Cho Nam-Joo’s Miss Kim Knows and Other Stories, translated from the Korean by Jamie Chang, brings back more Kims after Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982, her breakthrough novel in English. The issues she takes up in her novel – gender inequality and systemic misogyny in South Korea – are probed with greater urgency and a sharper eye in this short story collection. Over the course of eight stories, Cho Nam-Joo, writing in Korean, gives shape to women’s distressing lives in Korea, which is not only limited by social vices but also moulded by gender-specific expectations inside the home. Her cast of characters includes schoolgirls, office-going women, mothers and wives, and most refreshingly, elderly women.

Women around men

The opening story, “Under the Plum Tree”, is narrated by Mallyeo, whose name literally means “the last girl.” A grandmother now, she still hates her name and has it amended when she reaches adulthood. During her visits to her elder sister at the old age home, the two women reminisce about their childhood, as family relations change and sour. Besides old age and death, the story ruminates on the lifelong wounds of women’s childhood neglect in cultures where male children are preferred.

“Dead-Set” is what Rebecca F Kuang’s Yellowface could have been. In this 25-page story, Cho Nam-Joo raises the question of authenticity in fiction – who gets to own a story, who gets to tell it? A popular novelist remembers her kind teacher and the stories she shared. But the teacher, Ms Kim, accuses her of treating her life as material for her novel. Things soon get ugly and lawyers have to be brought in.

In one of my favourite stories in the collection, “Runaway”, a 72-year-old man walks out on his family seemingly without reason. His wife and children are worried, especially his daughter, whom her father doted on. However, the man’s disappearance brings unexpected possibilities.

The titular story “Miss Kim Knows” follows the eponymous protagonist, who is indispensable to an office despite having no real job title. She took care of everything, from office supplies to heeding to everyone’s whims. Her omnipresence and almost supernatural command over the goings-on of the office become so formidable that she has to be fired. And yet, the no-face, no-title Miss Kim’s presence still haunts the office.

“Dear Hyunnam Oppa” is a caustic post-breakup story. Written in an epistolary format, a woman finally admits to how much she hated her boyfriend of ten years. All through the relationship, she addressed him as “oppa” and did everything he asked of her. He influenced not only the terms of their relationship but also her career and who she could be friends with.

A different age

“Grown-Up Girl” explores parenting in the social media age. Where even middle-school boys are capable of sexual abuse, the narrator faces a unique challenge when her daughter catches her male classmates upskirting with their phones. She knows she must support her daughter but struggles nevertheless as other parents criticise her for being too much of a feminist.

In “Puppy Love, 2020”, two fourth graders who have just become “girlfriend–boyfriend” are presented with an insurmountable challenge – the Covid-19 pandemic. Holed up at home and granted only limited access to social media and chatting platforms, the children are forced to grow up too quickly as they experience the first flushes of love, separation, and heartbreak in a matter of months. The story presents a reality that most of us have overlooked – the effect of isolation and uncertainty on young love.

The story I loved the most was “Night of Aurora.” A woman in her sixties feels harassed by her daughter’s demand to look after her son while she goes to work, all the while ignoring the fact that her mother goes to work too. The daughter’s insensitivity saddens the mother but she is determined to do the one thing she has always wanted to do – to see the aurora borealis. She has no interest in taking her daughter and when the travel agent (Ms Kim!) advises taking along another person, she settles on her 80-year-old mother-in-law. The widows live together in Seoul but have never travelled with each other, and a trip to Yellowknife, Canada, reminds them of the many ways that they are alike.

The conflicts in the stories emerge from the women’s refusal to adhere to the status quo. Defiance stems from discomfort and silence, and Cho Nam-Joo’s women are finally learning to say “no”. However, they still operate within their prescribed roles at home and work, but with honest conversations about their lives and the possibilities of liberation, they agree that the road to self-determination is long and painful but worth the trouble.

Miss Kim Knows and Other Stories, Cho Nam-Joo, translated from the Korean by Jamie Chang, Scribner.

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