Korean author Hyun Ki-young's powerful short story "Iron and Flesh," translated by Peace Lee, has been awarded the prestigious Kevin O'Rourke Prize at the 56th Modern Korean Literature Translation Awards. The story provides a haunting portrayal of the Jeju April 3rd Incident, one of Korea's most tragic historical events, through the eyes of an eight-year-old boy named Byeong-su.
The narrative begins with historical context, explaining how Mount Jiri was traditionally known as "The Unyielding Mountain" for resisting Yi Seong-gye's rise to power during the Joseon Dynasty. In 1948, when Korea was divided and hostile regimes emerged in both North and South, Mount Halla on Jeju Island inherited this symbolic name of resistance.
Hyun Ki-young depicts how the southern regime established a power structure modeled on American governance, where English fluency became a decisive advantage for advancement. Former pro-Japanese collaborators quickly rebranded themselves as pro-American supporters, while nationalism lost its foundation. The author describes how former pro-Japanese police officers were reinstated to key positions, and graduates of the U.S.-run Military Language School led purges against nationalist forces in the military.
The story reveals how President Truman's name was literally translated as "Jinin," meaning "True Man," and promoted as a divine, messianic figure heralding a new nation. According to esoteric texts referenced in the story, a Jinin represents a prophetic savior who delivers suffering people and establishes a new kingdom when the time comes. These secret records foretold that the Jinin would lead an army from across the sea and march northward to create this new state.
However, Hyun Ki-young emphasizes that the young islanders did not rise up due to prophecy or optimism about victory. Before the April 3rd uprising, there was the March 1st Gathering, when thirty thousand islanders rallied for true independence and freedom from all foreign domination. This peaceful assembly ended in bloodshed when police opened fire indiscriminately, killing six people. For nearly a year afterward, the island endured attacks from the Seocheong (Northwest Youth Association) and auxiliary police dispatched from the mainland, with murder, torture, looting, and sexual violence running rampant.
With no refuge left and nowhere to escape, the desperate youth took up arms in resistance. The regime's retaliation defied human reason and shattered moral comprehension. Colonel Kim Ik-ryeol, who opposed the scorched-earth policy, was dismissed and replaced by Park Jin-gyeong. Police Chief Chough Pyung-ok and 9th Regiment Commander Park Jin-gyeong openly declared that even if all 300,000 islanders had to be sacrificed, it was a price worth paying to build a new nation—words voiced with the approval of the United States.
When the United States branded Jeju as "Red Island," the label sealed the island's fate. On military operation maps, every area more than five kilometers inland from the coast, including Mount Halla and the villages nestled along its mid-mountain slopes, was marked in red. Red meant blood and fire, and the 130-plus villages at the heart of the unyielding mid-mountain resistance were ultimately consumed by crimson flames.
The story introduces the brutal principle of "Baek Sal Il Bi" (百殺一匪)—"Kill A Hundred to Get One Bandit." Despite there being no more than two or three hundred guerrilla fighters, this principle argued that slaughtering twenty or thirty thousand civilians would eliminate them entirely. By this logic, tens of thousands of innocent lives were sacrificed.
The narrative then shifts to focus on eight-year-old Byeong-su, who serves as the story's central character. In the midst of growth spurts and brimming with life, he had no understanding of what death meant. Three months before the annihilation campaign swept through his village in a terrifying blaze, his grandmother passed away at age seventy-two. She had always seemed vigorous until suddenly falling ill, unable to eat rice and switching to thin rice gruel, then refusing even that and asking only for sips of scorched rice water.
The grandmother's final words to her family were profound: "Don't you fuss over me. I know my body better than anyone. I've lived my life. I've eaten all my allotted rice—now it's time for rice water. Once you've set down your spoon after a full meal, you shouldn't go back to eating." Five days later, drinking only rice water, she closed her eyes for the last time with a faint and peaceful smile on her lips.
This was Byeong-su's first encounter with death, though he felt no sadness. Instead, a secret exhilaration stirred in him, as if he were playing a role in some grand drama. The funeral felt more like a festive gathering, with the house packed for three days and nights. However, the day after the funeral, when he returned from school and habitually called for his grandmother, the silence that echoed back made the permanence of her absence strike him like a breaking wave.
The deaths Byeong-su witnessed three months later were completely different—brutal deaths brought on by killing rather than natural passing. In the blue dawn while the village still slept, suppression forces closed in, setting homes ablaze from the outskirts and firing blindly into the dark, driving villagers toward the three-way intersection at the center. Byeong-su's father was shot down while trying to beat flames from their roof, and his mother was struck in the back with a rifle butt and dragged away.
Amid the chaos, Byeong-su managed to free a mewing cow and her calf from the burning barn before running after his mother. The village became a sea of fire with flames turning clouds blood-red, while people and animals staggered through smoke-choked alleys and were gunned down where they stood. From within burning homes came desperate screams of both humans and animals trapped inside. Through the inferno, soldiers in tin helmets and white armbands charged about like messengers of the underworld in a frenzy.
The story concludes with the tragic fate of about twenty young people who failed to escape and were marked for execution. Women were not spared from this brutality, and Byeong-su's twenty-six-year-old mother was among those selected for death. Through this deeply personal lens of a child's experience, Hyun Ki-young's "Iron and Flesh" provides a powerful testimony to one of Korea's most devastating historical tragedies, earning recognition through Peace Lee's skillful translation.
