HAN KANG was born in Gwangju, South Korea, and moved to Seoul at the age of ten. She studied Korean literature at Yonsei University. Her writing has won the Yi Sang Literary Prize, the Today's Young Artist Award, and the Korean Literature Novel Award. She currently teaches creative writing at the Seoul Institute of the Arts. DEBORAH SMITH is working on a PhD in Korean literature at SOAS, University of London. She has translated The Essayist's Desk by Bae Suah, as well as short stories by Kim Kyung-uk and Kim Ae-ran.