The Unwelcome Visitor: Confronting the Past in "The Guest", a story of Korean modern history

I have always been passionate about historical books that would take me on different periods of time, picturing the life and struggles of people at the time. However modern history was filled with many traumatic events some of them I had the unfortunate chance to experience myself first hand.

I don’t even remember how I found “The Guest” by Hwang Sok-yong, but I remember I had decided to read it because it was based on real facts. The author is one of the contemporary masters of Korean literature and this country’s probably most renowned author, who was imprisoned for visiting North Korea and whose novels are published in North and South Korea, Japan, China, France, Germany, and the United States.

"The Guest" by Hwang Sok-yong (Korean version). (Original photo source: www.aladin.co.kr)

Living in Korea got me curios about the country’s history and I was surprised to find similarities with my country. As someone born in a communist country which later become a democratic one, I had the “opportunity” to experience two totally different doctrines first hand.

“The Guest” is based on actual events, and explains the premises that led to the Korean War (1950-1953) as well as the division of ideologies within the same nation. During the Korean War, Hwanghae Province in North Korea was the setting of a gruesome fifty-two-day massacre. In an act of collective amnesia, the atrocities were attributed to American military, but in truth they resulted from malicious battling between Christian and Communist Koreans. Not only that I could almost feel the pain, screams and sorrow of the past voices but also the sadness of a nation that was divided based on others’ will in a similar way that my own country was divided after the World War II based on the same others’ will.

Though I have never been to North Korea I could relate to many of the scenes described in the book, whether they were about people, houses or places. When one nation is divided by force, the tears and screams of those who were the innocent victims do not disappear from the collective  memory. They are passed on from one generation to the other, becoming  transgenerational wounds.

"The Guest" by Hwang Sok-yong (English version). Photo by Melline Galani

The book tells the story of Reverend  Yosop  Ryu who, after living his life in New York, returns to his childhood village in North Korea and meets surviving relatives while being accompanied by his  older brother’s spirit , Yohan, who had died before Yosop’s return to his homeland. Once a leader of an anti-Communist militia in the North, Yohan’s ghost follows Yosop to North Korea, and the dreadful and violent secrets of a vicious and vindictive war are slowly revealed. The story blends memory, history, and spirituality, as the main character returns to his hometown in North Korea to face ghosts of the past.

It’s not just a war novel, it’s about truth, guilt, reconciliation, and the healing power of remembering.

The word "guest"  from the title  has a dual meaning:  one meaning comes from the fact that the apparent cause of war, democracy versus communism, are foreign ideologies that were brought to Korea from the outside (uninvited guests). The other is related to smallpox which  was feared as a serious disease from another world and it was called sonnim (guest in Korean) referring to an unwanted guest arriving uninvited.

The book is deeply sad and even disturbing to read for sensitive readers but is mandatory if one wishes to understand Koreans’ sorrow, pain and history, and the political relationship between the North and South today. I hope one day this nation’s wounds would heal and the past trauma would belong to the past.

Even though it is not an easy read, it is undoubtedly  an important and unforgettable one for understanding the Korean modern history. Hwang Sok-yong doesn't just tell you about history, he makes you feel its lingering pain and complexity. It’s a sobering, beautifully written story that will stay with you long after you finish the last page, offering a crucial perspective on a conflict that still echoes today. Perfect for readers of historical fiction like Pachinko or anyone interested in stories about family, memory, and reconciliation.

Books. Photo by Rey Seven on Unsplash.