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In my memories there is a small room where the light never goes out despite the passing of time. When I was twenty-eight, I witnessed it for the first time located on the rooftop of a three-story building. 

I couldn’t help asking what a room located at such a place is called. She answered in three definite syllables.

Ok. Top. Bang. 

That was the craziest thing I ever heard in my life.

나의 기억 속에는 세월이 흘러도 불이 꺼지지 않는

자그마한 방 한 칸이 있다.

내 나이 스물여덟이었을 때, 

나는 삼층 건물의 옥상에 위치한 그것을 처음 목격했었다.

이런 곳에 위치한 방을 도대체 뭐라고 부르나,

나는 반문하지 않을 수 없었다.

그러자 삼빡한 분절음으로 또박또박 그녀는 이렇게 대답했다.

옥.탑.방.

그것은 내가 지상에 태어난 이후 단 한 번도

들어본 적 없는 해괴한 말이었다.

 

The protagonist, Min-soo, thinks of the room on the rooftop as a place of exile, far away from ground level where most people live, a place steeped in despair and anguish. The story taking place ten years earlier is about Min-soo and Joo-hee, who lived in that rooftop room.

Interview by literary critic Jeon So-yeong

The rooftop room in this story where Joo-hee lives. She works at a department store, the symbol of abundance, wearing the most eye-catching uniform and manning the most conspicuous station in the store. But ironically, she lives in a shabby rooftop room, quite the opposite from the department store. As she watches the materialism and the blinding lights of the consumer world, she dreams of being a legitimate part of that world, because leaving the rooftop and going down to the flat, ground-level location means a rise in her social status.

The distance from the rooftop room to present, the time from when I left the rooftop room to now. It’s about time that those memories sank to the swamp of oblivion, but the light hasn’t gone out in the rooftop room in my heart.

Someday, at the hour of inevitability that may come disguised as coincidence, which face of Sisyphus would I have?

Even if we pass by without recognizing each other, I want to show her the face of a happy Sisyphus that knows how to stand boldly against fate, rather than the face of an unhappy Sisyphus held captive by prejudice, contradiction, and obstinacy. 

옥탑방으로부터 현재까지의 거리, 

추억이 망각의 늪으로 잦아들 때가 되었는데도

내 마음의 옥탑방에는 불이 꺼지지 않는다.

언젠가, 우연을 가장하고 찾아올지도 모를 필연의 시간에

나는 어떤 시지프의 얼굴을 하고 있을까.

서로를 알아보지 못하고 무심히 지나치게 될지라도,

편견과 모순과 아집에 사로잡힌 불행한 시지프의 얼굴이 아니라

자기 운명에 당당하게 맞설 줄 아는 행복한 시지프의 얼굴을

나는 그녀에게 보여 주고 싶다

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Park Sangwoo (Born on Aug. 20, 1942 in Gwangju, Gyeonggi-do Prov.)

: 1988    Won the Munye Joongang Literary Award for Best First Novel with “A Light That Doesn’t Fade Out)

1999    Won the 23rd Yi Sang Literary Award with “The Attic of My Heart“