LouisvilleReads | Ep 30 | Winter in Sokcho (2021) | Elisa Shua Dusapin | 5-25-22

Episode #30 of LouisvilleReads! Reviewing Franco-Korean writer Elisa Shua Dusapin's 2021 winner of the National Book Awards for Translated Literature 'Winter in Sokcho' (2016) for Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month in the United States. Already operating in the political, cultural, emotional, and altogether existential limbo near the North Korean DMZ even under normal conditions, the South Korean beach town of Sokcho slowly rides out a grey, quiet winter as told through the eyes of an unnamed French-Korean female narrator. With the arrival of middle-aged French anime artist Mr. Yan Kerrand for a creative retreat, however, the narrator finds herself in a similar awakening of feeling for him and around him but, like all things in Sokcho during winter, even feeling itself remains contained in borders and time that keep life frozen. Beautiful and full,...but still frozen. Interview with the author and her English translator Aneesa Abbas Higgins courtesy of The Loft Literary Center on the back half!