The tourist It is one of those novels that readers are effusively grateful for being published. First, because it is an original and fresh story—without forgetting its fun bitingness—to enjoy on vacation. Second, because the author of it is a young writer and completely unknown in our country, given that nothing of hers had ever been translated into Spanish before. And third, because it comes to us from Asia, more specifically from South Korea, which allows us to access different literatures, unusual perspectives, cultural perspectives to which we are not accustomed.
Yun Ko-eun (Seoul, 1980) published her first novel in 2008 and from this year onwards her literary career did not stop, mainly publishing collections of short stories. In 2021 he won the Dagger Award with The tourist, a novel that now, thanks to Reservoir Books, has just landed in Spanish bookstores. It tells the story of Yona, a worker at a travel agency called Jungle that specializes in crazy trips to places where a natural disaster has occurred (the more calamitous and deadly, the better). After a small incident with her boss, the company sends her to Mui, an isolated and supposedly paradise island in Southeast Asia, to turn it into an interesting and, above all, profitable destination.
‘The Tourist’ by Yun Ko-eun
From an impressive cynicism and subtlety, this eco-thriller feminist and dystopian has no mercy with its characters or the reader. The tourist It is a novel-scalpel, an artifact so harmless that it seems impossible for it to cut so deep, and that puts on the table a new voice that is disturbing, sober, twistedly funny, provocative, disconcerting, compact and amoral. In short, a very direct work, which seeks the shock of the reader. Ideal for those who do not have any trips planned soon: the relief will be immense.
«Fresh and sharp, […] “witty and absurd, a story full of suspense and even terror that aims to clarify the way in which climate change is inextricably linked to the pressures of global capitalism,” wrote Saba Ahmed (Guardian) about the novel. «An extravagant, intelligent and unpredictable story that walks the line between comedy and terror. […] The tourist presents contemporary life as a theater of the absurd,” said Esther Kim (The White Review). There is no doubt that The tourist It is another essential title to understand current South Korean literature, the one echoed by our colleague Jorge Coscarón following the K-Lit phenomenon.
