Carmen

“Ridiculous, isn’t it? ‘Smart women are taxing,’ they say. And when she passes the law exam all on her own without any help from the college? They fly banners and toot horns! ‘Proud alumni!”
― Cho Nam-Joo, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982

“They say they neither set up those cameras nor took the pictures, they just saw some photos posted on a website everyone has access to, and we are treating them like sexual offenders. They distributed the pictures and were complicit in the crimes, but they don’t understand why that’s wrong. It blows”
― Cho Nam-Joo, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982

“But delivery has to do with the safety of two lives. Jiyoung chose to give birth in a hospital with the help of experts because she had decided it was the safer way, and believed the birthing plan was a decision based on the parents’ values and circumstances, not something to make a value judgment on. However, a significant number of media outlets reported on the possible adverse effects of medical treatment and medication on newborns—their causal relationship speculative—to arouse guilt and fear. People who pop a painkiller at the smallest hint of a migraine, or who need anaesthetic cream to remove a mole, demand that women giving birth should gladly endure the pain, exhaustion, and mortal fear. As if that’s maternal love. This idea of “maternal love” is spreading like religious dogma. Accept Maternal Love as your Lord and Savior, for the Kingdom is near!”
― Cho Nam-Joo, 82년생 김지영

“You wrote of being in a village upthread together, living as friends and neighbours do, and I could have swallowed this valley whole and still not have sated my hunger for the thought.”
― Amal El-Mohtar, This Is How You Lose the Time War