For queer Seoulites in 'Love in the Big City,' pride and shame intertwine
Sang Young Park's novel can be read as an anthropological approach to Seoulite queer lives in the 21st century: Its four linked stories capture the experience of being both visible and unacknowledged.
In "Late Rainy Season Vacation," a story in Sang Young Park's Love in the Big City, a gay character decides to lie down in the middle of a rain-soaked street with his lover, luxuriating in the sensation of being at once exposed and protected by the inclement weather.
Translated by Anton Hur with startling immediacy, Park's English language debut — as framed by this unforgettable scene — captures the ambiguous landscape inhabited by South Korean gays,
