Once the Shore (28 page)

“Once the Shore” was inspired by the tragedy involving the Japanese fishing vessel,
Ehime Maru
; certain details of this story were gathered from various sources pertaining to Cheju/Jeju Island. “Among the Wreckage” is based on the U.S. bombing that occurred in the vicinity of Dok Island (Dokdo) in the summer of 1948. Some of the details in “So That They Do Not Hear Us” were taken from a February 2005
New York Times
article by Norimitsu Onishi. The tale of the farmer and the maiden in “The Woodcarver’s Daughter” is loosely derived from the story “The Woodcutter and the Heavenly Maiden” in
Korean Folk and Fairy Tales
, by Suzanne Crowder Han (Hollym, 1991); the cave of offerings is a variation on the village shrines depicted in
Myths of Korea
, by Seo Dae-seok and Peter H. Lee (Jimoondang Publishing Company, 2000). The last line of “The Hanging Lanterns of Ido” was inspired by the last line of the story “Island” by Alistair MacLeod in
Island: The Complete Stories
(Norton, 2001). Also indispensable was:
Korea’s Place in the Sun: A Modern History
by Bruce Cumings (Norton, 1997).

Although I have used historical events and the descriptions of actual islands in South Korea to form Solla Island, I have altered history, geography, custom, and culture to suit the
purposes of these fictions. The name of the island and some of the names of the characters are from my imagination. As for the spelling of Korean names and places, I have mostly used the McCune-Reischauer system and the revised Romanization system; in some instances I disregarded both.

I share this book with all my friends and teachers and colleagues throughout the years.

Thank you to the editors of the journals where these fictions were first published; to Ralph Sneeden at Phillips Exeter Academy and Anne Greene at Wesleyan University; to the Ledig House Writer’s Colony, where this book started, and to Bill Clegg; to PEN/New England, Grub Street, and the St. Botolph Club Foundation. To Yu Young-nan and Chi-Young Kim. To Russell Perreault, Reed Maroc, Nayon Cho, and Vintage Books; to Giulia Melucci and Harper’s Magazine; to Michael Collier, Jennifer Grotz, Noreen Cargill, and the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. To Percival Everett, Amy Hempel, Andrew Sean Greer, Alexander Chee, and Eliza Griswold. To Benjamin Percy, Bret Anthony Johnston, and Josh Weil. To Kevin Doane, Nick Singer, and Adam Sadler. To Susannah Geltman. To Melanie Rehak and Noah Isenberg. To Calder Gillin and Jaime Gross. And to Alexandra Smith.

I am especially grateful to Ann Patchett, Katrina Kenison, Andrea Barrett, Stacey Swann, Jill Meyers, Michael Lowenthal, Scott Heim, and Robin Lippincott.

To Mitchell Waters at Curtis Brown, Ltd. To Sarah Gorham, Kirby Gann, Nickole Brown, and Jennifer Woods at Sarabande Books.

To Don Lee for his generosity. To Hannah Tinti for taking a chance.

To my great friend Ethan Rutherford.

And to Laura van den Berg, who was beside me from the first word to the last.

Paul Yoon
was born in New York City. His fiction has appeared in
One Story, Ploughshares, TriQuarterly, Glimmer Train, American Short Fiction
,
The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories
and
The Best American Short Stories,
among other publications.
Once the Shore
is his first book.

© 2009 by Paul Yoon

 

THIRD PRINTING

 

All rights reserved

 

No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission of the publisher. Please direct inquiries to:

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Yoon, Paul.

eISBN : 978-1-932-51190-1

 

 

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The Kentucky Arts Council, a state agency in the Commerce Cabinet, provides operational support funding for Sarabande Books with state tax dollars and federal funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art.

This project is supported in part by an award from The National Endowment for the Arts.