The Wings

An unreliable narrator, Yi Sang presents a short story concerning a young man with no ambition in a tumultuous marriage during a delicate age in Korea's history. The Wings is a first-person story inspired by Yi Sang's own life, and offers a lens into the world of someone who wishes to take flight once again after his wings have long since been lost. Choppy, surreal, and genuine, the words may be difficult to parse due to Yi Sang's surreal style of writing, but the beauty still comes across.

This slender volume of stories is by a famed Korean author from the colonial period, who died at age 27 with TB in Japan. He came to fame because his writing incorporated influences from French existentialism and Dadaism. As such, the stories are redolent of Cocteau and even Kafka, with an unreliable, not necessarily likable narrator, who merely reacts to the moment and lacks the traditions of male ambition and desire. At times the translation is a bit clumsy, but the deadpan and detailed voice of this unique modernist writer shines through.