There is an author who wanted to speak for the most vulnerable members of society. Writer Cho Se-hui has been credited for bringing to light discrimination and the gap existing between the haves and have-nots of society in a crystal-clear manner through the art of words.

Cho’s “The Dwarf” is a collection of 12 separately published short stories that he released over a three-month period starting in December 1975, including “Mobius Strip,” “The Dwarf Launches a Little Ball” and “Epilogue.”

“The writer takes an incisive look at society and at reality, which meet harmoniously in his literary, experimental mind, adding vitality to his works in a way that shapes it into a well-made, curved piece of pottery,” said Woo Chan-jae, a professor of Korean literature at Sogang University.

“This book elliptically brings about stories, stories exquisitely combined with staccato sentences, characteristic of the author, a display of both realism and antirealism and a portrayal of both real and ideal industrialism,” added Woo. “These characteristics are the greatest contributing factors in helping the stories join the ranks of the nation’s most lauded works."

Each story in “The Dwarf” revolves around a physically handicapped dwarf and his family members who are oppressed and marginalized in the current social structure, a society prevalent with prejudice and economic isolation.

The main character is a handyman living with his wife and three children in Haengbok-dong in Nakwon-gu, Seoul. The family lives from hand to mouth. His wife and the oldest son, Young-soo, work in a printing office, but cannot afford to pay tuition for the second son, Young-ho, and for the youngest daughter, Young-hee.

In "A Dwarf Launches a Little Ball," one day a note arrives ordering that their house be torn down as part of a redevelopment project going on in the area. After a few days, wrecking crews storm into the house, threatening them to leave, wielding iron hammers.

The house has been their nest for many years and across many generations. Now, they are in danger of losing it. Speculative traders coax the family into leaving the house by offering quite a large amount of money for the household deed. However, they end up broke after paying their back rent. To make things worse, their youngest daughter runs away with one of the traders.

In the end, the runaway returns home with the household deed and with money, only to find that her father took his own life and that the rest of the family is now gone.


“Everybody faces a time, at least once in their life, when they feel so much pain or so much anger that they yell out to escape from the feeling. My collection ‘The Dwarf’ is exactly the result of putting such desperate and painful cries into words,” said the writer.

Born in 1942 in Gapyeong, Gyeonggi-do (Gyeonggi Province), Cho Se-hui earned two bachelor’s degree, one in creative writing from the Seorabol Art College, now Chung Ang University, and one in Korean language and literature from Kyung Hee University. In 1965, he made his literary debut with the short story “A Mastless Funeral Boat.”

He started to gain recognition in 1975 when he published “Knife Blade,” the first part of his “Dwarf” series that helped him shoot to fame in the literary world. Then he continued to publish its sequels, including “Mobius Strip,” “Space Travel,” “The Dwarf Launches a Little Ball” and “Epilogue.” These were followed by the successive publication of “On the Overpass” and “The Living Cost for a Family of Eungang Laborers.”

By Sohn JiAe
Korea.net Staff Writer
jiae5853@korea.kr