Bandi - The Red Years

Praise for Bandis The Accusation

Fascinating and chilling. Heartfelt and heartbreaking.

Margaret Atwood

A fierce indictment of life in the totalitarian North.

Powerful insights into a world behind walls.

Its very existence is still a hopeful symbol that

change is inevitable, if not imminent.

Spare, direct, unflinching and bitterly angry.

Bandi [presents] a world in which North Koreans are nuanced:

broken-hearted, idealistic, still full of life.

Courageous and confounding ... Its a quiet privilege

to be given access to the voiceless by listening to

such vivid and uncompromised storytelling.

The Red Years

About the author

Bandi (b. 1950), who writes under the pseudonym that means firefly, followed his parents to China to take refuge during the Korean War. He spent his youth in China before returning to North Korea, where he became affiliated with the Chosun Writers League Central Committee. Bandi came to prominence in the 1970s as his work was published in North Korean magazines.

The focus of Bandis writing changed forever after the deaths of many people close to him during the so- called Arduous March, which began with the death of Kim Il- sung in 1994. The experiences of this time made him resolve to share with the outside world a true likeness of the harsh North Korean society as he himself saw it. Though life in North Korea was lived behind an iron curtain, Bandi held fast to the belief that his writing would have its day, and he had produced a considerable body of work by the time a relative living in Hamheung province came in secret to see him and tell him her plans to escape. Bandi was aware that he could not try to escape himself, for he had a wife and children, but three days later, when his relative left, he gave her the manuscript he had in his possession. The relative, who accepted the task of smuggling out the manuscript explained to him that, as there was no guarantee she herself would be able to get away safely, she would prepare her escape route and then return to collect it. Several months

later, an unfamiliar youth came to Bandis house for the manuscript and he was able to smuggle it out of the country.

The first part of the manuscriptseven short storieswas published in South Korea, then by Grove Press in English as The Accusation, and it became an international sensation. The second part of the manuscript, linked to the first, is this collection of poignant poems, The Red Years.

Do Hee-yun

Representative of the Citizens Coalition

for Human Rights of Abductees

& North Korean Refugees

Do Hee-yun is the representative for the Citizens Coalition for Human Rights of Abductees and North Korean Refugees (CHNK). He was instrumental in arranging for Bandis manuscripts to be smuggled out of North Korea, and has been a tireless proponent of Bandi since their publication.

About the translator

Heinz Insu Fenkl, born in 1960 in Bupyeong, Korea, is a novelist, translator, and editor.

His most recent short story, Five Arrows, was published in The New Yorker. His autobiographical novel, Memories of My Ghost Brother , was named a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection in 1996 and a PEN/Hemingway Award finalist in 1997, and his most recent prose translation, Yi Mun-yols short story, An Anonymous Island, was published in The New Yorker the first Korean fiction to appear in that publication. Fenkl was guest editor for the special section on North Korea in the journal AZALEA, published by Harvards Korea Institute. His translation of the classic 17th-century Korean Buddhist novel The Nine Cloud Dream by Kim Man-jung (Penguin Classics) was published in 2019 and his second novel, Skull Water, will be published by Graywolf in 2020. He teaches creative writing and Asian studies at the State University of New York, New Paltz.

The Red Years

POEMS

Bandi

translated by Heinz Insu Fenkl

The Red Years Poems was first published in 2019 by Zed Books Ltd,

The Foundry, 17 Oval Way, London SE11 5RR, UK.

www.zedbooks.net

Copyright Bandi & Happy Unification Road 2019

English Translation 2019 Heinz Insu Fenkl

The right of Bandi and Heinz Insu Fenkl to be identified as the

author and translator of this work has been asserted by them in

accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

Typeset in Haarlemmer MT by seagulls.net

Cover design by Alice Marwick

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any

means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise,

without the prior permission of Zed Books Ltd.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-78699-660-2 pb

ISBN 978-1-78699-661-9 pdf

ISBN 978-1-78699-662-6 epub

ISBN 978-1-78699-663-3 mobi

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