[4] Although Cheon Unyeong has only produced two volumes of short stories, she is considered a groundbreaking Korean author, and her works have been the subject of much analysis and critical acclaim.
"Breath" features an old woman who works at a butcher's shop and relishes every part of the cows she dresses out for sale.
She eats pieces of raw cow brain as a delicacy; she believes liver is a cure for dizziness and entrails, for indigestion.
Female aggression embodied in the act of tattooing is contrasted against emasculated manhood symbolized by a monk whose murder provides the mystery that drives the narrative forward.
In "Your Ocean," violent images of writhing eels being skinned alive accentuate the protagonist's feeling of abandonment due to his father's absence.