Feb 6, 2021
Longlisted for the 2017 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, South Korean author Jung-myung Lee’s novel, “The Investigation” (translated by Chi-young Kim), is said to be inspired by a true story, which is perhaps stretching things a bit far. In 1943, real-life Korean poet Dong-ju Yun was studying in Kyoto when he was arrested for “anti-Japanese activity” and sent to a prison in Fukuoka, where he died at age 27. Novelists love a healthy amount of uncertainty into which they can insert themselves and build a plot, and Yun’s death provides Lee with plenty of room for speculation. Set in Fukuoka Prison in 1944, this claustrophobic Dostoevskian novel is both a gripping murder mystery and a moving evocation of the power literature has to provide light in the darkest of places.