Park Gyeong-ri’s Toji published as 17-book cartoon collection

Park Gyeong-ri’s Toji published as 17-book cartoon collection. July. 03, 2015 07:26. sohn@donga.com.

Toji (The Land), a novel of Park Gyeong-ri (1926~2008), was published as cartoon collection.

“Based on the complete works of Toji whose errors were corrected in 2012, cartoonist Oh Se-yeong finished seven books and Park Myeong-un ten books which were published as “cartoon collection of Toji,” Maroniebooks announced on Thursday. The collection took eight years to be finalized after Oh Se-yeong finished his share and 13 years if the work period of the two artists is combined together. Visiting professor Jo Yun-ah of Catholic University who is a researcher of Toji adapted the book 8-17 for the cartoon. “We have made every effort to maintain the original impression of the novel by making use native folk languages as much as possible,” explained the publisher.

Starting the novel in 1969, Park completed 16 books of five volumes of Toji in September 1994. Depicting the social turbulence at the end of the Joseon Dynasty and Japanese Imperialism from 1897 to 1945, Toji describes lives of many characters who build up love and hate relationship while they travel back and forth from Pyeongsa-ri, Akyang-myeon, Hadong-gun in South Gyeongsang Province to Seoul, Gando, Russia and Japan.