To the Warm Horizon

By Choi Jin-young

Translated by Soje

(2017, translated 2021)

Honford Starr

(Dystopian Novel)

Is it fortuitous or a disaster that Choi creates an end-of-the-world scenario precipitated by a pandemic that kills hundreds of millions and destabilizes all governments in all countries? Choi takes us into the world of several sets of Koreans who fled the nation in the early days of the outbreak, seeking, it seems any place where they were unlikely to encounter large masses of survivors who would be competing for shrinking resources. They are currently making their way east across the northernmost regions of Russia. Some are driving vehicles, and others are on foot. Danger is everywhere: rape, murder, and torture are the stuff of daily life. Worse, persistent rumors that eating the organs of children can cure the afflicted make children high-priority targets for human traffickers. 

The immediacy of the catastrophe allows the survivors to reflect on their lives before the collapse of society, with some admitting that the disaster has caused them to question their way of living and commit to something greater than themselves. Choi allows a handful of representative Korean voices to tell their story. The author also makes it clear that she wanted to write about a lesbian couple, but that she wanted the relationship to exist outside of Korea. According to Choi, if she created a fictional lesbian couple in contemporary Korea, they would suffer immensely and their story would be an inevitable tragedy. It is fascinating that Choi imagines a complete up-ending of all laws and social institutions as a prerequisite for same-sex love to emerge flourish, and survive. To the Warm Horizon is a difficult read. It is sometimes challenging to keep straight the voices of the different narrators or to differentiate their personalities or points of view. The content is brutally violent and the future of the characters is bleaker than bleak. Choi ends the novel with the walls closing in on the Korean survivors. Then she surprises with an epilogue that sketches out where the main characters are today–without explaining how the pandemic ended or how society was restored.

“Me at work, me in front of the kids, me talking to Dan, and me alone were all repulsively dissimilar. This person called me felt like a scattered puzzle. I couldn’t remember my own image as the puzzle pieces floated around. It felt like something was ever so slightly askew and that thing would eventually end up dislocating everything. Me from myself. Me from Dan. Me from my children.” (57)