Playing with Fire (Cornell East Asia, No. 85) (Cornell East Asia Series Vol. 85)

In this work, the smoldering hatred of the Korean War period resurfaces decades later in the form of a ruthless quest for justice. The main character, a successful Seoul businessman, has a secret past: unknown to his wife and son, he once led another life under another name as a ruthless communist partisan. After a lifelong search, the son of one of his wartime victims discovers his true identity, then proceeds calmly and deliberately to exact a terrible revenge.

Playing With Fire was awarded the prestigious Korean National Literature Prize upon its publication in 1982. Cho Chong-Rae's novella "Land of Exile" appeared in English translation in 1992. Cho subsequently published the immensely popular ten-volume historical novel The Taebaek Mountains (Taebaek Sanmaek), which sold millions in Korea in the late 1980s and was successfully adapted into a film. In the 1990s Cho continued his success with Arirang, another ten-volume roman fleuve set in the period of Japan's occupation of Korea.