Ha looks closely at the sordid underbelly of suburbia in Bluebeard's First Wife, the latest from one of Korea's preeminent authors.
Ha Seong-nan is the author of five short story collections-including Bluebeard's First Wife and Flowers of Mold-and three novels. Over her career, she's received a number of prestigious awards, such as the Dong-in Literary Award in 1999, Hankook Ilbo Literary Prize in 2000, the Isu Literature Prize in 2004, the Oh Yeong-su Literary Award in 2008, and the Contemporary Literature (Hyundae Munhak) Award in 2009. Janet Hong is a writer and translator based in Vancouver, Canada. Her work has appeared in Literary Hub, Asia Literary Review, Words Without Borders, and the Korea Times. Her other translations include Han Yujoo's The Impossible Fairy Tale and Ancco's Bad Friends.