Han Kang

Inah has been having nightmares. Nightmares of fish bones, fractals, and a marriage that ended under some unnamed violence. Walking the night streets with a man she has known for years, whose feelings for her are bound up with his intense longing to live as a woman, the fragile bond of their relationship.

Europa 

madina

When her song suddenly finished, I simply recognised the intense craving that had oppressed me for the past twenty years. Her song slid the bolt from across my heart and my craving stepped out into that dark, run-down alley to look me straight in the eye.

The majority of people live out their lives with much the same colour and form, but some change their bodies several times over. 

I flick the switch as through obeying a command. The darkness instantly swallows In-ah's hard, pallid face. I want to flick the switch up again and summon the sharp light, or else scream at that opaque darkness, but I'm able to control the urge, calmly.

Even after going through such a thing, we have to go on living. Even after everything is achieved in some magical instant or destroyed in a single stroke, all that remains is to walk down the dark seabed of the street, hammering those nails in one step at a time.

Europa quotes

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