Banned Book Club, by Kim Hyun-sook and Ryan Estrada

 Illustrated by Hyung Ju-ko

Iron Circus Comics (2020)

(Graphic Novel)

Kim Hyun-sook and Ryan Estrada are a husband and wife team who live in Changwon, South Korea. Like the main character in her graphic novel, Kim was a member of a banned book club in the 1980s in South Korea while studying English Language and Literature. The novel starts with a conflict arising from Hyun-sook’s decision to attend a local university. Her parents, who are running an American-style steak restaurant are divided. Her mother wants her to be happy with her high school education and work full time in the restaurant, while her father wants his daughter to pursue her dreams. She ends up attending university, which is beset by massive political protests and infested with undercover secret police and student and faculty moles. Pursuing her interest in literature, she winds up attending a banned book club where students read banned literary classics as well as books by Marx, Kim Il-sung, Chomsky, Guevara, Friedan, and the poet Kim Ji-Ha, author of Cry of the People and Other Poems. They also gather to watch foreign films and foreign news broadcasts. Having been indoctrinated in high school with the government’s claim that the Gwangju uprising was caused by North Korean spies, Hyun-sook’s classmates present her with evidence of the true story of the student democracy movement and the brutal methods President Chun used to quell the protests. The text is in English, though there is signage, posters, etcetera that feature untranslated Korean. We see students preparing Molotov cocktails, rioting, police brutality, and torture. Despite all that, the story ends with a cheerful, upbeat reunion twenty years later.  Some of the group’s members have moved into business, but others continue to see a need for active political protest. One couple even runs a “Banned Bookstore.”  As in many contemporary Korean films, young Koreans are portrayed as committed warriors for social justice. Political activism is not extremist: it is expected. Parts of Banned Book Club are raw and frightening, but the conclusion perhaps downplays the extraordinary risks that citizens take when they protest against the state. For example, one character at the reunion is praised for his “ripped” physique; he casually explains that his muscles are a benefit of the ten years he spent in prison for anti-government conspiracy.