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The winds were blowing loudly outside and the room was filling up with cold air every time the window rattled. 

My sister and I turned off the light and we each pulled two comforters up to our heads. 

The room was just half the size of the studio we used to live in. 

I had to ask for my security deposit back in a hurry and look for a place at half the budget. That was how we ended up in a place like this.

바깥에서는 바람이 휘이휘이 소리를 내며 불고 있었고

창문이 부들부들 떨 때마다 방은 냉기로 차올랐다.

나와 여동생은 불을 끄고 각자 이불을 두채씩 포개어

머리까지 뒤집어쓰고 자리에 누웠다.

방은 전에 살던 원룸을 딱 반으로 접어놓은 크기였다.

급하게 보증금을 빼야했고,

역시나 반토막 난 보증금에 맞추어 방을 구하다보니

동생말대로 ‘여기까지’ 굴러오게 된 것이다.

The landlords, a couple in their 60s, called their boarding house “Square House,” because it had rooms arranged on the four sides of a square yard. The house had nine rooms available for rent and the sisters took Room No. 9, the last one in the corner. 

When I stepped out to the yard to go to the bathroom last night, I saw the lights were on in all nine of the rooms. The lights glowed through the old paper-paned doors and illuminated the yard, putting my mind at ease for some reason. 

I heard someone coughing in one room and a low murmur from a radio in another.

The tenants of Square House seemed to announce their presence with lights and sounds - the doors colored with the lights and the sound of the doors opening and closing, the sound of shoes dragging under their feet and the sound of their paper-thin sighs. 

간밤에 화장실에 가려고

마당으로 나왔을 때,

아홉 개의 방에 모두 불이 켜져 있는 걸 보았다.

그 불빛이 오래된 창호지 문을 통해 은은하게 스며나와 마당을 밝히는데

괜히 마음이 편안해지면서 안도감이 들었다.

어떤 방에서는 가래 “끓는 소리가 들려왔고

또 다른 방에서는 라디오 소리가 희미하게 흘러나왔다.

네모집의 세입자들은 불빛과 소리로만 자기 존재를 알려오는 것 같았다.

빛으로 칠해진 방문과 그 방문을 여닫는 소리로.

신발을 끄집는 소리와 종잇장처럼 가벼운 한숨 소리로.

Interview by literature critic Jeon So-yeong

The sisters’ lives appear very difficult and depressing, but the backdrop of Square House is indicative of the author’s kindhearted nature. If the house was linear-shaped, its occupants would all face one way, but because the house is square, tenants living there have to face one another. It’s hard to care about others if you barely have energy to get through your own life, but the narrator and her sister keep seeing other people much like themselves existing in that house. Although the narrator doesn’t yet have the courage to approach them in person, she knows that they’re there by looking at the lights and is comforted by their presence. The author describes this scene in a sad yet beautiful manner. 

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Jang Eun-jin (Born in 1976, Gwangju)

: Debuted by winning the Joongang New Writers Award for “Kitchen Laboratory” in 2004

Won the Grand Prize at the 20th Lee Hyo-seok Literature Awards in 2019, etc.