A controversial and haunting novel, and the first English translation of one of the foremost Korean writers
The Blind Singer, or Sop'yonje, is a disturbing and powerful novel set in Korea's southern provinces among the p'ansori singers, practitioners of the ancient
storytelling-and-singing tradition where blindness is seen to be an aid to creating pure art, free of sensory distraction and temptation. A "song man" blinds his daughter to keep her
from following her half-brother, who ran away due to the art's rigorous training. The girl forgives her father before his death, and through this act, she deepens
her insight into the nature of human existence, and, as her father had insisted would happen, elevates the art of her p'ansori singing. Many years later the half-brother returns and
asks her to sing for himthe beginning of a truly unforgettable climax to the strangest and most beautiful of novels, exploring themes of forgiveness, the redemptive power of
art, and modern man's loss of innocence and the alienation from traditional values.
