‘Steam’ is a series of prose fiction pieces I wrote while living in Gangnam, Seoul, in 2009, where I was undertaking my second Asialink residency.
‘Steam’ is set in a fictional future Korea, and features a young male Korean by the name of Duck-young Moon. The story describes his search for the truth about his grandfather’s disappearance during the Korean War.
Duck young’s quest also features a cast of mostly Korean characters, including Duck-young’s brother, Hyun woo, the elusive Doctor Kang and his assistant, Gilmo.
‘Steam’ is a story which may one day become a novel, but started out as a sequel to ‘Smoke’, a much shorter story about an Australian woman living in Melbourne.
The benefit of the Asialink residency in terms of the writing of ‘Steam’ cannot be over-stated: the characters, places, historical events, incidents and dialogue of the story are all a result of my being able to spend three months living in the place I was describing.
As was the case with ‘Smoke’, the 31 prose pieces that form ‘Steam’ were posted consecutively to this website, without further revision.
While the full text of ‘Smoke’ remains online, I’ve decided to take down ‘Steam’ from this site for the time being, as the text requires a great deal of revision.
For now, you can read what I posted when I finished writing the first draft.
