별잠 / Sleeping Outside

BY Lee Si-young
TRANSLATED BY Brother Anthony of Taizé & Yoo Hui-sok
Korean

철조망이 쳐진 중국 딴뚱 근처 압록강의 황금평 섬에서 한가족으로 보이는 북한 농민들이 가을걷이를 하고 있는데, 나도 몰래 그 속으로 스윽 빨려들어가 잘 드는 낮으로 벼포기를 마음껏 움켜쥐고 베어나가다가 “여보 아바이 동무! 새참 좀 먹고 합시다”라고 말하자 머릿수건 쓴 그의 아내가 고운 눈을 흘기며 논둑으로 가더니 보자기에 싼 찐 고구마를 들고 왔다. 그라고는 그만 꿀잠이 들고 말았던가? 일어나보니 사위는 어둡고 나만 혼자 볏가리 위에서 먼 나라의 양치기 소년처럼 푹신한 별잠을 자고 있었다.

English

Near Dandong in China, beyond rows of barbed wire, on Hwanggeumpyeong Island in the Yalu River, what looks like a family of North Korean farmers are harvesting; I slip among them unnoticed, seize thick bunches of rice stalks and cut them with a sharp scythe until, with a “Hey, comrade Dad, let’s have a snack!” His wife, her head swathed in a towel, after frowning at him with her pretty eyes, heads for the side of the field and comes back bringing steamed sweet potatoes in a wrapping cloth. Then I must have fallen into a deep sleep, for when I awoke everything was dark, I was alone. I had been sleeping quietly on a stack of straw like a shepherd boy from a distant land.

 

Biography

이시영 (1949년 ~ ) 전남 구례에서 출생하였고, 서라벌예대 문예창작과와 고려대 대학원 국문과를 수학하였다. 1969년 《중앙일보》 신춘문예에 시조가, 《월간문학》 제3회 신인작품 공모에 시가 당선되어 등단하였다. 시집으로 《만월》,《바람 속으로》,《길은 멀다 친구여》,《무늬》 등이 있고 산문집으로 《곧 수풀은 베어지리라》가 있다. 정지용문학상, 동서문학상, 지훈상, 백석문학상 등을 수상했다. 민중문학의 공고한 진지인 창비에 80년 편집장으로 입사해 2003년 퇴사할 때까지 23년간 일하며 편집자로서 김정환 김용택 김사인 김영현 공지영 공선옥 등 문단의 주요 작가들을 발굴했다. 현재 단국대 문예창작과 초빙교수를 맡고 있다.

Born in Gurye, South Jeolla Province, in 1949, LEE SI-YOUNG began publishing poetry in 1969. His first volume Manweol (Full Moon) appeared in 1976. Ten years passed before a second, Baram sokeuro (Into the Wind) was published in 1986. Since then he has published a total of eleven poetry collections, and has received many of Korea’s main poetry awards. He also served as the managing editor (1980-2003) of Changbi Publishing, one of Korea’s most important publishers in poetry, playing an active role in making known to the public many of Korea’s most important younger poets. Currently, he is in charge of the International Creative Writing Center at Dankook University. English translations of his earlier poems were published in Variations (Cornell University Press, 2001).

BROTHER ANTHONY OF TAIZÉ (known as An Sonjae in Korean) was born in England in 1942, and has been living in Korea since 1980. He has taught English literature at Sogang University in Seoul for many years, where he now serves as an emeritus professor. Also a chair-professor at Dankook University, he has published more than twenty-five volumes of English translations of modern Korean literature, including six volumes of Ko Un.

YOO HUI-SOK is a professor in the English Department at Jeonnam University, Gwangju. He has published many critical studies of contemporary Korean literature, in particular poetry.

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