An evening with Yun Ko-eun at the Korean Cultural Centre

Yun Ko-eun is an award winning author of 5 novels and 4 short story collections. Her latest novel is Art On Fire and I was so pleased to get the chance to speak with her about it in person thanks to a book club event held by the Korean Cultural Centre in Sydney.

We were joined by interpreter Haein Cho and it was a wonderful experience to work with her for this interview. In Art on Fire, An Yiji’s dreams of being a successful painter have stalled, she’s currently working as a food delivery driver and watching in horror as her art school friends take public service jobs. Then out of the blue she’s offered a spot in the Robert Foundation Art Fellowship in America. She’ll have marketing money thrown at her, she’ll have sponsorship, she’ll be put up on the grounds of the Foundation itself (a lush green estate in the middle of the drought stricken desert). There’s only one condition, she has to create a number of paintings and at the end of her fellowship one of them will be set on fire. Oh, and the Foundation is run by a dog, a Papillon, who can speak thanks to a mysterious black box around his neck.

This is a dark, brilliant, hilarious and strange novel about what it takes for art to get noticed, about power that comes from language and who wields it. It asks great questions about what things inspire an artist and what things might interfere with art. It’s also got a superb and complex strand about authenticity in art when so much of what is created now is done through AI. It was a privilege to hear Yun Ko-eun speak about it all.