"Originally published in Korean as Madang kip'up chin by Munhak kwa Chisongsa, Seoul, 1998"--Title page verso.

In 1942 Kim Won-il was born in Chinyong, South Kyongsang Province. He published his first collection of stories, Soul of Darkness, in 1973 and it won the Hyundai Munhak Literary Prize in 1974. His first full-length novel, Twilight, was published in 1978. A novelist with more than two dozen novels to his credit, Kim's primary subject is the tragic circumstances surrounding the division of Korea.