migliore, spostando il focus sui meriti della donna che ha sposato e sui sacrifici che ella stessa compie ogni giorno per il paese.
Friend è stato una lettura interessante per la sua ambientazione e per la possibilità di dare un'occhiata ad una realtà così lontana - benché romanzata -, tuttavia non si è rivelato appassionante, né tanto meno una di quelle storie che non si può smettere di leggere.
https://iltesorodicarta.blogspot.com/...
La caratteristica principale di questo romanzo, che mi ha spinto a scegliere di leggerlo, è quella di essere una delle pochissime opere nordcoreane tradotte e distribuite in occidente, scritta non da un disertore, ma da un autore che vive nel paese di origine ed è in buoni rapporti con il regime.
Il romanzo presenta uno stile davvero molto semplice, e parte dalla richiesta di divorzio di Sun Hee per raccontare la storia della sua relazione con il marito; parallelamente, l'autore narra anche, seppur più brevemente, quella di altre due coppie, ossia l'una, formata dallo stesso giudice e sua moglie, l'altra, costituita da una maestra e suo marito.
Il racconto è piuttosto didascalico, portando avanti con fermezza l'idea che una coppia debba fare del proprio meglio per evitare il divorzio e non distruggere la famiglia, che è alla base della società, e la cui armonia porta gli individui ad essere più utili al benessere della collettività.
"Un matrimonio", scrive l'autore, è "un pezzo della nazione" e la famiglia è "un bellissimo mondo in cui fiorisce la speranza e dove risiede l'amore dell'umanità".
Il partito, seppur menzionato solo alcune volte, e naturalmente elogiato per i suoi meriti, sembra però una presenza costante che, come una grossa cupola, incapsula il mondo in cui si muovono i personaggi della storia, un mondo che viene descritto con termini quasi bucolici, complici descrizioni accurate e quasi sognanti dei paesaggi naturali e degli agenti atmosferici.
Si sottolinea più volte la necessità di "essere leali cittadini del paese" e di dedicare la propria vita ad accrescerne la prosperità.
Ciò che mi ha colpito favorevolmente sono state le descrizioni delle donne. In un romanzo degli anni '80 mi ha abbastanza sorpreso leggere di mogli e madri liberamente impegnate in lavori che amano e, anche se questo potrebbe essere giustificato dalla stessa esigenza del regime di tenere occupato il suo popolo, è stato inaspettato imbattermi in mariti che sbrigavano faccende domestiche e badavano ai figli. Inaspettato perché ancora oggi, nel nostro civilissimo occidente, esistono individui dalla mentalità piuttosto chiusa che credono ancora in ruoli stabiliti dal sesso.
Inoltre, benché inizialmente mi è sembrato che l'autore volesse addossare solo alla moglie la responsabilità del fallimento del matrimonio, andando avanti con la storia è stato chiaro che Jeong Jin Wu ritenesse entrambi i coniugi imputabili del fatto di aver minato, con il proprio comportamento e il proprio atteggiamento, la stabilità della coppia.
Il personaggio del giudice è quello meglio caratterizzato, e probabilmente anche il mio preferito. In ambito lavorativo, sente che è dovere della legge proteggere i diritti delle donne, così come è consapevole del fatto di non occuparsi semplicemente di "casi legali", ma delle vite delle persone; ripensa spesso alle sue vecchie cause, chiedendosi se abbia fatto la scelta giusta, e cerca di aiutare in tutti i modi coloro che si rivolgono a lui. In ambito privato non è esente da difetti, si rende conto di provare risentimento verso la moglie, la cui assenza lo fa sentire solo ed oberato, eppure fa in modo di non farsi sommergere dai propri sentimenti negativi e di diventare una persona migliore, spostando il focus sui meriti della donna che ha sposato e sui sacrifici che ella stessa compie ogni giorno per il paese.
Friend è stato una lettura interessante per la sua ambientazione e per la possibilità di dare un'occhiata ad una realtà così lontana - benché romanzata -, tuttavia non si è rivelato appassionante, né tanto meno una di quelle storie che non si può smettere di leggere.
https://iltesorodicarta.blogspot.com/...
Read
May 28, 2020Friend is both a good read and a rare inside look into North Korean culture. It tells the story of a judge who rules on divorce cases. A woman comes to him seeking a divorce and the judge begins to look into her and her family’s lives. As he uncovers their stories, we learn about his own marital troubles as well as those of other people around them. We see how various characters met and fell in love and what made their marriages falter. It’s a sympathetic portrait of people unhappy in love and how that unhappiness affects those around them. Paek Nam-nyong explores what people owe themselves, their families, and the state, as well as what it means to be a friend. Friend is an absorbing novel of ideas with characters who vividly bring those ideas to life.
November 30, 2022
4.5! friend is a novel written from a literary approach that tries to escape socialist realism and revolutionary romanticism in the 80s. it was written by a north korean author aimed at north koreans, but which allows us to reflect a lot about the way we, immersed in present-day capitalism, perceive human relations. friend is a novel full of dialogues and internal monologues about empathy, collectivism, belongingness, love, justice, and last but not least, the importance of healthy marriages not solely as an institution, but viewing family as a primordial unit of society.
December 15, 2025
a really interesting read and gave me some insight to what north korea is like. i was suprised a bit by the “progressiveness” of this novel in terms of feminism and women’s rights—not something i expected from a north korean novel.
September 23, 2021
Shows the limits of state-mandated art. Illuminating glimpse of the societal values North Korea prizes.
January 10, 2024
Loved the overall story and the perspective shifts in the stories. But I hated the melodrama and some scenes felt unnatural which seemed out of place in a realistic fiction story
June 15, 2024
My first book by a North Korean author!
December 31, 2025
This novel does not lack of a wonderful narration and solid story development. Its main theme is divorce, and since the novel has cultural signifance on its origins, its important that the reader also reads the foreword to understand more the story's characters and their characterization, the historical and social background of the story, and the novel's relevance to its global audience.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 156 reviews