Drinking Fortune 007
Gawon 043
Hand 075
Seowoo 111
The Appearance of Filth 143
White Horse 185
Camilla 223

Commentary | Shin Saet-byeol (literary critic)
A woman like that, a woman who uses, a woman who chooses
Bonus Track 253 for Kang Hwa-gil's "White Horse"

Author's Note 291

It starts when women know everything
A brutal and beautiful gothic thriller

The second novel collection, "White Horse," by Kang Hwa-gil, the current hottest novelist, winner of the 2020 Young Writer's Award, has been published.
Kang Hwa-gil is a writer who has opened up new horizons for women's thrillers in Korean literature by exquisitely novelizing the issues of hatred and violence against women using the grammar of thrillers.
His works, which amplify the anxiety and fear of characters who are uncertain about their situation by using an "unreliable narrator" to reveal an unexpected truth, captivate readers with an aura that can only be felt in Kang Hwa-gil's novels.

In "White Horse," the female characters of Kang Hwa-gil begin to move into the position of "all-knowing narrator."
After thoroughly understanding the circumstances they face for survival, their perspective broadens and they see not only the threats to women's bodies, but also the vast structures that subtly oppress women, such as rumors, gossip, unfair perceptions, and customs.
The moment the characters of Kang Hwa-gil sense this structure, which appears briefly and then disappears like a ghost, a suspense of a different texture than before begins to unfold.
Because we know everything, a deeper sense of tension permeates the novel's dense structure and gradually consumes the reader's heart.

Why did women have to live with bitter love and hate?
Why some people can never know anything
A sharp question that pierces the narratives of women of all generations.

The Young Writer's Award winner, "Eumbok," is a work that condenses these changes in Kang Hwa-gil's novels.
This short story sharply points out that in a patriarchal system, the 'unknowable' is power.
The speaker of "Eumbok" is a newlywed who, unlike her husband who is comfortable and unaware of anything at her first in-laws' ancestral rite, astutely perceives the history of a family's conflict and dreams of taking advantage of it.
When we sense that other female members of the cigar share this desire, we rediscover the twisted bonds that women have formed through secret agreements and tacit consent to survive in an unfair structure.

But why do women's affection for each other keep getting out of sync and being expressed so sharply?
If "Eumbok" captured this phenomenon from the perspective of an outsider, the daughter-in-law, "Gaewon" searches for the origin of this contradiction from the perspective of an insider, the granddaughter.
The narrator, who entered the ruined old house to find his grandmother who suddenly disappeared, contrasts the unconditional love shown by his grandfather and the harsh upbringing of his grandmother in the memories of the past that come back to him like a ghost.
After realizing the true nature of her grandparents hidden behind their appearance, will this granddaughter be able to love her grandmother more than her grandfather?

The following short story, "Hand," is told from the perspective of the narrator, a mother raising her daughter.
The narrator's paranoia, which spreads beyond the family to the entire village, has moved to a rural area to live with her mother-in-law, who will take care of the child in place of her husband who has applied for overseas employment.
The narrator, who is burdened with the pressure to protect his daughter in a closed village driven by superstitions about the evil spirit "Son," who "comes into the village to harm and disturb the people," experiences strange events that are eerie.

Kang Hwa-gil, who meticulously interprets the narratives of women of all generations and their inevitably contradictory emotions, cleverly and delicately exposes the structural violence that distorts women's hearts.
The author vividly depicts how prejudice against women and the resulting rumors and gossip have a detrimental effect on them.
"Seo-woo" is a short story set in a neighborhood where women have disappeared in succession. It depicts the confusion and fear a woman encounters while riding in a taxi driven by a female driver on her way home.
The novel gradually overturns the prejudice that women are always sacrificed because they are given only the role of victims, delivering a rich thrill.

"The Appearance of Filth" is a short story that explores the death of Kim Mi-jin, an aspiring novelist and former female entertainer.
By analyzing various perspectives on Kim Mi-jin, synthesizing the testimony of acquaintances, and Kim Mi-jin's will, Kang Hwa-gil follows the passionate attempt to get closer to the truth, sharply reproducing the tragedy of a woman's death being reduced to mere gossip.
This work paradoxically shows how provocative labels are attached to the evaluation of women, and how wasteful and vain it is to judge someone based solely on their outward appearance.

In the title work of this collection, "White Horse," Kang Hwa-gil goes a step further in this critical awareness, revealing his commitment as a writer to rewrite the words that restrict women in his own way.
The title of this short story, reminiscent of 'The Prince on a White Horse', is by G.
It is a verse that appears in K. Chesterton's poetry collection, and is also a symbol used by Bob Dylan and Taylor Swift in their music.
What meaning will this word take on in Kang Hwa-gil's novel?
This short story makes us anticipate the next novel by Kang Hwa-gil, who has become a representative Korean female thriller writer after constantly renewing herself to complete a novel that only she can write.

In the work "Camilla" included at the end of the book, Kang Hwa-gil compares the pain of unrequited love to the unbridgeable distance between humans and vampires.
This short story, a modern adaptation of Sheridan Le Fanu's classic novel "Camilla," the first novel to feature a female vampire, naturally brings to mind Bram Stoker's "Dracula," which is considered a masterpiece of vampire fiction.
Camilla, which influenced Dracula but is overshadowed by it, resembles the female characters of Kang Hwa-gil, who support the world with twisted bonds that remain hidden.
By continuing this process of reimagining existing stories with his own unique meaning, Kang Hwa-gil is leaving an indelible impression on Korean literature.
By reading "White Horse," we can enjoy the pleasure of reading novels that would later become classic women's thrillers at the same time.

The history of Whitehorse will be the history of the house and the memories of those who stayed here.
The meaning of White Horse will change depending on their memories.
Because the meanings are bound to keep changing depending on the writer and the singer.
Because that's what they do, and that's what only they can do.
(…) I will keep looking.
Because that's what I do, and this is my love.

okay.
I really love you.
_From the author's note