“I wanted to create a situation where, even though the war has ended, other kinds of conflicts are just beginning.” Paul Yoon discusses “Valley of the Moon,” his story from this week’s issue.
,” opens as a man named Tongsu is returning to his isolated home in the mountains of Korea following the Korean War. He’s been in a refugee settlement and has no idea what may have happened to his home or to his parents or sister. When did you start thinking about the story? Did the character of Tongsu come to you first or the idea of the forgotten valley where he lives?
In the valley bottom, there are some large, pale stones. When Tongsu was a boy, he was afraid of a story that used to be told of the moon dropping and shattering in the valley and then building itself up again. Is this based on a folktale you’d heard or something you invented? In the newly divided country, Tongsu’s home now lies in South Korea, but it’s only a day’s journey from the border with North Korea. One evening, after he’s been drinking, he falls asleep on the stones and wakes to find a stranger standing over him. The stranger has mistaken Tongsu for a guide who is going to help him cross the border.
Tongsu ends up taking in two orphans, a brother and a sister. In their first years together, they seem to form a family, of sorts, but eventually everything falls apart and the siblings run away separately. At this point, the story’s point of view shifts from Tongsu to the orphan girl, Eunhae. Why did you decide to do this?
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