Sou Linne Baik[a] (Korean: 백수린; born 1982) is a female South Korean author.
Early life
Baik was born in 1982 in Incheon, South Korea. She majored in French at Yonsei University. She graduated from Sogang University but still had the desire to write, and started to practice writing after that. She became a published author after being selected in the novel category of the 2010 Kyunghyang Shinmun Annual Spring Literary Contest.[2]
Career
Baik began writing novellas with Lying Practice ("거짓말 연습") and published a collection of short story novels in her book Falling in Paul ("폴링 인 폴"). She believes that she lacks skills as a writer because she is unlike many others who took all the steps to become a writer.
Baik's book Falling in Paul (폴링 인 폴) is a collection of nine stories about issues of language and memory.[3] It portrays how we take in other people's desperate love stories as something typical and the writer also wants her readers to realize this.[citation needed] Another thing Baik discusses in this story is the romanization of the titular character Paul's Korean name Junchan, a name which Baik believes is difficult for foreign people to pronounce. Baik's point is that the pronunciation of the name will always be different from how Paul says it and how Koreans do.[4]
Baik's work often depends on identity. The writer says that people see her writings as an art of traditional grammar and she wishes this writing style to get stronger in the future. She also wants to have her stories to be less packed in the future for she feels like there is too much words being said. Lastly, she hopes that her readers will understand her intentions and meaning behind her books.
She is currently serializing a novel in the Hankyoreh newspaper.
In 2016, Baik's next book Terrible Light (unofficial name; 참담한 빛), a collection of ten short stories, was released by Changbi Publishers. The short stories therein deal with themes of past suffering and of emigrants living in foreign countries, and use intense light as a metaphor for exploration of suffering.[5][6] Some stories deal with public tragedies, such as "Summer Noon" (여름의 정오) which touches on the Tokyo subway sarin attack and the September 11 attacks, while others touch on private suffering which the author nevertheless connects to wider suffering in the world, such as "First Love" (첫사랑) in which the first-person narrator goes to study abroad in Russia but then witnesses the school's decision to close the faculty and how the other students react.[7]
Baik has one work translated into English by Asia Publisher, titled "Time Difference" and was one of four featured speakers (along with Lee Ki-ho, Lee Jang-wook and Geum Hee) at a bilingual author's roundtable in Myeongdong, Seoul in December 2015 [8]
^소설 당선 소감 '인간에 대해 잘 이야기하는 작가 되고파' [Reaction to novel being chosen for award: 'I want to become an author who can tell stories about people well']. Kyunghyang Shinmun. 31 December 2010. Retrieved 11 October 2017.
^언어·기억 문제로 벌어지는 일들, 백수린 '폴링 인 폴' [Things that happened because of problems of language and memory: Baik Sou-linne's 'Falling in Paul']. The JoongAng Ilbo. 16 February 2014. Retrieved 11 October 2017.
^ ab신창용 [Sin Chang-yong] (13 February 2014). 소설가 백수린 '진부한 얘기 새롭게 들려주고 싶어요' [Novelist Baik Sou-linne: 'I want to tell old-fashioned stories in a new way']. Yonhap. Retrieved 11 October 2017.
^백수린 소설집 '참담한 빛' [Baik Sou-linne's story collection 'Terrible Light']. No Cut News. 4 September 2016. Retrieved 11 October 2017.
^소설가 백수린 '세상의 고통…내 방식으로 그리고 싶어요' [Novelist Baik Sou-linne: 'Anguish in the world ... I wanted to deal with it in my own way']. Yonhap. 17 August 2016. Retrieved 11 October 2017. 특히 고통의 이미지를 빛과 어둠의 강렬한 대비로 보여주는 작품들이 눈에 띈다. 일반적인 메타포로 어둠이 고통을 은유하는 것과 달리 그의 작품에서는 강렬한 빛이 인물의 내면에 숨겨진 고통을 적나라하게 드러내는 장치로 사용된다.
^김수빈 [Kim Su-bin] (20 September 2016). "[도서] 씨네21 추천 도서 <참담한 빛>" [Books: Cine 21 Book Recommendation 'Terrible Light']. Cine 21. Retrieved 11 October 2017.
An excerpt from one of Baik's short stories: 백수린 소설 높은 물때 [Baik Sou Linne's story Very High Tide]. The Hankyoreh (in Korean). 28 July 2014. Retrieved 18 December 2015.
