Borrowing the title of René Magritte’s series of paintings, Empire of Light, Bichui jeguk is about a North Korean spy stationed in South Korea and the day he is summoned back to North Korea.
[1] In Bichui jeguk, one man must erase himself, the last twenty years of his life, and all traces that he ever existed, and he must do it all within a single day.
But ten years later when the agent in charge of Gi-yeong's mission in the South falls from power, the orders being sent to him cease.
And Gi-yeong—a former North Korean spy who infiltrated student movements but now leads a monotonous life as a fully assimilated citizen in a capitalist society—makes this contrast even more palpable for the reader.
And the way in which Gi-yeong's life is completely turned upside down by a single email signifies just how blind humans are to a wholly unpredictable future.
[5] Indeed, the harder Gi-yeong tries to understand the ordeal he finds himself in, the only thing that he learns is that he knows nothing, showing that humans are always at the whim of destiny, not matter how hard they struggle against it.
[6] Kim Young-ha has stated that “Strictly speaking, Bichui jeguk isn’t trying to say anything,” and that, “At the deepest level, Bichui jeguk is actually trying to challenge the concept of ‘trying to say something.’”[7] Indeed, this process of destroying the belief that we can control our lives is conveyed not just through the novel’s content, but through its form, as well.
At the same time, employing elements such as black humor, cynicism, and a self-aware parody of a movie chase scene, Kim Young-ha retains his unique style in this work.
In this way, Bichui jeguk has been lauded as a piece that signals a “post-ideological era.”[14] Despite these accolades, some have criticized that Kim Young-ha's deterministic worldview led to overly cynical and negative depictions of South Korea's activist groups and their decline.
And Gaspard Yukievich designed the grayscale costumes, expressing the image of humans that become ever more blurry as they exist in a large world.
[19] <<빛의 제국>>, 문학동네, 2006 / IM REICH DER LICHTER, Heyne, 2008.
[21] <<빛의 제국>>, 문학동네, 2006 / L'impero delle luci, METROPOLI d'Asia, 2013.