Review of "One Left" by Kim Soom
The following is an edited version of a piece written as an entry to the 2021 IKSU Korean Literature Review Contest, hosted by The International Institute of Korean Studies (IKSU) at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan), in November 2021. I wasn't then and still am not very familiar with Korean literature. Even so, since I was quite proud of myself for finishing this, I decided to post it for posterity. In One Left (2016), Kim Soom uses a tapestry on mundane domestic activities and horrendous flashbacks to paint a vivid picture of the suffering of a Korean comfort woman, both before and after the end of the war. The protagonist of One Left is a former comfort woman who remains nameless for the majority of the novel, referred to simply as “she” or “she herself” (in scenes when more than one “she” is present). She is watching TV when she learns that there is only one known surviving comfort woman left. Following this, the novel details the protagonist’s daily activitie