But the unbending conditions of the farm have worn her down, and by the story’s beginning she can no longer produce eggs with hard-enough shells. All she wants is to care for an egg until it hatches and raise a chick. The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly concerns Sprout, a chicken that has spent her life in a tiny coop on an industrial farm, laying eggs that are quickly taken away and sold. Having sold over two million copies, spent years on the national bestseller lists and shattered box office records with its film adaptation, it stands as one of South Korea’s biggest literary phenomena in contemporary times. Sun-mi Hwang’s 2000 novella, The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly, has finally made it to North American readers after some 13 years - in part because it lacks any of the overt national signifiers that would otherwise complicate its understanding.Ī well-known children’s author, Hwang’s sublime story is instead a fable of farm animals that belongs on a bookshelf somewhere between the innocent frivolity of Charlotte’s Web and subliminal politics of Animal Farm. English translations of South Korean literature are generally rare, given the vast difference between the two languages and the cultural connotations that must be overcome for fictional tapestries to be understood in all their depths.
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