In this unique and melancholic work author Haïlji, while appearing to shun Korea, is in fact examining the yearnings and dislocation of his contemporary Koreans, and posits the idea that freedom and nationhood themselves may be just a dream.
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Užupis (meaning “on the other side of the river”) is, in reality, a neighborhood in Vilnius, Lithuania’s capital city, which took the peculiar step of declaring itself an independent republic in 1997. In this novel, however, it is the lost homeland of a middle-aged man named Hal, who lands in Lithuania hoping to bury his father’s ashes in the country of his birth - a place he is told does not exist.
In this unique and melancholic work author Haïlji, while appearing to shun Korea, is in fact examining the yearnings and dislocation of his contemporary Koreans, and posits the idea that freedom and nationhood themselves may be just a dream.
Haïlji was born in Kyŏngju in 1955, studied creative writing at Chungang University in Seoul, and earned a doctoral degree in France. He is currently a professor at Dongduk Women’s University and has written more than ten novels in Korean, as well as poetry in English and French, including the collection Blue Meditation of the Clocks.