The Mundaneness of Oppression: Translation, Silence, and Reception in Kim Ji-young, Born 1982.
With the enduring difficulty in translating narratives of suffering, it is rare for a novel focusing on gendered trauma to achieve the same level of success as Nam Joo Cho’s Kim Ji-young, Born 1982, the second book from South Korea, which became a million-seller in 2016. The novel employs a sparse...
| Published in: | Intersections: Gender & Sexuality in Asia & the Pacific no. 53; pp. 121 - 139 |
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| Format: | Article |
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Intersections
May2026
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=194957578&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 194957578 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 14409151 AYO jtl: Intersections: Gender & Sexuality in Asia & the Pacific issn: 14409151 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: May2026 iid: 53 pid: 20634 pub: Intersections artinfo: ui: 194957578 10.25911/KZRW-SD86 ppf: 121 ppct: 18 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: T tig: atl: The Mundaneness of Oppression: Translation, Silence, and Reception in Kim Ji-young, Born 1982. aug: au: Thakur, Ashita affil: Indian Institute of Technology Ropar, Adani University, Ahmedabad, India su: Translating & interpreting Gender-based violence Discourse Irony Translators Fiction Narration Engaged reading South Korea sug: subj: South Korea Translating & interpreting Gender-based violence Discourse Irony Translators Fiction Narration Engaged reading keyword: digital reception epistemic violence gender studies Hallyu neoliberalism translation ab: With the enduring difficulty in translating narratives of suffering, it is rare for a novel focusing on gendered trauma to achieve the same level of success as Nam Joo Cho’s Kim Ji-young, Born 1982, the second book from South Korea, which became a million-seller in 2016. The novel employs a sparse narrative style, almost clinical in its delivery and often perceived as ’bland’ by many non-Korean readers, which resists western understandings of fiction. This article examines how the novel’s English translation negotiates structural irony, narrative ambiguity, and cultural idiom in its representation of gendered trauma. It questions how silence is constructed as a narrative strategy, and how it is mediated and interpreted in translation. Methodologically, this article combines close textual analysis with a reception study and content analysis of a selected sample of Goodreads’ reviews to evaluate readers’ responses to the novel’s sparse, bureaucratic narrative style and documentary footnotes. Drawing on feminist translation theory and reception theory, this article demonstrates how silence serves as a deliberate strategy to counter epistemological violence in the Korean text. While the translation mostly preserves structural irony, reader reception reveals the complex terrain of translational ethics. The article ultimately presents translation as a site where cultural legibility, feminist politics, and reader expectation intersect, unveiling its possibilities and limitations. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Intersections: Gender & Sexuality in Asia & the Pacific is the property of Intersections and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Intersections: Gender & Sexuality in Asia & the Pacific holder: Intersections dt: @attributes: year: 2026 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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