Han Yujoo is een Zuid-Koreaanse schrijfster wiens romans zich minder richten op personages die in conflicten verstrikt raken en meer op hun psychologische toestanden terwijl ze situaties of ideeën overpeinzen. Haar werk duikt in de innerlijke wereld van haar personages en onderzoekt hun denkprocessen. Han biedt een uniek perspectief op de menselijke psyche en hoe we de wereld om ons heen waarnemen en verwerken. Haar schrijven nodigt lezers uit om na te denken over hun eigen gedachten en reacties.
The story takes place on a stairwell, all in about a minute's time, while the narrator's partner seizes her by the hair. The narrator had gotten caught, after running out of the apartment to try to escape assault. While she tries desperately to avoid falling down the stairs, she has a series of flashbacks about a friend who committed suicide years earlier. In this brief moment, she searches her memories for any signs she may have missed, and feels guilt for not having finished writing his story.
The Impossible Fairy Tale tells the story of the nameless 'Child', who struggles to make a mark on the world, and her classmate Mia, whose spoiled life is everything the Child's is not. At school, adults are nearly invisible, and the society the children create on their own is marked by cruelty, soul-crushing hierarchies and an underlying menace. Then, one day after hours, the Child sneaks into the classroom to add ominous sentences to her classmates' notebooks, unlocking a series of events with cataclysmically horrible consequences. But that is not the end of this eerie, unpredictable novel... Han Yujoo's The Impossible Fairy Tale is a fresh and terrifying exploration of the ethics of creativity, and of the stinging consequences of neglect.
A chilling, wildly original novel from a major new voice from South Korea The Impossible Fairy Tale is the story of two unexceptional grade-school girls. Mia is “lucky”—she is spoiled by her mother and, as she explains, her two fathers. She gloats over her exotic imported color pencils and won’t be denied a coveted sweater. Then there is the Child who, by contrast, is neither lucky nor unlucky. She makes so little impression that she seems not even to merit a name. At school, their fellow students, whether lucky or luckless or unlucky, seem consumed by an almost murderous rage. Adults are nearly invisible, and the society the children create on their own is marked by cruelty and soul-crushing hierarchies. Then, one day, the Child sneaks into the classroom after hours and adds ominous sentences to her classmates’ notebooks. This sinister but initially inconsequential act unlocks a series of events that end in horrible violence. But that is not the end of this eerie, unpredictable novel. A teacher, who is also this book’s author, wakes from an intense dream. When she arrives at her next class, she recognizes a student: the Child, who knows about the events of the novel’s first half, which took place years earlier. Han Yujoo’s The Impossible Fairy Tale is a fresh and terrifying exploration of the ethics of art making and of the stinging consequences of neglect.
