Downpour

“Downpour” (Sonakbi, alternately translated as “The Rainstorm,” 1935), with its casual depiction of domestic violence, survival sex, and gambling as coping mechanisms in colonial-era rural Korea, offers a rare glimpse into what life must have been like for the uneducated and disempowered in that period. While the weather metaphor may strike some readers as slightly on-the-nose, it is executed with undeniable poetry, as exemplified in such scenes as Chunho and his wife (who is never named) sharing a rare moment in each other’s arms while rain batters against their roof. From the atmospheric first sentence to the laconically uttered last line, “Downpour” is a masterful piece of storytelling from one of the great voices of 1930s Korean literature.