Choi Eun-young's Novel 'Bright Night' Traces Four Generations of Women Across a Century

Choi Eun-young's novel Bright Night (『밝은 밤』) begins with rupture. Ji-yeon, 32, ends her marriage after her husband's affair and leaves Seoul for Hee-ryeong, the city where her mother grew up and her grandmother Young-ok still lives.

She takes work as a researcher at the local observatory. The quieter life fractures when she finds a photograph of two women at her grandmother's house—an image that pulls her backward through a hundred years.

The narrative spans four generations. Young-ok's account reaches back to Ji-yeon's great-grandmother Jung-seon and Jung-seon's closest friend, Sae-bi Auntie. Ji-yeon's mother Mi-seon appears throughout, as does the grief Ji-yeon has carried since her older sister Jung-yeon died in childhood.

(The observatory does heavy lifting—distance, light, what you can see from far away.)

Page 252 holds the novel's emotional core: "I don't ask for much. I only hope for a sincere apology. I only hope for acknowledgment of one's own mistakes."