LOOKING AT THESE PICTURES I START WONDERING: how does a person show improvement with age? People say one matures with time, but how does it manifest? Does the energy in one’s eyes change? Does one grow more considerate toward others? Does one show more humility? More self-control? Become more patriotic? As I age, will I become more patient and cultivate a loving attitude toward others? Will I become selfless? Will that really happen just because of age? I remember the day my high school principal retired. It was a particularly hot day and the sun was blazing. During the retirement ceremony the students were told to stand in an open field with no shade, while the principal, and only the principal, got an awning over his head. He went on and on about his accomplishments. People like to say teaching is selfless and noble, but he seemed pretty self-absorbed, oblivious to the students’ wish for his speech to end so we could clap a bit and head back into the classroom. I don’t even remember that oblivious asshole’s name. What does it mean to become a “grown-up?” How does one go about doing that, growing up? Will I just become like my parents? I’d like to know if I can actually become a better person. Will I survive long enough to look back at my life and reflect on it fondly?
ALSO AVAILABLE IN ENGLISH BY KIM YIDEUM
Cheer Up, Femme Fatale
Translated by Jiyoon Lee, Don Mee Choi, & Johannes Göransson
Hysteria
Translated by Jake Levine, Soeun Seo, & Hedgie Choi
BLOOD SISTERS
Kim Yideum
TRANSLATED FROM THE KOREAN
BY JIYOON LEE
Deep Vellum publishing
Dallas, Texas
Deep Vellum
3000 Commerce St., Dallas, Texas 75226
deepvellum.org · @deepvellum
Deep Vellum is a 501C3
nonprofit literary arts organization founded in 2013.
Blood Sisters © 2011 Kim Yideum
Original Korean edition published by Munhakdongne Publishing Group
English translation rights arranged with Munhakdongne Publishing Group
Translation Copyright © 2019 by Jiyoon Lee
First edition, 2019
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-941920-77-0 (paperback) | 978-1-941920-78-7 (ebook)
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CONTROL NUMBER: 2019937124
Blood Sisters is published under the support of Literature Translation Institute of Korea (LTI Korea).
Text set in Bembo, a typeface modeled on typefaces cut by Francesco Griffo for Aldo Manuzio’s printing of De Aetna in 1495 in Venice.
Cover design by Anna Zylicz | annazylicz.com
Typesetting by Kirby Gann
Distributed by Consortium Book Sales & Distribution.
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper.
CONTENTS