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Well before her death in 2011, Park Wan-Suh had established herself as a canonical figure in Korean literature. Her work-often based upon her own personal experiences, and showing keen insight into divisive social issues from the Korean partition to the position of women in Korean society-has touched readers for over forty years. In this collection, meditations upon life in old age come to the fore-at its best, accompanied by great beauty and compassion; at its worst by a cynicism that nonetheless turns a bitter smile upon the changing world.

A major, never before translated novel by the author of Mujong / The Heartless-often called the first modern Korean novel-The Soil tells the story of an idealist dedicating his life to helping the inhabitants of the rural community in which he was raised. Striving to influence the poor farmers of the time to improve their lots, become self-reliant, and thus indirectly change the reality of colonial life on the Korean peninsula, The Soil was vitally important to the social movements of the time, echoing the effects and reception of such English-language novels as Upton Sinclair's The Jungle.

The nine stories that make up this collection depict a wide variety of contemporary Koreans navigating a world focused on material wealth and social power, in which family ties have been disrupted and all relationships are dysfunctional.