Strength from Sorrow

This volume contains five stories - "Mountain Flowers." "The Road to Cheonma Tomb," "An Opportunist," "The Hidden Flower," and "Strength from Sorrow." The title story features a group of teachers who struggle to uphold their conscience as educators in an era of authoritarian politics. In "The Road to Cheonma Tomb," the protagonist searches for a means to come to terms with unforgotten memories of a past trauma and the sense of powerlessness that dominates his present life. "An Opportunist" explores problems inherent to organization of labor and underscores the importance of self-scrutiny in a society driven by the power of rhetoric. "The Hidden Flower" is a sort of meta-fiction. The narrator is a writer who has been suffering from a prolonged spell of non-productivity. On a trip to a remote temple, she rediscovers the meaning of the writer's craft in a changing world.