- Overview
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A girl who has lost her parents is left alone on Jeju Island, overcoming hardships to bring about miracles on the island.
- Book Intro
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(English) The Wild Bibari of Joseon
*A cheerful, hilarious girl**
A girl who loves the sea does a ridiculous dance as she waits for her father to return from the mainland. She has a prominent forehead and big eyes and is better at diving than divers, and likes to make beautiful things with shells collected on the shore. This little girl who forgets even to sleep when she’s got her mind set on something, is the town’s famous tomboy.
*A sudden shadow of death and a child left behind**
After her father, who is known for being punctual on both the island and the mainland, doesn’t return home for days, the girl heads out to sea, worried. She discovers Mr. Jang, a colleague of her father, adrift on a plank coming in from the sea. There’s talk that her father’s ship sank in the wind and waves, and the villagers hold a joint funeral. Shocked by the sudden death of her father, the girl’s mother becomes sick and passes away. The girl’s uncle appears and takes her two brothers with him, leaving the girl in the care of a gibang, the high-class drinking house where female entertainers, or gisaeng, are trained.
*Tortuous gibang life**
Under the circumstances, the little girl starts living in the gibang and tries to earn her keep. She is recognized for her talent to make shiny items with useless shells, and thereby starts working as an artisan making useful items for the gibang. She is also the gibang’s resident troublemaker. For example, when she experiments at making moisturizing, fragrant soap, she ends up making her own face into a frightening monster face. However, her talent for making sophisticated items earns the admiration of the nobility. One day, the son of the newly appointed Jeju governor and Park Chan-Seong put her name on the list to become a gisaeng, a woman who entertains high-ranking men.
*The greatest merchant of Jeju and a great famine**
Man-Deok is surrounded by good people: Wol-Hyang, who worries about Man-Deok’s temper and gives her bitter advice, but solves all the problems whenever Man-Deok gets in trouble; Yuk-Son, who is taciturn and reserved but does whatever Man-Deok asks her to do; Yang-Chun, who calls Man-Deok “bulging head” and hits her on the top of the head and back with a walking stick whenever Man-Deok makes a mistake, yet trains her by giving her difficult chores and teaching her to brew alcohol; and Bang-Man, who builds houses, traveling all around the country, comes home as a freed slave and unexpectedly meets Man-Deok, and happens to construct a commission agency.
Enraged by the behavior of the nobility who are only concerned with their own well-being after an unprecedented famine occurs, Man-Deok donates all the rice in her commission agency for the people of Jeju Island, and when this is not enough, she sends her ship to the mainland to sell an enormous harvest and save the people of Jeju. For her great deed, the king tells her that he will grant her a wish. Then, she answers with twinkling eyes that she wishes to go to Mt. Geumgang.
- About the Author
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Chun Youngmi
(English) Chun Young-mi earned a doctorate in literature at Sungshin Women’s University and worked as an instructor at universities and high schools for seven years. She’s now a liberal arts instructor in Sydney, Australia and also teaches Korean history and culture there.
She made her literary debut upon receiving the grand prize at the Korea Content Award with her first full-length novel A Gardener with a Hunched Back. In this work, Chun describes the warm solidarity of social minorities, including a gardener with a hunched back, a woman from a ruined upper-class family, and an eccentric doctor. She emphasized the values of vitality that these people carry, as depicted through her unique warm, immersive style.
The author goes beyond the grim tone and manner typically found in historical novels to create ordinary, happy characters, which has established her reputation as a storyteller who pursues warm, humanist historical novels.
Her latest novel The Wild Bibari of Joseon is inspired by Kim Man-Deok, the great female merchant of Jeju Island during the Joseon Dynasty, from whom the author has likened to the positive, strong energy of Anne from Anne of Green Gables. Chun features Kim Man-Deok in the wild bibari to dynamically illustrate her brilliant life.
